The only place you really need the museum pass to skip the lines is Musee d'Orsay. Lines tend to be very, very long there, when you could be inside already. Best bet is to buy a one day pass and visit Rodin, Eglise du Dome - Napolean's Tomb (both nearby). Especially if you can time the pass for a Thursday, when Musee d'Orsay is open late.

Note also that there are many sets of restrooms if you pick up the floor plan. Long lines at the obvious one, but none at the others.

There are so many entrances to the Louvre now, most unknown to everyone, all with check rooms too, that you can avoid same (see the website for locations). If you enter via the Denon wing, Mona Lisa is nearby (up the stairs, and just down the hall), and you'd get there way before those using other entrances.

Once in a while, there's a bit of a line at Rodin.

eschule - thanks for posting this question. Just a couple of thoughts - one thing that has always kept me from getting the pass is that if you visit museums when the lines are the longest (thus the value of bypassing the line) then the museum itself is also going to be very crowded. I much more enjoy being in a museum when it's not super crowded. So if you follow that logic you don't need the pass to bypass the lines as they won't be long when you go. Evenings are good, sunday mornings first thing are also good (I waited five minutes at the D'orsay on a sunday morning once, that same day my friend, who decided not to go till after a leisurely breakfast and got there an hour later, then had to wait an hour and a half! - and I was glad to be ready to leave about 2-3 hours later when the museum was getting mobbed. You should have seen the line then.) As mentioned above, going into the Louvre through the underground shopping mall/metro station entrace can be a big time saver.

Also, I can never talk myself into visiting multiple museums on one day. You end up spending all your time getting from one to the other without time to see other things in the area. I'd rather group my sightseeing geographaically and include some walking, shopping, museum going each day rather than designate a day to see as many museums as I can cause I have a pass. I do agree if money is no object then get the five day pass and pop in and out of museums whenever you want. But it definitly doesn't seem to be a money saver, and not even all that valuable (to me anyway) as a timesaver.

Patrick..that picture was probably taken around noon or a bit before. It had been raining earlier but had settled into its apparently normal winter gloom. Of course that line continued into the pyramid, down to the lower level, then across the broad lobby to the ticket counter! No way would I have waited. We went from there to the Rodin, where there were no lines.

We had a 3 day pass and had used it for Ste Chapelle, but were there on a cloudy day. The one day the sun came out and we would have loved to have seen it again, was the day after our pass had expired and the lines went blocks, literally! Same for Notre Dame, where the lines stretched across the plaza later in the week, whereas we'd been able to just walk in (pass or no) Christmas Eve afternoon.

We just had a week and much to see, so eliminating idly waiting around was really important to getting as much done as possible in a too short period of time.

If museum passes are so easy to acquire, and everyone knows about the lines for those without passes, why aren't there lines for people WITH passes? Or, are there?

Gee, that just wouldn't be French!

For the Louvre, if you try to get on line at the Pyramid for example, you're going to wait anyway.
These days part of any line problem is security checking of bags.

When you go to the Louvre, use one of the side or underground entrances
(from the Louvre metro station, or through the Carrousel shops, entreance rue de Rivoli) and even if you don't have a pass, the line will probably be minimal

katiebug: probably for the same reasons folks show up at the Tower of London at noon when "everyone" knows to get there early, or the reason many pay full fare for economy air tickets when it is usually is totally unnecessary.

It is just that some people don't have a clue and don't even know what questions to ask or where to ask them. This is not a critricism - just an observation. The types who show up on web forums like this are in the real minority . . . .