There are several Seine boat tour companies, some offer both tours with dining service and tours, some just tours, some just dining service. If you just want to tour the Seine, it only costs 10-20 Euros per person. The dinner tours are pricier, particularly because there is less seating. I think it is always fun to tour the Seine, depending on the weather of course. The dining tours are fun, but you tend to pay less attention to the sights when you are also concentrating on the food and the conversation. Also it depends on how close to the window you are and which side you are on when you are passing the various interesting parts.
The one that I was most disappointed in was Batobus. The hop-on, hop-off didn’t work that well, and the boat wasn’t that panoramic in the views. I once bought an annual pass as a resident and after two times I never used it again.
The rest are pretty decent, with varying degrees of service.
In December Le Dome will also be making its extraordinary fish soup (Soup de Poissons; I’m not talking here of their Bouillabaise). This (their Grand Seafood Tower + their Soup de Poissons + abundant great White Burg or Champagne + dessert if wanted; this being the entire meal) = cracking one of the great codes of seafood in Paris, and a sliver of the code of great seafood in France. (Make sure you get a table/booth in their actual beautiful restaurant, not on their terrasse/extended restaurant, certainly in winter.)
For the Seine lunch/dinner river cruise, this actually is a great idea for Christmas day (certainly if you can stay away from the mass tourist operators). Le Calife I think has the best food & cruise & boat going (sit upstairs) (unless you’re in a completely different price point on the Dior or Ducasse boats). (They book up very fast; don’t know if they have availability for Christmas.). https://calife.com
BTW, a few other nice opportunities you may want to jump on (one w/ a heads-up) for your Paris December visit (beyond all the everyday-incredibly wonderful things Paris has to offer):
The one w/ the heads-up: As you probably know, Notre Dame has been fully restored & is re-opening to the public Dec 8 (and from the Macron visit today/pictures released today, it should be utterly spectacular/the closest to what it looked inside since it first opened 800 years ago). But what I think is pretty unknown right now, at least among non-Parisians, is that they are instituting a new system for visiting - a (free) entry ticket, pre-booked, will be required for all visits (for non-parishoners). This ticketing system - available on the Notre Dame website - is set to open for pre-booking on Dec 4 or 5. So, if you want to visit Notre Dame, even probably on Christmas itself, you should be able to jump on that site Dec 4 or 5, & pre-book your tickets, no problem, before all the tourists start to figure out - on Dec 8 - that they even need tickets & then book it out completely …
Second, for this winter (& for the first time ever), the City of Paris is opening an ice-skating rink (!) in the the (also utterly spectacular) glass-roofed Grand Palais, now just also fully restored & reopened. (& if you will be in Paris in March, Hermes is having its Saut de Hermes (horse-jumping course competition) event there (!!!) - tix are available now.)
Finally, in the middle of the Tuileries Paris Christmas market - actually a great market, b/c Paris passed a law requiring all items sold to be actually French-made & artisanal (i.e., no BS fake/corporate/Chinese items) - Champagne Taittinger sets up a heated, glass-walled champagne lounge, so while the “kids” are off doing the Christmas market thing, you can enjoy a bottle of Comtes or NV, in style… (Full disclosure - I’ve been to this the last few years, but not this year, so I assume - but am not certain yet - it is there… But if, it is, it is GREAT!)
Aside from dining, the catacombs, and the Bateau Mouche, we have several cultural diversions in mind. These include a day trip to Versailles, the Musée Carnavalet, Centre Pompidou, and Les Puces, among others. There’s also a Jackson Pollock exhibition at the Musée Picasso (JACKSON POLLOCK : LES PREMIÈRES ANNÉES (1934-1947) | Musée Picasso Paris) and a stunning array of the works of Barbara Chase-Riboud on view at no fewer than eight museums (Louvre, Orsay, Palais de Tokyo, etc.). I know Barbara and am very eager to see these many presentations: BARBARA CHASE-RIBOUD - Espace presse du musée du Louvre
Musee Carnavalet is one of my favorite museums, good choice!
Pompidou will be very busy since it will be closing for five years starting next year.
If you want a slight detour for a couple hours, visit the Chateau Vincennes. It is just off Metro Line one, and you can go in the old tower (donjon) that was the hunting lodge of the king. Lots of history there.
Flying out of Paris in the morning. Wanted to drop an endorsement for Yam’Tcha.
The somm was amazing. Great champagne/wine list at great prices (Selosse Initial for €320).
Very creative food Some were “not my style” but I greatly appreciated the creativity (namely a Chinese bao filled with Stilton cheese….).
Yam’Tcha was, for many years, the most difficult reservation to get in the world. They moved into a larger space and were able to serve more people, which made it easier. The old space was converted into a boutique/tea house where they also serve Baos and other dishes. The husband of the chef often makes trips to China to get the latest amazing and rare teas, and he heads up the tea house. You can also get the Bao to go. One of the highlights of the meal at Yam’Tcha is the tea pairing (or a wine and tea pairing). We would often get the wine and tea pairing then supplement the meal with another bottle or two of wine, depending on how many we were. You can buy both tea and teapots to take away at the tea house.
You might want to ping the WB member @M1a_U for tips on that exhibit - she spent hours in there (& I think LOVED it) before we met for cocktails on the roof of Pompidou @ restaurant Georges. (Which BTW, has glass walls, a terasse & great views of Paris, & is not known by a lot of tourists, so is/was not over-run - quite the contrary - while Centre Pompidou was…)
The Surrealisme exhibition is a major one–I spent well over five hours in it and I could easily have spent another hour or two. I was especially happy that they included paintings by Remedios Varo. Don’t miss the accompanying podcasts.
A good friend (and barrel rep) was headed to France and I recommended (beyond highly) Perception which was amazing when we are there in May. He sent these:
Aside from the scallop I’m not sure what these are but they look amazing. He said it was one of the best meals he’s had and for the price it is insane.
I like Georges when visiting CP … you can take the escalator at the rear, past security (explaining you have a lunch reservation @Georges) up to the roof, have lunch and then go down to the 2nd floor, buy your ticket, and enter CP bypassing big security lines at the main entrance.
I just returned from 12 days in France - Strasbourg and Paris. In Strasbourg we traveled to several Christmas markets in Heidelberg, Obernai, Selestat, and Colmar, which was by far the best, including all the ones we went to in Paris. Dinner at Buereheisel was excellent with a very reasonably priced wine list, excellent service and a great frog legs dish. 1 star+ Michelin cuisine.
Paris restaurants included our third visit to Maison Boutary, a caviar oriented restaurant. Excellent caviar, first rate service and cuisine, with a nice Champagne list. Highly recommended.
For our last night in Paris, on a Sunday, we chose Pavyllon, a Yannick Allen 1 star Michelin restaurant in a secluded building just behind the Petit Palais that also houses his 3 star, Ledoyen. There is counter seating overlooking the kitchen, but we sat in the beautiful decorations in the outside terrace, with first rate service, an expensive and expansive wine list, and several options for dinner. I started with a ravioli with an egg, girolles, and ricotta and followed that with a wonderful venison with foie gras and port sauce.
