We are going to be in Paris for 4 days, Friday through Monday, with our 21 and 14 year olds. This will include the first Sunday of the July (free day at Louvre and ?others). We want to see the Louvre, Orsay, St Chapelle, tower of Notre Dame and probably L'Arc de Triomphe. A 4 day pass is more than we will pay in individual tickets, but how much time will we spend in lines if we don't get the pass? It will probably be impossible to drag the boys out of bed early enough to beat the lines. Any thoughts would be much appreciated!

First off, I don't get it, you are paying for the trip , you tell the boys to get the heck out of bed when you want as you only have four days in Paris. I took my 14 yr old son, and my hubby took our next son when he also turned 14, and they were told to be appreciative of trip and cooperate. Do your kids often get Europeon vacaitons so that they take them for granted ??

ok, enough ranting about that, sorry, but it really bugs me that so many Americans seem to have kids that do NOT appreciate the great opportunity their parents are giving them by taking them on expensive vacations to Europe.

You WILL have to get out of bed early on at least two days. There is NO pass that will afford you line skipping at the Eiffel Tower, and the lines there can be very very long. You could try and get reservations at Alitude 95 ( the restaurant there) so you can go in the special elevator line there, then boys can sleep in LOL.

Also, my condolences on being in Paris on a free sunday, I inadvertantly went on a free sunday once, to the Lourve, waited FOREVER and then the crowds inside were awful. Go early.

You do not need a four day pass. There is no point. First, since you are there on a fee sunday your pass is useless. You cannot skip security lines with pass and they are what will hold you up. So that means you would only need it for 3 days. There is no 3 day pass. Also, your 14 yr old does not need a pass at all. Most places are free( not ET) for him, and if you have a pass he can skip line with you anyways.

Getting a pass for the Arc is not really needed, there have never been long lines when I have gone, and I only go in July or August. I do reccomend Arc though, love the view from there!
Also, consider going up the Towers at Notre Dame in the late day or evening. The Towers are open late some evenings, check out website( yes , google " Notre Dame Paris" they have late openings) . The line minder told us many people are not aware Towers are open on some evenings and lines are much shorter after about 7:30 or 8.
The pass will not allow line skipping at Towers, and the Cathderal is free so no line skipping advantage there either.

Pass is good for line skipping at Orsay, but , you could just get there by 8:30 or 9 am ,, LOL .

Or stop in any FNAC store and buy a ticket for whatever museum you want to see. No lines there.

You might be surprised by your kids...
our 15 year old can happily sleep
into the afternoon but she was so
amazed and excited by Paris getting her up early for our week there
was no trouble at all!

Rob

First, the Paris Visite pass is a transportation pass. I presume you are talking about the Paris Museum Pass.

Second, as bozama says, a pass won't allow you to skip the line at the tower at Notre-Dame. The same is true at Ste-Chapelle because you have to go through security.

YOu are going to be very surprised and disappointed if you buy very expensive Paris Visites and think they will give you entry to a museum, as they don't have anything to do with museums.

I don't buy museum passes, the Louvre doesn't take that long to get into nowadays as they have so many machines, etc. The Orsay line isn't bad if you get there early in the morning, even in heavy tourist season.

I agree that your kids should not be allowed to do what they want on your vacation, if that includes being lazy and sleeping in bed a long time. Museums don't open that early, to begin with. They open pretty late, so they should be getting up in plenty of time for that anyway.