Eiffel Tower Tickets

The way I remember it working is this: You can pre buy tickets on the Eiffel tower web site. However, these tickets only allow you to skip the line on the first elevator. Everyone must wait in line for the second elevator whether they bought their tickets ahead of time or not. (This is even true of the expensive tours that promise you pre-bought tickets). I am not familiar with eating at the restaurant, but that could provide an advantage on the second elevator. In 2012, we got to the Eiffel Tower 40 minutes before it opened. The lines were already very long, except for the line to walk to the second floor. We chose that line and got in fairly quickly. We were not planning on going to the top, so we took our time exploring the first level before heading up to the second level. When we got to the second level, there was no line to the top (everyone was still on the ground slowly buying tickets). There is a ticket booth on the second level, so we bought tickets and were on the top in about 10 minutes. It worked great and we are planning to do the same thing in a week when we are back in Paris. i do not know anyway to pre buy tickets to walk up.

As for walking down, anyone can do it. There is a staircase and no one "checks to see if you walked up before letting you walk down". Hope this helps.

Thank you Connie,
I think we will walk up to the second story, buy tickets to the summit and go from there. We will just get there early too...and I figure we can do our slower viewing on the way down! Thank you for the comment. Cheers!

You will actually encounter 4 lines. Two going up and two coming down. Walking up to the next level will avoid the first line but you will be involved in the other three. On busy days, which are most nice days, the lines can be a bit long.