crcash

Are these a good buy? How exactly do they work? How many museums does one need to visit to feel as if they got their money's worth?

RichardSpitzer

They might be a good deal if you plan on visiting enough museums to make it worthwhile. The pass is around 16 Euro (or 18) for a one day pass. The Louvre is 8 Euro, the Picasso 5 and the Musee D'Orsey 5, so if you planned on visiting all three in one day you would break even. It is nice to not have to stand in line to buy individual tickets. They also cover the Arc de Triomphe and others, so if you combined museums and monuments in one day it would be worth it. Just got back from Paris, the Dordogne and Portugal. Our favorite was and always has been the Rodin Museum.

elaine

For many people, the best value attached to the Museum Pass is to avoid the ticket-buyers' line in the Louvre and the Orsay museums. That's worth a lot to me, especially on busy days.

jlm_mi

A very quick yahoo search turned up this list of museums covered by the pass:

http://paris.city-discovery.com/pari...seum_pass.html

Decide which ones you are personally interested in visiting and add up the individual costs, which can be found in guide books and/or their web sites.

Finally, consider the very valuable line skipping that elaine mentioned and you can decide if it's worth it for your specific needs.

luvparis

I visited only the Louvre and the Musee D'Orsey, but given that with a pass, you avoid reallly long lines, it is very much worth it to get them in advance.

carcassone

The museum pass is also valid for Verseilles. Just being able to skip the 1.5 hour line getting into the chateau is priceless. We also skipped the 30 min line for St. Chapelle. For us, Notre Dame's climb was the only included site that didn't have a bypass line.

Christina

The Orsay is actually more around 7 euro admission, as I recall. I think the Louvre and Orsay are the highest. If you buy a 3-day museum pass (36 euro), you'd need to go to at least two sites on the pass each day in order to save any money. The 1-day pass is quite expensive IMO, but I don't like going to a lot of museums in one day, I like to vary what I do.

If you plan to go to at least two a day, you should get one. They are for consecutive days, note that -- you can't pick and choose which days to use them during your stay. Once you start using it, it is consecutive days from that point.

There are several web sites that list the museums covered. I think the Paris TO one does, as well as www.parisvisite.fr and this one
http://www.ratp.fr/ParisVisite/fr/index.htm

clevelandbrown

The one-day pass is 18 euro, but the 3-day pass is 36 euro (12 euro per day) and the 5-day pass is 54 euro (just over 10 euro per day). If you think the pass covers what you want to see for 3 or 5 days, it is an excellent buy.

In addition to bypassing the lines, it allows you multiple entries to the same museum. I like art, but after 3 or 4 hours I need a break, so its nice to be able to go somewhere else, then return, especially if you anticipate some of the larger museums, such as the Louvre, which have so much you can't possibly take in all of it in a few hours.

We stayed two weeks last year, and each of us used two five-day passes, but then we enjoy art more than some.

jame

I love the museum pass. Last time we were in Paris, we got 3-day passes. We do tend to go to a lot of museums, so it was a good deal for us. We also liked not having to wait on lines. The other great thing about it was that it allowed us to try out some places we might not have gone into if we had had to pay. Also, we never felt bad if we didn't stay very long someplace. For instance, we went into the Cluny just so I could get a quick look at the Unicorn tapestries (we had been to this museum on a previous trip so this was worked out perfectly).

We're going back to Paris in two weeks and plan to get the 3-day pass again. By the way, we bought the passes in a train station, which was very convenient.

goingwithbaby

When we were there we were also able to use the City pass (7 day) for multiple visits to the same place. It allowed us to take our time in the D'Orsey, have lunch etc. and return again without the concern of lines or additional expense.

crcash

What exactly is the city pass? Is there a metro pass available as well? Where can one purchase these passes (city/museum)?

Ann41

The Louvre is 8.50, and we waited less than 5 minutes for tickets.

Travelnut

There's a 7-day museum pass for London and the French Riviera, but don't know of one for Paris (just the 1,3,5 day passes)...

Christina

I've never heard of a "Paris City Pass" either, by that name, or any pass that is good for seven days in Paris (some other French cities have passes called "city pass&quot. Either goingwithbaby is thinking of another city or has something new which she can explain where she got it and the cost and what it was.

There are various kinds of transportation tickets and passes which are cited on the Paris transportation web site www.ratp.fr. Also, there have been probably several hundred threads on this board about them -- just put paris AND metro or something in the search box. YOu can always buy transportation tickets/passes from a clerk in a metro/RER station, of course. YOu can also buy the museum pass from them, as well as from one of the museums that participates on it (but you will have to wait in line to buy it, so get it at a small, less busy museum if you choose to do that). I have always bought them from a metro clerk when I've gotten one. You can also get one from a Tourist Office if you run across one, but the main one on Champs Elysees is closed now. I think there's one in a couple train stations and elsewhere, that info is on their web site www.paris-touristoffice.com