Can you please tell me more about the carte d'orange pass?

Question

Where can i buy it and is it useful?

Answer 1

Paris is a very compact city that is best seen on foot and many days may well be spent at only one location such as a visit to the Louvre.

So no matter which type of pass you buy the question is whether you will use public transport often enough to make the purchase worthwhile.

Simply buying a "carnet" of 10 standard tickets which are good anytime brings the cost of a single use of public transit down to 1.09 euros.

Should the dates of your stay allow you to get by with buying just one Carte Orange then you would have to use it about 16 times to justify the 16 euro cost.  

If you opt for the Paris Visite Pass then you would need to use it anywhere from 8 times in one day to 25 times in five days to justify the cost.

Answer 2

to complete others answers i would add that you can buy one at the airport . but if your hotel is in zone 1 or 2 . and you only have one return to zone 5 (airport) during all your stay it's worth buying a return ticket from airport to first station in zone2 and a zone 1-2 weekly or monthly "coupon de carte orange" .

prepare a photo of you for your "carte orange" .

you might find fares on transilien.fr or ratp.fr websites indicated below

(zones are concentric  round paris (1 Paris , 2 3 4 5 suburbs ) see the map : (1rose / 2white/3 blue/4white/5blue)

Versailles ( the castel of king Louis XIV) is located  in zone 4 . many monuments of PAris (Arc de triomphe , Tour Eiffel, are in zone 1).

Answer 3

Hi

I just got back from Paris last week

I bought the Paris Visite Pass - you can buy it for as many days as you like

It allows you to travel in and around metro Paris as much as you like - when you are in Paris you need to catch the metro repeatedly to get anywhere through the day

It also comes with a little booklet of discounts for Open Top Bus Tours (hop on hop off around all the sites), a map of Paris and the metro stations and coupons for things like museums and river boat trips.  

This pass does not cover trips to and from the airport, trips to and from Disneyland or rural transport.  For this you need to buy RER tickets.  

We got our RER tickets (about 8 euros) at the airport (the cheapest way to get into town).  Once in town at the major train station (Gare de Nord) we bought our Visite Pass.

Other advice:  if you are going to all the museums/sites the best way to get there is on the open top bus tours - you can hop on hop off all over Paris and they come every 10 mins for so.  It is by far the easiest way to get around to see them.  

Buy a Carte de Musee Monuments - available at major train stations and also at the Paris Visitors Centre (near the Louvre) - this gives you entry into most museums and sites and you dont have to wait in the queues (which can be VERY long).   This pass also gives you coupons/discounts.  It is 30 euros.

All these things are available on Expedia.com if you click on the Attractions icon (Paris) - you can see a whole lot of things you can do in Paris looking at this site.

Answer 4

The Carte Orange pass requires a photo and paper work to prevent sharing of passes. (It is easy: just put your whatever photo on the card, fill your name in the card and fill the number of the card in the coupon)

The Carte Orange weekly pass is valid from Monday through Sunday.  Between Monday and Wednesday, you may purchase a ticket for the current week.  Between Friday and Sunday, you may purchase a ticket for the coming week.

The monthly pass is valid from the first to the last day of each month.

Tickets are available at all stations of the Metro and RER lines A and B as well as locations displaying the RATP poster (such as many tobacconists).

Answer 5

sally d gave good advice on how to get the carte orange

I'd say depending on when you are there and for how long it can be a better value for the money than the tourist pass. You'll have to look at the costs for each and make that comparison yourself.

It is very easy to use...just don't lose it.