Questions on Vienna Opera, Schoenbrunn Palace, Bratislava vs Graz

We just love Vienna.

Let me just address Bratislava. We took the train there from Budapest on the way to Vienna. We spent 3 days there resting after a couple of weeks of hard touring.

It's a beautiful small city, and one that's very high tech/high income. The old town is very nice, and they have a modern mall overlooking the river that's large and has a bunch of outside restaurants. It's only 39 miles, and we took a bus to the Vienna train station where the buses load up.

We very much enjoy the Schoenbrunn and the Hofburg Palace downtown. The Hapsburgs really knew how to live the high life. The other museums in The Ring are also fabulous and worth seeing.

My husband and I attended the Vienna Opera on a Saturday night in a box seat. We wore dress-casual clothing--nice, but not formal. We were comfortable. You should be just fine. Btw, afterward we had Sacher torte at the Hotel Sacher. We returned to our rented apartment @ midnight and turned on the TV since we weren't sleepy--just in time for a live MLS game of our team, the New York Red Bulls! Couldn't believe it was televised live in Vienna. So, from the opera to MLS, priceless. Enjoy Vienna.

You can do about about a 3 hour round trip door to door to Bratislava which is nice, or a 6 1/2 hour round trip to Budapest, door to door, which is nice +++++++++ Either way, grab a guide to get the most out of it. And if your choice speaks to you well, you can always grab a room for the night. Since you are interested in Opera, maybe do an opera trip to one.

I can maybe address the opera question…

We are going to Vienna in June and want to see the opera. We made a request on the Vienna Opera website called a ‘binding ticket request’. You could specify a date and price range, along with your contact info and credit card info. Then if tickets are available they contact you. Well the good news is that this past weekend we received an email that we got tickets for our selected date!

However we joined this waitlist months ago-I have no idea if you have a shot at getting tickets this way given that your trip is next month. Probably worth a try. We thought our chance of getting tickets was pretty slim, but I guess you never know:)

And the Sisi ticket…
I also had the same question about the Sisi ticket, incidentally. We decided to get the Classic Pass for the Schoenbrunn since it included the outdoor attractions for a few euros more than the Grand Tour. And it definitely can be timed entry (which seemed a good idea in June). We will buy Hofsburg Palace separately on site. So we’ve decided against the Sisi ticket in our case.

Pre-COVID, my daughter stood in line and was able to get one of the cheap standing room tickets. Obviously, it involved a lot of standing, both to get the ticket, and then to stand for the performance. She said she couldn't see anything, as the standing room box is many people deep, but the music was great. And as folks were all jammed in, dress wasn't important. She didn't last for the entire performance, but was happy that she did it. I can't remember how far in advance she had to get in line, I'm guessing 90 minutes. You can observe when the line outside the Opera starts. Good luck!