My family and I will be driving from Calais to stay at a hotel with free parking near CDG, and we are on a tight budget/can barely afford the trip. We would have liked to obtain Navigo Decouverte week passes on a Monday morning at CDG, as we will arrive on a Sunday evening and have exactly Monday to Sunday to use this hotel as our base, catching the train from CDG to Central Paris each morning/coming back each evening on that train service.
However, I understand that it is no longer possible to obtain the cards at CDG. Could anybody please recommend a way we could drive from CDG to a not too distant train station on the Monday morning, where with no or minimal parking charges we could leave the car for a few minutes while we pop in and get the cards sorted, so that we can drive back to CDG, dump the car, and then use the train without having to pay for that first train journey in to Paris.
Hopefully it won't be a problem but our car is diesel, so not allowed in the two Paris ZCRs. I know we are okay to drive to the airport, but beyond that I have no real knowledge of where we can/can't go in or near the city outskirts.
The total cost for us, for the cards themselves and then the week passes comes out to about 183 euros, so it would be a big shame to have to pay 65 euros for us to have one way tickets to Paris that first morning, only to then get the passes that we could have used to make that initial journey free.
Many Thanks, Jim
1 answer
There is an option of taking Bus 351 (€2.50) from CDG airport into Paris Place d'Italie area (https://parisbytrain.com/buses-from-cdg-airport-to-paris/#bus351) and then transferring or walking 25 minutes to Gare de Lyon. The Transilien ticket window inside Gare de Lyon is a good spot to try to get Navigo Decouverte cards. They have a good stock of the cards there.
You could also try obtaining Decouverte cards at any RER B / RER D station close to your hotel (for example), but the random stations have varying available of Decouverte cards for sale. But, worth a try if you're not far from one.
On a related note, if any of you have smart phones (and British mobile #'s) capable of installing one of the Paris Transport apps (https://parisbytrain.com/navigo-pass-iphone-app-android-app/) you can also avoid paying the 5€ Decouverte card fee and use Navigo directly from your phone. But, some people prefer to have the pass on a separate fail-safe card (including myself). Each person would need their own phone and their own European/UK phone number (for creating IDF Mobilites accounts).