Notre Dam

This recent forum post talks about the new reservation system to enter the cathedral: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/france/notre-dame-re-opening-and-first-visits The 11/04/24 post by Kim has a link to a New York Times article, which says tour groups won't be allowed until Spring 2025.

With the five year wait for the reopening, I wold venture to say any visit times are fully booked, and may be for some time. There are thousands who have been waiting to see it since the reopening. If you want to attend Christmas eve or day masses, Paris is full of beautiful churches. Go to masstimes.org to find out when the services are.

I logged on this morning to the app, at about 5:30 am, and the app had slots for two people to visit the cathedral at 9 am and 9:30 am — but none others for the rest of today, all day tomorrow, and all day Thursday !!!

BUT — someone got in yesterday just showing up, and I have heard a few tales of people being able to get in without reservations by lining up for a 6 pm opening.

It’s definitely worth a try — don't give up hope ! - but no, there aren’t any group tours available yet.

I wouldn't wait until Christmas Eve. The advantage you have over Parisians like me is that we have jobs to go to and can’t take up tickets for the same morning at 9 am. But Christmas Eve, people will already be on leave with their families, so you will be competing with locals. I would try to go as soon as you can. This is the first week that the cathedral is really open to the public with good long hours.

Just something to add to Kim's details is that on the Les Frenchies FB page people are posting every day about getting in. No reservations needed after 6P but many report that by 530 they are letting people enter without reservations. I doubt it will be that way on Christmas Eve based on Kim's post but if you can go another day I'd try to do that.

Now, I'll add that I don't get ALL my news and information from FB, lol, but the number of posts on this seem to indicate it's true!

I've done a couple of trial runs, stop at the add personal information page and back out. I've noticed that the next batch of tickets (2 days out) will be available at midnight Paris time. Need to get into the queue prior and if you get to the next page too early (where pick number of tickets), just hang out there and then click Next right at midnight. The tickets that are released at this time go very quickly (5 to 10 minutes). What I don't know is if there are other times that tickets are released besides midnight. I tend to think so since others have managed to get tickets when logging in at different times.

https://resa.notredamedeparis.fr/en/reservationindividuelle/tickets

Edit: adding a link to Reddit which has a post with some good information that is being kept updated.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ParisTravelGuide/comments/1fpk7bp/the_ultimate_guide_to_the_reopening_of_notre_dame/

I followed the directions from the previous post— thank you
I was successful at getting tickets to visit for Monday 12/23. At the site I got into the “ waiting room” about 9 minutes before midnight. At a few minutes before I refreshed and then I was in the site at 11:58 pm. I hung out at the “how many” page until 12:00 am.

Lynn, that is an absolutely excellent resource. Would you mind if I post it as its own post so people really see it?

Hi! I'm Emily and I came across this forum and I wanted to introduce myself because I'm the author of the Reddit post that Lynn mentioned in her comment. I'm glad to hear that it's been helpful!

@ jenniekatz, apologies that I'm just seeing your post now, but if you're ever back in Paris and/or have any other questions about visiting Notre Dame, I'd be more than happy to help. I'm originally from Canada and I moved to Paris specifically for Notre Dame and to, quite literally, pursue a career as an expert in all things Notre Dame - or, as I like to joke, “a professional fangirl”. I'm a self-employed tour guide giving private tours that focus on the cathedral's architectural history, the restoration and its role in art, media and literature. There's truly nothing I love doing more than sharing my love and knowledge of all things Notre Dame!

(Please let me know if this comment breaks any of the Community Guidelines and I will edit/remove if needed)