Our only option for visiting the museum is this Monday. (It's closed Tuesdays and May 1 for a holiday). Advance tickets sold out early and our flight does not arrive until noon. Is there a line for standby or same-day tickets that we could try in the late afternoon? Thanks for any advice!
Posted by
283 posts
Might be too late to write them for advice or their thoughts on a very late afternoon entry. I have found staff to be very gracious, accommodating and helpful. Depending on your plans, I would be there at the last ticket entry and see what happens. Have a Plan B just in case due to maybe fire regs or some other issue that it's not possible for you to gain entry. Maybe a hint: ask to go to the gift shop and maybe then you can bypass the security or the need to show a ticket and get to the ticket window inside. Or you may be very lucky and you gain entry. Only other hiccup I see is if there are no cashiers as all tickets must be prepurchased. Good luck.
Posted by
Paris
10187 posts
There are cashiers, as they do sell tickets onsite. Whether non-prepurchased tickets will be available on any given day at any given time is of course another question. But it's worth a try, and the only way to know is to go see.
Asking to go to the gift shop is not going to get you anywhere, and they certainly aren't going to allow anyone to enter while bypassing security. You have to have full access to the museum to get anywhere near the gift shop, given its location.
Posted by
OP
Granger
5 posts
Just to update and clarify for anyone planning a trip to the L’Orangerie Museum. They definitely do sell same-day admissions, so there is a way to see it even if you don’t have an advance ticket time. However, be sure to get there as early as you can. They admit 10-20 people at a time from the standby line and the wait when we were there was about 20-30 minutes. Your best bet, of course, is to buy an advance ticket if you know when you will want it – probably two weeks in advance, but no less than a week out. We were not able to get in line until 4:30. The cashier windows close at 5:15, but they cut off admissions at 5 so they can process everyone by 5:15. At 5 p.m. there were just 12 of us left in line so we were hopeful, and the head usher argued on our behalf, but the woman in charge of the cashiers said no and sent the 12 of us away. We will try again if we ever get back to Paris.
Posted by
Paris
10187 posts
I'm sorry. That is disappointing. Thanks for coming back to explain what you learned on the ground.