Florence museums - best to book Aug. 30 and on?
 

We shall be in Florence for a week from August 30. In your experience, how long are we likely to have to line-up for the Uffizi, etc. if we do not book ahead?

I'm just curious. Why wouldn't you book ahead to avoid the long lines?

one reason might be that they don't know yet which day or time of day they want to go.

SueW, a long line at the Uffizi in the early part of the day is likely, though some people have found that in the late afternoons there isn't always much of a line. Ditto the Accademia.

we were in Florence two weeks ago, and
had a reservation we'd made in advance for 11:00 a.m. for the
Uffizi (on a saturday).
when we arrived, there were about 40 people lined up at the door for folks with reservations. the "regular" door, for walk-ins, had absolutely no one there. we went in the regular door, and saved three euro per person (times our family of four) on our tickets, since the reserved tickets are more expensive.
We didn't go to the Accademia, so no info on that.
The restaurant manager we spoke with that evening said tourism has been off so much lately - it is really hard on the tourist-related businesses. the restaurants we used were far from full.

I guess timing is everthing.

We were at the Uffizi a week ago and just walked in with our 10:45 reservation.

The regular walk-up entrance had a very long line.

We were glad we had our reservations . Same thing when we went to see "David".

would someone pleasepost the website for the advance reservations for the Uffizi and Academia. Thank you.

We were in Florence in May. Our hotel called the Uffizi and got us a booking for the next day; when we got there, the line for people without reservations was easily over a hundred people long, while we were able to enter immediately, even though we were about an hour early.

By contrast, we went to the Accademia one afternoon, not intending to visit, but just to find out where the entrance was, since the museum was very near our hotel. There was absolutely no line (in fact, we walked past the entrance, since we were looking for a line) so we went in without a reservation with no delay. The best part was, it turned out to be a free day; not only was there no charge for admission, but they wouldn't even take a donation!

As previously posted,

The easiest and cheapest way is to call Florence 011 (U.S. international access code) 39 (Italy's country code) then 055-294-883 8:30-18:30 M-F and 8:30-12:00 Sat. Florence time. You will get an English speaking operator and in 2-3 minutes YOU CAN RESERVE FOR BOTH. This is through the reservation service at the Uffizi and costs beyond the normal entry fee only about 1.60 euro for the service. This is MUCH cheaper than the commercial booking services.