What has been your experience with United Airlines at CDG recently? Are they enforcing one item to carry-on or are they allowing one item and purse? I can manage with one item if they require it, but it will help with my packing if I know the situation up front. I'll be departing from Terminal 1. Thanks.

We returned from Paris last week. You are allowed 2 carry-ons, and one of them may be a purse or briefcase. My carry-ons were my purse (modest size) and our camera bag. My husband's carry-ons were a small piece of luggage for our toiletries (toothbrushes, vitamins, etc.) and a small backpack we carried around Paris during the day (water bottles, maps, Fodor's 2007 Paris book, etc.)

The Fodor's 2007 Paris book and this message board were invaluable to helping us plan our trip. I hadn't been to Europe in 10 years, and my husband's recent trips were all for business. We celebrated our anniversary, and it was our first trip on our own since our children were born. We were quite lucky with the weather. It was sunny and very warm the entire week. Temps were in the upper 70s and lower 80s. It snowed the day we left Chicago, so we enjoyed the warmth in Paris. I didn't get to wear any of the cute little trench coats or evening sweaters I purchased, but I'm not complaining. Our trip was fabulous. The people were very kind, the restaurants were nice, and we really enjoyed our trip.

My research, however, was not thorough enough. We didn't realize that the airline catering service in Paris was on strike. This meant that NO hot food was available on the flight outbound (to CDG) or inbound (back to ORD). Thankfully, my husband and I had a hot meal at O'Hare because our flight was delayed 3 hrs due to the snow storm. Unfortunately UAL didn't inform passengers about the cold food situation until after we had started boarding. I felt badly for those who were traveling with young children, because it was too late to grab something hot at the airport. With a 3-hr delay, they could have informed us at least 30 minutes prior to boarding. We were told we only had cold food because it takes up less space than hot meals, and the airline had to pack enough food for the trip to CDG and the journey back to ORD. By the way, I got a nasty case of food poisoning from something I ate on the return flight. It's been a week, and I'm just starting to recover now. My husband and I had eaten the exact same things for the last 36 hrs of our vacation, but I ate one different item on the return flight and I became very ill shortly after our plane landed. This went on for several days and I wasn't getting better. I needed a few IVs at the hospital, and the doctors said it was a pretty vile case of food poisoning, so be careful what you eat on the plane. Perhaps my food sat unrefrigerated for a period of time or there was some cross-contamination. Whatever it was, it was awful. I try not to complain because our trip was glorious and I suppose there are worse things than getting sick after you've returned home.

I still need to write my trip report, and I hope to get around to that soon.

That's a novel excuse they used for the food service issue. I don't buy it. The food trays are the SAME size. The difference is the work the FA's put in. Plus this "strike" seems to have been going on for a while with no publicity. Perhaps the real issue is that UAL has some dispute with thier catering and are refusing to pay the bills????

You should report your case of food poisoning. It may reflect a more general unhygienic condition in the food preparation.

You say that you took water bottles with you. So there are no limits on liquids from CDG?

I work in public health, and you definitely should report that food poisoning since you have it diagnosed by a physician and were even in a hospital. It could reflect a lot of things, from poor food handling to food source.

Cold food can take up less room than hot, because they don't usually put it on the same tray. Cold food is often a sandwich and chips or maybe apple in a small box, some cookies.

I don't really understand why a catering company in Paris being on strike (which I don't find impossible to believe) means they couldn't have hot food on the plane from the US to Paris. That doesn't make any sense at all, as in the US, it would be located at the US airport. It is possible it wasn't really a strike in the US, but some contracting dispute, even with their own employees, or possibly the caterer. It is true hot food is more work, of course, and they have to store those trays and things, whereas the cold food in boxes just produces trash. A lot of airlines, including United, have just been cutting down on food to save money, though. United doesn't use a French company in the US, they use Gate Gourmet, I believe, the same company that Amtrak uses.

