First Time in Paris - Eiffel Tower Question

When we got to the entrance, there was a looong line of folks without reservations slowly moving through security. There was a door open next to the one with the line and a small sign that said something like "advance reservations." We were waved in by a security guard who cut us in line and sent us directly to the elevator. Whole thing took maybe three minutes. That was a couple of years ago, but I would guess things haven't changed much.

We had 11:00am reservations this past June. Got there really early around 9:30am because we had heard about the long outer security line. There was no line at all so we breezed through that. Had to hang out there until they let us in for our 11:00am time frame. They let us in at 10:52 and this is to then go through the second security screening before getting on the elevator. There are separate entrances for the second srcurity screening depending on if you have a ticket reserved or not. The people at the info booth will point out which line you need to go to. We took the elevator to the 2nd level and immediately got in line to the summit. It wasn’t long at all at that time. Took in the views from the summit and then pretty much had no line to get back to the 2nd level. By the time we left the second level to take the elevator to head out it was getting much busier for the lines going up. We were really happy with our 11:00am ticket time. Have fun!