Which Pass is Best in Paris

I can vouch for the value of the Paris Museum Pass as it’s a good value if you have several of the museums in your plan. It does cover admission to Versailles Palace. You can start it on the day of your choosing and you save a lot of time by not using precious time standing in line to buy an admission ticket at each attraction. For transit, buying a carnet at €16.90 for 10 metro tickets takes care of that.

The Navigo pass is transportation only - no sites. It covers a set period, so it depends on your arrival day whether it makes sense.

We’ve used the Museum Pass and it worked great. Don’t over-schedule your time. The nice thing about the museum pass is you might stop in some place because it’s covered by the pass and “on the way”, whereas you might not have stopped otherwise.

A quick look at the Go City pass (I wasn’t familiar with it) leads me to believe it might require a more structured schedule - lots of guided tours that would require reservations and longer time commitments. Depends on if that suits your style. My family was done with the Louvre in about 90 minutes, so we prefer to go as we please.

Not trying to be nitpicking but what days of the week are your 7 days. The Navigo Decouverte Metro Pass is a good buy but only if you are there from a Monday to a Sunday which is how it runs. I usually wind up with the Navigo Easy which is a plastic credit card like thing that you load a book “carnet” of 10 tickets onto.

The Paris Pass is generally to thought to be worth the money as the pieces of it you will actually use can be bought separately for less money.

The Paris Museum Pass was a good deal but since the big museums have gone to timed entries in some instances you do better by booking with the museum and paying the entry fee. Do you have an idea of which museums you’d like to visit? The lines some guide books talk about have diminished with the advent of timed entry.

You have a wonderful amount of time in Paris!!

You can reserve your time slots for those museums requiring them ahead of time with the Paris Museum Pass which costs €52 for two days; €66 for four days; €78 for six days. With the Louvre, Versailles Palace and the Musee D’Orsay admission each running about €15 , the cost of the Pass is covered if you visit five or more museums.

Thank you so much to all who responded. The time you've given and sharing of your experiences are very much appreciated. This will be our first time to visit Paris and it's a bit overwhelming, but each of you has made it a little easier.

We will definitely enjoy ourselves - it is our covid-delayed trip!

We like the Paris Museum Pass and we think it's worth a little more than just the price of admission to the museums you're planning to visit.
First, it gives you the added convenience of not waiting in line to buy tickets. Second, as travel4fun said, it permits you to make free, spur of the moment visits to museums that are just "on the way" to somewhere you were going. And last, you can use the toilet facilities at any of those places without stopping to patronize a cafe. That was one of the benefits that Rick Steves used to mention in weighing whether or not to buy the pass. Maybe it's no longer considered proper to mention that, but it's part of why we get the Museum Pass.

I'm sure you'll have a good time in Paris, all the moreso because you're doing such thorough planning.

Bob. since most museums now require reserved tickets, the PMP offers no advantage -- PMP members usually have to get reservations and they wait in the same lines at those with tickets. Those lines before COVID were short but now with reservations everywhere, those lines are long. We waited about half an hour at the Orsay in April WITH tickets. Having a ticket or the PMP gives the same advantage.

Some Museums still allow the drop in entry with the PMP but many require reservations.

And you only get one admission per museum so the 'drop in to use the toilet' value is greatly diminished. Recent changes in the pass have made it much less valuable.

It is only worth getting if you will do a museum marathon and know that the entry costs added up would be more without the pass. We don't do museums that way; we like to vary our days, so we don't get it.

I agree with Janet. I used to get the pass just so I could drop in and use the toilet as well. In 2019 when they changed to one visit per museum that advantage is not there any more. They scan the bar code on your pass so they know if you've been in.

It does allow you to drop in to smaller museums you might not visit. I've done several I'd not normally have done but those are generally pretty inexpensive and may not require timed entries so easy enough to drop in on if you wish.

I will add that also in 2019 the pass went from 2/4/6 days to # of hours. 2 days = 48 hours, 4 = 96, 6 = 144 hours so there are opportunities to use it over more days. For instance, if you enter the first museum at Noon on day 1 of your "2-day" pass, then you can still enter a museum on day 3 at 11A before your time frame expires.

To each her own, janetrravels44. I was just trying to give Mei Ling additional information to consider. The way she travels is probably not just the same way you or I do.
Only the most popular museums with crowd issues have to rely upon crowd management procedures. And then not all museums have the same restrictions all the time. Currently for example, time-slot reservations are not compulsory at Musee d"Orsay for PMP holders. Nor at Cluny, Rodin and Arc de Triumph, just to name a few.
Smaller, less visited museums (the kind we'd be most likely to "pop in" or primarily visit with a bathroom break in mind) would find it counterproductive to put restrictions on entry. I've checked a few and they had timed slots available all day tomorrow. So, in essence, no barriers to "pop in" entry. We have used the facilities at many quieter, virtually empty sites because they were right there when we needed them. It wouldn't make sense to get on a long line if you had need of a toilet.
As for single entry, we've never attempted to stop at the same less-visited museum twice in one trip to Paris, so that doesn't seem like a problem either.
So I still maintain that the Paris Museum Pass has value beyond the simple exercise of comparing its cost to the total cost of museums on your target list. We'll use it again this time and have never indulged in museum marathon.

Thank you to everyone who replied. Each of you has contributed a lot of "food for thought." I've read each response and weighed all opinions. We'll mull over it a bit, make a decision and tell you what happened when we return.

Thank you'll so much! I had the same questions about passes and did not even know about the reserved time entry. How does a person reserve a time of entry? How do we know if a museum requires it or not?
Thank you!

What days of the week will you be in Paris?

The Navigo Découverte Pass can still be a money saver (vs buying a carnet, which are 10 individual tickets you have to hold on to and keep track of) even if you start using it on Tues or Wed depending on how much you’ll use the métro or busses.

Parisbytrain.com explains everything you need to know for public transportation in Paris.

This thread is worth reading:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/france/paris-metro-a3f9fed9-2606-4d5b-a9d5-531083d3a54a

@kfkconsulting
"Thank you'll so much! I had the same questions about passes and did not even know about the reserved time entry. How does a person reserve a time of entry? How do we know if a museum requires it or not?"

You have to check every museum's website.

I know that Orsay & Rodin do NOT require a timed ticket w the PMP but the Louvre, Versailles, St Chapelle and Conciergerie do.

www.ParisMuseumPass.fr. has the scoop on which museums require timed-entry reservations and which ones recommend a timed-entry reservation under “Time Slots.” The section also has links for making free reservations once you buy the Paris Museum Pass
online.

another option is to buy tix as you need them at FNAC stores (like a Borders).

rick seems to have cooled on passes over the past few years, the modern take seems to be you have to go to an awful lot of museums in a short period of time to make it work, and what kind of "vacation" is that?

I will be getting the Paris Museum Pass. I put it into my itinerary and it saved me about 64 euros! I'd say that is worth while.