They also use Gate Gourmet at CDG.

Well, let's say they used it in the past. LSG-Gate Gourmet France went into liquidation this week. It belonged to Lufthansa and went down the tubes after being abandoned by Air Canada, Emirates and Air India.

853 employees are out of a job.

You say you only ate one thing different from your husband and implied that that 'thing" may have been the source of your food poisoning.

However, the source very well could have been a contaminated utensil so I agree with the others that you should definitely report this to include reporting it to United...in writing.

I don't wish to put a damper on anyone's vacation, but I'll respond as best I can.

We weren't given food trays. Instead we were handed little sandwiches wrapped in plastic wrap, as well as tiny bags of pretzels.

Didn't mean to imply we carried water bottles on the flight. We didn't. We carried water bottles in our backpack during our daytime excursions around Paris (Louvre, Versailles, etc). Considering the warm temperatures, the water was needed.

The local health dept. called me on Monday. It seems they got my test results before I did. They had all kinds of questions about where I had been and what I had eaten. I gave them the airline and flight number. I tried reporting it (by phone) to the airline, but I was bounced around from person to person and repeatedly placed on lengthy holds. My husband is going to send them a letter.

The no hot food story sounded rather flimsy to us, too. I should have photographed the dreadful sandwich that they gave us on the outbound flight. I didn't eat that one. It was rock-hard, frozen bread (probably out all day on the truck, it was cold and snowy in Chicago the day we departed). It had the thinnest layer of ham with cheese stuck to it. When I couldn't scrape the cheese off the pathetic excuse for a sandwich, I decided not to eat it.

On the flight back home, my husband had the roast beef sandwich, and I chose something else (which seems to be the culprit in my illness). We were later given turkey sandwiches on plain white bread with the absolute thinnest sliver of turkey I've ever seen. I didn't know it was possible to slice meat that thinly. We were celebrating our anniversary, but we felt sorry for anyone who was on their honeymoon. We used miles for the flight and flew economy plus. We almost upgraded to business class, but I'm so glad we didn't. To have paid for business class or 1st class tickets and still have had no hot food would have been been a real shame. I'm sure business class and 1st class had more cold options than the rest of us, but cold food is still cold food.

Are all the airlines flying into CDG experiencing this, or is it just United? How has this been kept so quiet? I have some older relatives heading to Paris in June, and they are wondering when this will be resolved. They are flying a different airline, so I would like to know whether anyone flying Delta, American, etc. has also experienced this. Many thanks.

I agree with the food poisoning thing -- a lot of people say they have food poisoning who don't, but this physician seemed to agree with it.

I thought Gate Gourmet was UK-owned, actually, but in any case, I don't see what a strike in Paris at Gate Gourmet there would have to do with getting food on board in Chicago. I know French workers may go on strike in sympathy so some allied company or whatever, but I wouldn't think US employees would go on strike (or could, don't know whether they have a union) if a Parisian subsidiary of the same company were on strike.

Who knows, American airline employees go on strike a lot, also. I don't like United food anyway, hot or cold, actually.

There was a strike by airport employees at CDG when we departed Paris on April 21. Our flight also reported some issues with restocking of the plane's food supply. We had one hot meal but no 'second serving' as they called it. Seemed to ok with water and beverages supply. We saw a group in uniforms picketing inside the terminal, and the pilot also made an announcement so it is true about the strike.

Christina, from what I understood when reading the above, the reason that there was no hot food on the flight out was because they preferred to stuff the galley with enough food for the return flight -- so no trays of anything, just packages of crappy sandwiches both ways. Sounds like a pathetic solution to me. When my airline's catering company went on strike in Paris many years ago, we purchased the services of a restaurant in the CDG area, which closed down to work exclusively for us and provided excellent meals for 2 weeks.

