Advance tickets to Portugal Sights?
 

Hi folks:
Does anybody have experience with buying tickets for various Lisbon attractions in advance? I am trying to buy advance tickets for the following Lisbon sights to try and skip the lines. I have pieced together this info based on Forums forum threads and other online research. Can someone verify or correct this understanding?

1. Belem Tower and Monastery combined ticket. No way to buy combo ticket ahead of time. Can buy Lisboa card ahead of time and that will allow access to these two sights (and others)
2. Castelo de São Jorge. I could not figure out how to use their website to buy tickets in advance. The couple of times I've tried, the pages to buy tickets are either not rendering properly in all the browsers I've tried or I am getting errors even accessing the site. I see that Tripadvisor offers a few ways to buy tickets ahead of time but these need to be picked up at a shop. Does anybody know how else to buy this one?*https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attracti..._Portugal.html

Thanks in advance
Manisha

Call or email the Lisbon Tourist Office and the individual sites?

Manisha,
You're correct. The Jerónimos Monastery + Torre de Belém combo ticket can no longer be purchased online, as I once purchased it two years ago.

To avoid the excruciatingly long lines to enter the Monastery (especially when cruise ships are in port), the current advice is to go inside the adjacent Museu Nacional de Arqueologia (the building to the left) and purchase your Monastery ticket there. There's even a ticket machine there, I believe, for this purchase. You can purchase a joint ticket to the Monastery + Archaeological Museum or just the Monastery ticket and then enter the Monastery from this adjacent museum. To avoid the worst of the crowds, I'd arrive just before 10 am, when both sites open.

There's no ticket required to visit the Monastery's church (where Vasco da Gama's tomb rests), but I would avoid Sunday morning during mass.

Another possible option for avoiding the lines for the Monastery-
There's a Tourist Office ticket booth in the park in front of the Monastery that sometimes sells Monastery & Belém Tower tickets. I say "sometimes" only because when we tried to purchase there this past November, Monastery tickets were no longer available, just Tower tickets, and they didn't know when they would receive them again. However...the local Lisbon destination expert on TA posted that he had purchased Monastery tickets at the ticket booth this January, so I assume they have a new supply, for now, at least.

I've emailed both the Lisbon Tourist Office and the Museu Nacional de Arqueologia directly about the Monastery/Tower tickets, but they've yet to answer my emails.

Regarding Castelo São Jorge, I've never purchased a ticket in advance, but to avoid a long line and the heat, I would go early, when it opens at 9 am. I can't access the ticket purchasing page on the Castelo's site either. It appears not to be working. And the skip-the-line tickets through the TA link require you to go to a shop to pick them up, a 20-minute walk away from the castle.

Hope this helps.

When we visited Castelo Sao Jorge, we arrived at opening time, or perhaps a few minutes early. This was in April 2018. There were very few people waiting in line. We walked right in. When we left several hours later, the line was quite long.

Manisha,
The Museu Nacional de Arqueologia finally answered my email inquiry about Jerónimos and Belém Tower tickets.
Their response:

"You can buy both Museu Nacional de Arqueologia and Mosteiro dos Jerónimos tickets inside the Museu Nacional de Arqueologia at the automatic ticket machines.
For Torre de Belém, you can buy the tickets at this Monument reception."

Oh wow, thanks so much for all your help everybody!

We are actually visiting Castello São Jorge the day we arrive in Lisbon. We are landing at 11:00 am, so by the time we get out of the airport, settle into the apartment, explore Baixa (where we are staying) and head to the Castle, I think it will be 6:00ish. They are open until 9:00. So I hope crowds have dissappeared by then. Let's see! It is reassuring that there were not too many people in line in April when the Castle opened.

Yeah, Belem, I am just going to hope for the best. Our kids are late risers. So with the jetlag, late rise, breakfast, blahdiblahblah, I think we won't get to Belem until 11:00 am. My plan is to do the Discoveries Mounument first for the views, then head over to the Archaelogical museum, get combo tickets, go inside the Monastery, go to the Tower. If we have the energy, go inside. Although I think we will be too tired to go in and judging by everything I"m reading here, maybe it won't be worth it with two jetlagged exhausted kiddos.

Thanks again everybody, you are great.

Maribel Thanks so much for emailing them, that's so nice of you! Very helpful :)

natylou - Thanks so much! Yes, that is what I have read as well.

For Manisha and others,
I received an email confirmation from the Tourist Board (Visit Lisboa) that Belém Tower tickets and Jerónimos Monastery tickets are now available at the ticket kiosk in the park across from the Monastery (where we tried to buy them in Nov. but weren't available then). Just another option.

We skipped the inside of the Tower and chose to visit the Monument of Discoveries instead, as natylou suggests.

Castelo Sao Jorge
 

When I was there at the end of April, I walked over to Castelo Sao Jorge at about 7:00 p.m. The light was beautiful, the views to the north and south were great (that to the west was cast into shade), and the line was maybe six people.

Maribel Thanks so much, I appreciate your time!

jeffergray ahhhh - sounds lovely. Hopefully we have the same experience!

I have 5 days left - so excited! Will try to come back here and post a trip report or highlights of family friendly things to do :)

Thanks again for all your help!