Carte Navigo and Paris Visite

[holger]

As far as I can tell Carte Navigo is for transportation which we would want for our two weeks. Paris Visite is for visiting some museums and has two of the five we are planning for this trip. What seems unclear is whether once you have picked a date, you have six days to make your visits. That would not work for us as I would want to spread my museum visits over the two weeks. Would it be wiser to just skip the Paris Visite and get our museum tickets some other way? Here we get senior citizen discounts but am not sure about Paris. Also, I am not sure I want to lock into feeling I have to go to a museum on a particular day.

Thanks.

[denise]

:)It all depends which day you are arriving, how you are travelling from the airport and which attractions you wish to visit.
Also how much metro/ bus travelling you do in a day.

In winter I can easily use ten carnets n a day, but in summer I tend to walk more.

For example....
In my case I will arrive on Saturday morning...too late to renew my navigo decouverte, carte orange pass. So I would have to buy carnets of 10 tickets at 11.40 each. I am travelling by RER to and from CDG which would cost 16 80 eoros. for tickets.

If I buy a 5 day Paris Visite zones 1-6 it will cost me 48.40e which will cover the cost of the tickets to and from CDG plus 31.60euros for 4 days unlimited travel, as I leave Tuesday evening. That is a pretty good deal, I spent more than that on carnets on a similar trip December and I would also have the discounts on the tourist attractions.

The advantage is that you can take unused carnets home and use them on your next trip!

here is a link with information

parisbytrain.com/paris-visite-pass-card/

It may be worth your while to get a Paris Visite pass for one week and the navigo decouverte and carte orange for the second week.

The Navigo decouverte costs 5euros but will last you 10 years and the carte orange zones 1-3 ( most central places are in these zones) will cost 16.80 euros to load onto the navigo decouvert.

Denise
love from England

[Jody]

"The disadvantage is that you can't take unused carnets home and use them on your next trip!"

Not true, I have some 2 yeae old tickets from a carnet and I use them all the time., Tickets from a carnet do not expire

[denise]

:)Sorry I've just modified that to CAN take carnets home

[Penny]

Please correct if I am incorrect regarding start date.

Re: museums, you can buy several 2 day museum passes.

You put the start date on it and then it is good for two days.

as I mentioned in a long ago post I extended the second day of my pass by using for Arc, since it is open much later than museums.

Official Museum Website.

www.parismuseumpass.com/en/pass_presentation.php

[holger]

I thought that Carte Orange no longer existed and was replaced by Carte Navigo. That is what web site states.

Does Paris Visite cover transit as well as Museums? We may not know till each morning what we plan to do so will probably just go to each museum individually. Their web site was harder to locate but will try to get to it tomorrow.

Thanks.

[GitteK]

holger - the old CO does not exist anymore. It's either the 10 tickets carnet or the new Navigo Découverte (only I never found out, if you can buy it without having a creditcard with a chip ?)

Yes, ParisVisite is a combined metro/bus (you choose how many zones you want. Zones 1/2 are Paris intramuros, as you may know) anda museum card - but not for all museums. Not really that many, it seems. Look here ??. It only lasts for so many days as you have bought, which IMO is a nasty stressfactor. Never bought it myself - much more casual just to buy your museum tickets, when you need them.

I DO recommend pre-buying museum tickets e.g. the day before at FNAC on Champs Elysées (e.g. for Musée d'Orsay, Louvre or Orangerie, which ParisVisite wouldn't cover anyway ??) - the Billeterie is in the basement. It's on the same side as Maison Danoise. You pay a few euros extra, but you get to skip the lines.

Hmmmmm.......... I guess the museum buffs in this forum would have given you a more useful answer

[PariS]

Yes, a Navigo Découverte can be purchased without a chip in your credit card. We bought them this past October from a real live person at a ticket window and I paid cash. One of my friends may have used a credit card, I'm not sure, but the problem with no chip seems to only be with ticket machines.

What museums are you planning to visit, Holger? And what month? It sounds to me as if it might be best to just purchase the tickets individually when you go, unless you're going to visit some of the larger museums/exhibits at a busy time. We had museum passes this last trip, but before that we always purchased our tickets at the venue upon arrival and have never had to wait in much of a line (Oct-Dec).

