It’s been a few months, so I’m not sure if this report is relevant (and memory is getting fuzzy).
My wife and I began a 2-½ month trip with a month in France partly due to a killer 20k mile Air France frequent flyer flight from Seattle to Paris. Another reason we began here is I consider France a tie with Italy as my favorite country in Europe. Aside from a handful of trips over the years, I visited France often while living in Stuttgart one hour east of the border.
Since France is well-covered by trip reports, I will only touch on a few things I feel noteworthy - mostly screw-ups on my part from a lack of planning (we are almost full-time travelers so I don’t plan like I used to). Also, having been to France so many times, I think I was over confident in my travel knowledge which I found to be outdated. The newest edition of the RS France guidebook was due to come out a few days after our trip ended so I grudgingly bought the almost year old version.
Departure from the US...
On the drive to the Seattle airport we found out our Air France flight was canceled and we were re-booked on Delta seven hours later. The Air France website/app is excellent as far as flight delay/cancellation compensation with a simple form to complete (in a few weeks received a $600 payment). Because I had not purchased passes or made museum reservations for Paris, and original arrival was early am before hotel check-in, the delayed arrival was a non-issue.
Paris
I have a love-hate relationship with Paris - amazing museums and sights, but overly congested and exhausting to visit. Since my wife had never been, I wanted to hit the highlights with her. A few random lessons learned/tips;
As I looked into site visits I realized reservations are now required in most places. My initial plan was to skip the museum pass since web feedback seemed to indicate fewer passholder slots exist. That was the case for Versailles on our date of choice, so I paid for a visit w/out museum pass. Later, checking another site, it was the opposite - no slots to buy, but pass holder slots available. Frustratingly, I bought the museum pass which meant I ate the Versaille visit cost previously purchased ( I could have changed visit date and used the pass). That was all a bit of a mess likely avoidable with better advance planning.
We also bought a Passions Monument annual pass to complement the museum pass. We used it a few days before validating the museum pass giving us flexibility for some of the overlapping sites. We also used it later in the trip as it was not limited to a few days like the museum pass.
After a late afternoon Concierge visit, we wandered over to Sainte-Chapelle and were happy to gain entrance shortly before closing without a reservation (used the Monuments Pass). That was great as our reserved slot a few days later was undesirable.
The Versaille garden add-on is not worth doing as far as I am concerned. I’ve visited the palace a handful of times and seem to forget this fact every time I go.