Louvre Tickets in Advance
 

I think I need some help with the Louvre web site. I want to buy the tickets for our party of 7 in advance so as to avoid lines at the museum. I just don't understand which tickets I should purchase.
3 say that they are only good through 6-6
and others are good all year but only for the permanent collection. Is this what I should buy? I would appreciate any advice.
Thank you

Have you looked at the economics of the <i>Carte Mus&eacute;e</i> (museum pass)? It lets you jump the queue at dozens of venues, and you can buy it at any M&eacute;tro station.

It costs &euro;18 for one day, which compares favorably to admission to the Louvre plus one other site (such as the Arc de Triomphe at sunset).

If you can find three or five days worth of things to do, the daily cost drops to &euro;12 and &euro;10.80, respectively.

<b>http://www.ratp.fr/ParisVisite/fr/ac...mp;m/musee.htm
</b>

Hi Jenn:

We went through 'TicketWeb' (www.ticketweb.com) in January and the tickets they sent me were stamped &quot;Good Thru 31 Dec 2005&quot; ... and $28.56usd for 2 tickets &amp; fees including shipping to Canada and I had them in about 3 days.

I jsut checked their web site &amp; saw the 6-6 reference but as I remember it, I called them to place the order (&quot;Phone Orders Welcome!&quot; button on the web site shows the various #'s).

While the Louvre has a number of kiosks to also purchase tickets, others have mentioned that North American credit cards may lack a chip needed to use kiosks (I had no problems with ATM card but never tried using a credit card in any of the machines).

BTW - huge linups at the Louvre both times we went, so good to have an advanced purchase ticket. And further to Robespierre's comments, you may also want to go with the Carte Mus&eacute;e. Since we were looking at a full day at the Louvre we found it cheaper to go with a 3-day Carte Mus&eacute;e &amp; a 1-day Louvre pass rather than a 5-day Carte Mus&eacute;e - but if I had it to do over again I might go with the 5-day Carte Mus&eacute;e, as it allows you to go to the Louvre as many times as you want over the 5-days. We found the Louvre 'overwhelming' for a day &amp; went back a couple of days later to revisit some stuff &amp; get to areas we missed, so 2 or 3 'half day' visits under the multi-day Carte Mus&eacute;e may be better than trying to do it 'all in a day'.

Hope this helps.

Z

And, if in your party of 7 you have students 18 and younger, you might check to see if the carte musee still lets them in for free w/ an adult holder of the carte musee. This was the case for us in 2003 and 2004.

Tres bien.

May I ask an add-on question? I believe there is another entrance (via Metro) where you can enter and avoid lines ADN/OR I thought you could buy the tickets at a kiosk inside the entrace and not have to go to the ticket booths ?

Carte Musee card--- How do you get it validated on the first day? Do you have to stand in line for that or do you validate it yourself by writing in the date?

good question. I also have heard that you could enter via the underground shopping mall. Is this so???

If you get off the M&eacute;tro at Palais Royal-Mus&eacute;e du Louvre, you come into the pyramid through the shopping arcade.

You then go straight to the turnstile for the wing you want to visit, and they will validate your card there.

People under the age of 18 are free in the Louvre, whether they are students or not and whether anyone has a Carte Musee or not.

There are several entrances to the Louvre and sometimes some are less busy than the main one at the pyramid in the center(not always, a lot of people know the options). Yes, you can enter from the underground shopping mall area, I've done that -- just go down there as if you want to go shopping (from rue de Rivoli) and you'll see the places to buy tickets to enter.

As for validating your museum pass card, as I recall, the museum validates it when you enter and have to show it to them. The pass has a different entrance for those with cards, however, so you don't have to wait in as long a line. At the Louvre, it is Passage Riche Richelieu. YOu will never be allowed to go into a museum without showing them a pass or ticket.

Vivi:

The Carte Musee pass is colour coded for 1-3-5 days as well as a big # 1-3-5 on the front, on the back it has a place to write in your name and the date that it is valid from.

When you get to the 'prepaid' door (at D'Orsay that really bumps you in front of a lot of people) at any site that takes the card they just look at the date to see if the card is still in effect, no need to get it validated the first time used.

So at the Louvre, you bypass all of the linups to purchase tickets &amp; just go to the 'wing' you want (Richeliu, Sully, etc) and they just check to see if your ticket is valid.

Z