[Shoesy]

I'm all excited about purchasing one of those N.D. thingies. Since we're arriving on a Monday, the days will work out well for us. I tried to calculate if it's worthwhile economically because we plan to walk a lot, and besides, we're not exactly frequent visitors to Paris so the re-usable card may not be re-usable for us. However, I decided "to heck with the calculations" because no matter what, we'd have our cute little cards to take home as souvenirs. ;D

[denise]

parisbytrain.com/paris-train-metro-week-pass-navigo-decouverte/

parisbytrain.com/carte-orange-navigo-decouverte-prices/

There is a lot of confusion about the navigo decouverte/carte orange.

The navigo decouvert is a plastic card with a chip and a paper card ,both inside a clear plastic wallet. It costs 5 euros and you need a postage stamp sized photo that you stick on the paprer card.. A computer photo will do. It lasts 10 years.

ONTO THAT you load electronically the carte orange for whichever zones you wish. You can do this by just placing it onto the large purple machines in the metro and following the instructions. I have only ever done it this way but I am sure that you can also do it with cash at the kiosk, as this is the way I first obtained it.

I also bought my navigo decouverte with cash from the man at the kiosk in the Ecole militaire metro. I have topped up the carte orange with plastic chip card since.

I renewed my CO, for 16.80e, on Monday when I was staying till Thursday because of the convenience. I can just hop on any bus going my way and ride a couple of stops, to save my legs

The disadvantage is that they are only valid Monday to Sunday, and you cannot renew the carte orange after Wednesday for the same week so if you arrive Thursday onward you will have to buy a ND and/or CO for the following week and use carnets or a Paris Visite pass till the next Monday.

I love my navigo decouverte. You just pass it over the reader on the metro gate or bus entrance and it dings. So simple and easy and convenient.

My next trip will be Saturday to Tuesday so It won't be ecoomical to use my ND and I miss it. ???I think they studied the psycholoy of the thing when they invented it. it is like my little friend. ;D ;D



Hope this makes sense.

[mez]

Hopefully the next item the public transport authorities tackle is the current issue of the weekly CO being valid Mon-Sun only.

I did not plan my 08 Paris trip well enough to coincide with buying a CO, so my ND card that I bought during my 07 trip had to stay at home.

[Jody]

They need to add a pay as you go option like they have on the London Oyster card. Or at least have a 7 day travelcard option goood from the day of purchase.

[holger]

We arrive on a Monday and leave two weeks later. So Navigo should work for us. Will try to get them at either Metros Cadet or Poissoinaire (sp) as they are close to apartment.

Two of the four to five museums are on Paris Viste but I think we will simply pay individually for the museums so we can simply decide the day before or day of visiting each.

I also want to be able to have the option of making up my mind at the last minute.

Thanks all.

[Laidback]

To further beat this Navigo/Carte Orange horse, let me add that many metro stations have 2 different machines for electronically loading your Carte Orange subscription onto your Navigo Decouverte; one will accept only credit cards and the other will accept cash. You also have the option of having it reloaded at many tabacs bearing the RATP sign; this allows us chipless Americans to pay by "dumb" credit cards. It is helpful to know the terms "mensuelle" for a monthly or "hebdomadaire" for a weekly subscription.

[mossie]

There is some confusion here, hope I don't add to it
Paris Visite gives unlimited travel over the zones chosen for the number of days chosen, starting from the day of first use. It also includes some discount tickets to certain attractions, which you may, or may not, find useful.

The Carte Orange was intended for resident commuters, so it runs from Mondays only, visitors were expected to buy the more expensive Paris Visite.

[Happygoin]

I'm glad you posted the correct terminology, LB.

In thinking about it, I'd have given my "thingie" (as Shoesy put it) to the station man/woman and tried the "pour une semaine, s'il vous plait" approach and hoped for the best. I wonder if it would have worked

[gertie]

There IS a card which combines La Carte Musées et Monuments (the pass that lets you into museums and monuments on the list www.parismuseumpass.com/en/musees_liste_nom.php) and the Paris Viste (the pass that lets you ride metro, RER, and bus, either in zones 1-3 - Paris proper or in zones 1-6 - all of Île-de-France) and it is called Paris Pass. You can get it www.parispass.com/ SORT OF. It comes with a free guidebook and discounts at certain restaurants. A six day pass is now 159E. It covers access to Paris Metro, RER, Buses, Trams, SNCF Overland Suburban Trains, and the Montmartre Funicular, even Bateaux Parisiens River Cruise. The Paris Pass is only good for zones 1-3, and it has it's own list of places you get in free using it www.parispass.com/attractionsFullList.asp the odd thing is I don't think the card would give you transport to Fountainbleu (someone correct me if I'm wrong please) yet after buying an RER ticket to get there, you could use it to get in free.