modglila

When you purchase a Metro pass in Paris, or any other place, be sure to check the dates that are printed on the pass. I did not and my 5-day pass had only a four-day date span printed on them. One pass worked for five days, but the other did not. Some people at the Metro stations speak English and if they don't are nice and helpful. Other stations have workers that aren't so helpful. Of course, that's the station I was in when it wouldn't work. She would not listen to me at all when it was really obvious that there was a mistake. She flat out refused to fix the pass and I flat out refused to buy another ticket (it was my last day there and my patience were near the end). My daughter passed her pass back to me and it didn't work at first, but after about three minutes, her pass worked for me.

Another thing I didn't realize was that the ticket for getting to the airport would be so much. It was $10 and I was told that if my pass had covered all of the zones, the trip to the airport would have been covered. I don't remember how much more it was to cover all six zones, but I may have been better off purchasing that ticket.

One last thing, the metro pass looks just like any other Metro ticket and is really small. They gave me a sturdier pocket to store it in, but only after I mentioned that it was really flimsy. Don't store it near your room key or any other electronics. It can deactivate easily and that could be inconvenient at some stations.

Okay, so that wasn't the last thing. If you have an iPhone or iPod touch, the Metro app and the Paris 2 Go app are wonderful. I didn't carry any other maps with me. I put the sights I wanted to see into the Paris 2 Go app before I left home. That made it easy to find them quickly. I could look at the map on Paris 2 Go and find a metro station near where I wanted to go. Then, I could look the Metro station up on the Metro app and find which lines I needed. The two apps together were perfect!

kerouac

Thanks for providing this information -- some people will find it useful.

A six zone pass is usually only appropriate if you have to go to CDG or another distant destination more than once.

Christina

That's interesting, but I'm not clear on what kind of pass you had. The unlimited daily tickets (used to be called Mobilis, but I don't think they call them that anymore) are just for one day. And are automatically activitated the first time you use them. It is true they do not cover the airport, which some people may not know.

I suspect you bought the Paris Visite which is for 3 zones or 6 zones. Now I have never bought one of those, but you can be assured that buying the 6 zone one costs much more than the price of one trip to the airport. It is a 20 euro difference in the 5 day pass. I am really confused about what you bought as I thought those passes also automatically activated themself when you first used them and that no pass exists for four days (only 3 or five). In other words, I wouldn't think what anyone wrote on them would make any difference. Well, maybe I'm mistaken and when you tell the clerk you want a Paris Visite, they code it in the computer for 3 or five days and they can do 4 but made a mistake. Becuase there is no other pass you could be talking about that I can think of.

In any case, you can be sure that buying the 6 zone pass would have been a bad idea.

avalon

I'm confused too! I have a Navigo decourverte and load it with a weekly zone 1 and 2 and never have a problem on the metro or buses. Of course I take a taxi or shuttle from the airport so that may be a hitch! If it was a visite pass too bad, they are a bad deal to start with!

modglila

I bought two five-day Paris Visite passes for three zones. The clerk who I bought them from told me it would be activated on the first use. One of them had no dates stamped on it. The second one had 31 JUL 10 AU 03 AOU 10 stamped on it. That was the one that didn't work properly.

I have no idea why it didn't work, but the woman at the counter told me that it was because it was only good until August 3rd and she pointed at the date stamp. I think the problem was that it was deactivated by something in my purse. Why isn't the problem. The problem is that the woman wouldn't fix it and she said the reason was because of the date that was stamped on it. She was at the Pere Lachaise station.

When I got back to the Opera station, the clerk fixed it, but needed to call someone to the office to do so. I was just warning people to verify the dates because it can cause a problem even though it shouldn't have.

I also wasn't suggesting that everyone should buy the six-zone pass, merely suggesting that each person consider what they might be using it for. I went to the Orly airport and to Versailles. I didn't use the pass for either of those trips, but maybe I could have if I had had the six zone pass. I'm only saying not to count it out without considering.

I thought the pass was worth the money I spent (30 Euros each) even though some people say to buy the ticket packets. It was convenient to not have to worry about it. We took the Metro A LOT while in Paris. It allowed us to zip around here and there, especially on the third day on when we just felt like going back to the Louvre or Notre Dame or wherever.

And, I have no idea why the dates on the pass were coded for a four-day period. That was my point exactly. Check your ticket and if it's coded for anything other than what you expect, ask before leaving the counter.

I don't know what the Navigo decourverte is. How much does that cost? Is it available daily or just weekly?

Christina

Those passes can be convenient, that is true, and that can be worth a little extra.

The Navigo decouverte is a weekly pass that is not a ticket but an electronic card. It only runs Monday through Sundays, though. If you are not a resident, you have to pay 5 euro to get one and you have to have an ID photo, also, to attach to it. Then you can load it every week at a machine or whatever once you get it. If you were there ten days, you could have bought one of those for a one week period in the middle somewhere, I'm sure. I think it is 23 euro the first time, but I forget exactly (that includes the initial 5 euro fee). If you don't have aphoto, though, then you'd have to pay for that in one of those photo booths, so it would be about a wash with the Paris Visite that way. It is not available daily, but there are the individual daily unlimited tickets, as I said. Those are around 6 euro, as I recall. The Navigo is only available weekly or monthly and in either case, it does not start whenever you want, the monthly is the first of the month, the weekly starts on Monday.

For both the Navigo and the daily tickets, you can buy different zones. The prices I quoted are for only two zones. And that daily ticket is not good at the airports, as I said.