Thanks very much to Ashley and Andrew for the very helpful updates and tips!
We’ve just come back from our trip and I thought I’d share some details as it can be hard to understand from the news reports what it is like as a tourist in Paris during the strike:
Taxi to/from airport: We arrived to CDG on Sat morning at 9AM. No queue for passport or taxi. Taxi to lodgings in 4er took about 1hr. For the return we booked a van w/ the G7 app - our experience was very good. The driver was on time and made it in 1hr5min through heavy traffic.
Getting around Paris:
- The metro: We used the automated lines 1 and 14 a few times. They are very frequent. We had good experiences during off peak times - not overly crowded. On some days tickets were required; other days the turnstiles were left open. WARNING: we took line 1 once at peak time ~6PM and experienced pickpocketing. It was a mad crush of people on the platform and I thought I felt a hand moving through my reusable shopping bag. It only had some scarves we had taken off and bread. I turned and saw a group of teenage girls around us. When the already packed train arrived we got on as the crowd surged forward and everyone pushed their way in. The packing inside was like sardines. This is when I noticed a member of our group had her purse unzipped! She was the only one in our group carrying a purse and I exclaimed quite loudly to her across the carriage “why is your purse open?!” She was shocked and said it was definitely zipped before. She immediately closed the bag and I noticed the same girl who was next to me on the platform was next to her. Strangely, as we disembarked the girl handed us a small nylon change purse that we had not even known was missing - saying it had fallen out of the purse and she had seen it on the floor. It had 20 USD, a credit card, a few bandaids, and a drivers license. I am not sure why it was returned but thought it was more likely that she had taken it and found it worthless? We were packed so tightly that it was unlikely anyone could see the floor! We had known this was a possibility and the rest of us didn’t carry any purses and we all had our phones in zipped pockets inside our coats.
- After the pickpocketing experience, we chose to either walk or take taxis during the peak commute times. We found taxis easily available at the taxi stands and had excellent drivers. Instead of running up the meter sitting in gridlock traffic they were efficient in weaving through traffic and getting us across town In about the same or less time than estimated by gps. Generally the taxi rides were 25-35min and cost 15-20 euros and walking only would’ve been 15-25min longer but we took taxis if we had shopping bags.
Impact of the strike on activities:
- We had initially planned to spend one day either at Chateau Chantilly or Versailles but never could drum up the enthusiasm to deal w/ the longer/more complicated transits to get there and back.
- We never had to wait in any queues for museums or attractions and did not purchase tickets ahead of time.
- We had some very nice meals at restaurants that we were able to get into easily with either last minute reservations or off waitlists from cancellations. The staff we spoke to said that there was definitely less patrons than normal.
- On the 17th, a day with planned protest/march near our lodging we avoided the route but otherwise did not notice anything.
In general we felt as tourists our trip was not severely impacted. We walked a lot more and found charming cafes or streets with holiday lights that we would’ve otherwise missed by taking the metro. We were lucky that we only had one morning of short light rain and the temperatures were fairly warm making the walks pleasant. We felt most sorry for the Parisians who had long work days followed by challenging commutes. We tried to tip well where possible as we were grateful for the good service we experienced from the drivers and waitstaff.