Your post leaves me cold. You cannot just turn up in Paris at New Year and expect to find accommodation or restaurant space without prebooking, and you were lucky to find somewhere suitable in a relatively decent part of the city.

Paris is NOT London. Parisiens do NOT celebrate new year in a similar manner to those in London. A typical Parisien (if not French) New Year's Eve celebration consists of a multicourse dinner, usually with dancing between each course that takes them through the night to a 'nightcap' of onion soup at dawn. Of course there is champagne and fireworks at midnight, but the celebration continues indoors.

I am sorry that you felt let down or disappointed, but a bit of prior research would have been very helpful. It is quite usual to have threads asking about New Year's Eve in Paris on several travel forums of which I am a member, and it is quite common to have to dissuade would-be revellers and party animals who hope that Paris will be even better than what they are used to at home.

The best place to celebrate New Year's Eve in the fashion you would have liked to have been part of is Reykjavik.

I should have been clearer with the way I worded that.
By got lucky I meant with a nice hotel that we liked....there was no luck in arriving in Paris that afternoon trying to find a hotel.
I did my research and the morning we decided to go I had checked the Ibis,Mercure & Novotel websites and knew exactly what rooms were available ....took a print out with over 30 hotels that we could make a decision on whilst travelling. Had a back up plan just in case everthing did get too full by finding places to stay outside of Paris.
I am also aware of that many people like to celebrate new year by going out for a meal.
I am cetainly not a party animal but just find it strange that you get huge crowds of people making the effort to congregate to see the new year in and yet when midnight arrives just wander away as if nothing had happened.....as I said,why did they bother ?

We just wanted a last minute trip to Paris and had an enjoyable new years day anyway.

hovis wrote:

What a disappointment, no countdown, not even even a huge cheer, no people jumping up & down, no real celebrations just some sporadic fireworks flung into odd spaces. People just walked away.
Do they really know how to welcome in the new year in France ?

People celebrate New Year differently in many countries, when I was growing up in England, New Years Eve was pretty much spent with families or friends, fireworks were only set off on Nov 5th, not New Years Eve, New Years Day wasn't even a holiday and if you wanted to enjoy a real celebration you went north to Scotland.
When I first came to live in Germany I was suprised by the fireworks on New Years Eve, a few big cities have a firework display but it's more the tradition to spend the evening with friends or family, toast the new year with a glass of sparkling wine, set off a few fireworks and then go to bed. France is possibly similar, I know in the past we have seen fantastic firework displays around the Eiffel Tower but maybe they were just on special years.
I'm sorry your New Year excursion wasn't what you expected but perhaps a bit more research into different customs in other cities would help to avoid future disappointments.

I am cetainly not a party animal but just find it strange that you get huge crowds of people making the effort to congregate to see the new year in and yet when midnight arrives just wander away as if nothing had happened.....as I said,why did they bother ?

Sounds very civilised to me, unlike some of the behaviour I've had to deal with in England on New Years Eve/early New Year's Day.

The Parisians are entitled to celebrate their way, which seems quite OK to me.

Peter

I can see exactly where hovis is coming from. Yes, everybody celebrates the New Year differently but from what she says crowds gathered, but what for? If there was nothing to see and no countdown why didn't they stay where they were- be it restaurant pub or party

We were in Prague this New Year and fireworks were being left off randomly on the streets, we had been warned so weren't overly surprised. At least there was a live band playing on the square where the congregation gathered so I could understand the attraction there.

We normally celebrate in an hotel where there is a countdown to the New year and sometimes balloons are let loose on the streets which is something to look forward to.

Having followed the crowds, expecting to find an 'event' of some sort, I can understand how hovis was disappointed.

Yes, everybody celebrates the New Year differently but from what she says crowds gathered, but what for? If there was nothing to see and no countdown why didn't they stay where they were- be it restaurant pub or party

Because they wanted to, they are French and that's what they do in France. It's their country, they can do what they like. When in Rome etc.

What they may or may not do in Prague, Vladivostok,Timbuktu, York, or even Welsh Wales is irrelevant.

I just don't understand where problem lies.

Peter

I just don't understand where problem lies.

I don't think there was a problem Peter merely a disappointment. Hovis probably thought (as you stated) when in Paris do as the Parisians do, so followed the crowd and was disappointed at the anti climax.

I merely mentioned different ways of celebrating as a way of concurring what a previous poster said about various countries having their own way of celebrating. I know it has no direct bearing on how they celebrate in Paris