Thea

I typed "musee d'orsay" into the search engine and got no hits for this site so it must not be working right now! How busy is it on Thursday afternoons when it is open late? Do you need reservations for the restaurant or cafe?

Bob Brown

Musee d'Orsay seems to me to be the most crowded on Sundays. I have eaten twice in the restaurant with no reservation. There is usually a short wait at the door, but less than 15 minutes. It might be different at night; never tried it at that time.

Even if there is a long line to get in, the crowd seems to disperse once inside.

jj

Thea, well, tricky question. No day (or Thursday) is the same way. I love going to the late nights' around 7 pm, when most people get ready for dinner.
And then, only parts of the museum are often very crowded and others, worth to be visited just as well, are not.
In general, you won't need reservation for the restaurant nor the cafe, but again, all depends on the crowd the day you're going.

The web site of the d'Orsay is:
www.musee-orsay.fr
And it works right now!

sandi

If you plan on visiting several museums or monuments, I would HIGHLY recommend buying a museum pass. You can get them for 1,3 or 5 consecutive days (each costing a different amount ex: the 3 day was 35 euro). It allows you to get into most every museum AND monument (except the Eiffel Tower) at no add'l cost. It also allows you to go to the front of what could be a very long line. We went to the d'Orsay on a Sunday late afternoon and the line was blocks long. We walked right to the front door, showed them our pass and got right in.

You can buy them at any monument or museum.

Mel

Keep in mind that they are closed Monday and the Louvre is closed on Tuesday (or the other way around--doesn't matter), so the day the Louvre is closed the d'Orsay is crowded and vice-versa. We went on a Wednesday afternoon a few weeks ago and had no lines, no crowds and walked into the cafe and got a table with no problem.

John

Am I correct that the Loevre is open on Monday evenings and the D'Orsay on Thursday evenings? Also, does a student with student ID (17 yrs. old) need to be with someone with a pass to enter the front of the lines? Thanks.

x

John, this is what the Louvre website (www.louvre.fr) says:

The museum is open daily, except Tuesdays and certain public holidays, from 9am to 6pm. Evening openings until 9.45pm on Mondays ("short tour") and Wednesdays.

Rex

It's a quirk of the (so-called) "search engine" on this site - - it doesn't know what to do with apostrophes, hyphens and the like.

But you can get plenty with just "Orsay" - - which is not a problem; no other "Orsay" that I know of which gets mentioned here.

It may oy may not help to try to focus with Boolean searching (and, or not)

For example "orsay AND restaurant AND reservations" gets you a (slightly) more focused retrieval, includint\g this post:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/pgMessages.jsp?fid=2&tid=1292425

No other specific info on that thread but an offer to provide a "private" (?) telephone number from Wendy (saveurlavie).

My one and only experience was with a reservation made through the groups office at the Musee in 1998 (purely a coincidence that the group I was with was students as well - - no connection to Wendy).

Best wishes,

Rex

barb

Was at the Musee in April with my sister. We decided to go at 12:00 pm on Thursday. Sailed right thru all lines. Very efficient. Stopped for a tea break at about 2:30 pm. We were able to get a table within 3 minutes. Well worth it for a relaxing break. Loved the statuary exhibit of Italian Masters. Enjoy! Also I had my grad school id and got a student rate!!!

Christina

If you haven't used this site much, as a tip, it is always better to try a search on a single word and especially no odd characters.

I've eaten in the Orsay main restaurant on a day when it was raining and the museum was very full (and long lines) and yet had no wait at all for a table for lunch in the restaurant. The upper cafe was quite packed, however, and had a long wait (not to mention the attic fast food area was crowded). I was surprised as the regular restaurant was fairly reasonable in price and a very pleasant experience. I went to the cafe first and it was so crowded that I didn't think it would have been as enjoyable, anyway. It was pretty noisy, too, as I recall. I was there at lunch time (maybe 1-2 pm) so I can't imagine late afternoon would be a problem at all.

Sue

I was in Paris in May and went to the D'Orsay twice. Thursday night was a really nice time to go, and there was no wait at the restaurant. I would highly recommend the museum pass to avoid the lines - works wonders!

up

topping, for Thea

mary kay

Thea - if you decide to get a museum pass for Paris (Carte Musees) then by all means buy one at any Metro stop rather than at a museum. Why wait in line to buy a pass which allows you to bypass lines? They sell the passes along with Metro tickets - same window of the Metro station.

Mary Kay

MarchMadness

ttt

john127

Just a tip, you don't have to buy the museum pass to skip lines at D'Orsay. You can go to any Virgin Records store and walk up to the ticket counter (like Ticketmaster here) and purchase tickets for the Musee D'Orsay. There's one right in the Carousel du Louvre. We got our tickets there as we left the Louvre.

John

PaulRabe

Since Thea is interested in Impressionist Art in Paris, and someone has mentioned the Museum Pass, I should add that this pass is NOT accepted at the Monet Museum. I still recommend the Pass, but just be aware that it is not accepted at ALL museums.

janisj

Thea MAY be interested inImpressionism - however she asked her question four years ago. Have no idea why marchmadness topped this old thread - there is much more current info on recent therads . . . . . . .

hypatia

what did you all eat at the restaurant?.I had the fish soup and it was not great...my fault.. who would order that stuff?..

what do you all recommend??

Travelnut

1. it is true that not all museums participate in the pass, check the list on the website

2. what's the Monet Museum...? Marmottan? Giverny?

PaulRabe

Well, since you asked, TravelNut (and since I didn't bother to check how old this thread is -- I fell right into the topper's trap), I meant the Marmottan Museum. I couldn't recall it's exact name, so I just called it the "Monet" Museum. It was an obscure, private collection till it inherited scores of Monet's best works -- including one called "Impressions of a Sunrise." A critic of Monet was so disgusted with that work that he called Monet's entire style nothing more than "Impressionism." BTW, the name stuck.