Kerouac: You have hit upon what baffled my husband and me. If the airline catering service in Paris is on strike, then so be it. But why didn't the airline secure meals from another vendor? Since this didn't happen, we assumed that this was either illegal or a violation of their contract. The pilot and flight attendants implied that this has been an issue for several weeks, so one would expect the airline to have formulated "Plan B" by now. My goodness, it's Paris after all. A few fresh croissants/pastries, deli meats, assorted cheeses and fruits would have been preferable over stale, plastic-wrapped sandwiches from a Chicago sandwich vending machine.

If you end up with only cold food, beware of angry passengers on the flight to CDG. There were a few vocal passengers who were upset that the airline wouldn't even provide complimentary wine with our cold, stale "dinner" sandwich and pretzels. I could sympathize with their request, but giving alcohol to upset passengers with empty stomachs probably would not have been a good move.

kerouac... yes, of course, you are better at connecting the dots than I was. I do understand now, that actually does make sense, within the context. I guess it is good to be warned in advance in case you want to bring something on-board. I like Air France's hot food but don't like their cold food at all, they don't do that very well (no airline really does because they are too cheap -- there are plenty of good sandwiches you could be given, but they give you bad ones).

So what did you choose that might have caused it?

Luvtotravel, we flew back from CDG on United on Sunday, April 15, and my wife was allowed to carry on her purse plus a bag stuffed with most of our Paris souveniers (hey, it was our first trip).

Family4, we also heard about the strike...the attendant at the check-in counter next to us told some passengers who had put in a special meal request that they were not able to accomodate their request. They did, in fact, serve hot meals on our flight, which we didn't eat. I got sick from the food on a flight to San Francisco 10 years ago and I have never eaten airline food since. We always grab a sandwich or something that travels well before the flight. The ham sandwiches from the cafe at CDG's United gates were pretty good...not as good as the ones we got from the boulangeries in Paris, of course! And, as you mentioned, we were not allowed to take even the water we purchased after going through security onto the plane. The guy at the cafe wouldn't even give us the cap to the bottle!

I will say, I'm glad we left for the airport four hours before our flight...by the time we got checked in and through security (a fairly short line that took us 1 hour and 15 minutes!), we only had about 30 minutes until boarding! They do seem to be thorough, though, and that made me feel pretty good.

Safe travels...

I'm sorry to hear that you took ill. May I ask what it was that made you sick?

I always take some food with me on the flight as I take tranquilizers that knock me out for awhile and I'm usually asleep when they bring the food around. I take a plastic bag of dried apricots, raisins and cashews. I nibble on the mixture throughout the flight. I know I can bring a bottle of water purchased at the airport onto the plane in Los Angeles. I hope they will let me do the same in Paris. I drink a lot of water and want bottled water only.

DaveBrad -- I guess you answered my question about the water. Bummer.

Luvtotravel, if it makes you feel any better, I did see the flight attendants on the plane pouring bottled water for passengers. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news...

Creativity will get you someplace sometimes. I have "smuggled" on LOTS of water. A few suggestions

1. I often have an empty water bottle in my bag, it's amazing how often it does not get noticed.

2. The "top" trick. If I am flying into and out of an airport with the top issue I still by the water. I then take the empty bottle to the FA as SOON as I board and ask him/her to fill it up about half way. That way it usually fits in my seat pocket just fine. If the FA gives me a hard time I point out that we can either do this or I will just ring the call button every 15 mintuse for EIGHT HOURS! One of them once dared me to, I did until she left the stupid large bottle of water LOL!
I don't feel guilty harassing them as THEY don't have to play by the same STUPID rules. Somehow FAs are deemed "safe" but those of us who PAY thier salaries are a danger.....

3. See if the bottles the FAs have are the same brand/type. Tops are interchangable.

4. Coat pockets. In Costa Rica this winter TONS of us were sticking our water bottles in our coat pockets. The "security goons" checked our bags. (Heck in lots of cases you could even SEE the water bottles sticking out of someone's coat pocket LOL!)