Paris Museum Pass

Hi Jim. There are pros and cons to buying the pass, and several aspects you may not have thought of. For a lot of good recent info, put 'Paris Museum Pass' in the Search bar above, then click on 'Travel Forum' and then 1 or 2 year time frame. Have a great trip!

The Paris Museum pass offers you nothing more than if you had purchased tickets in advance from the museum's own website. The PMP covers the whole price of entry but does not allow re-entry.

In addition to the good advice above, be sure to spend some quality time with the Paris Museum Pass website:

https://www.parismuseumpass.fr/en

Especially, read through the FAQ section as it'll answer a lot of questions:
https://www.parismuseumpass.fr/en/faq

This page will tell you which museums advise or require an advance, timed-entry reservation to ensure entry, and how to do that:
https://www.parismuseumpass.fr/en/reservation

You do not need reservations for the less-visited museums, which is nice for some flexibility.

We plan to visit five to eight different sites in our eight-day visit
to Paris

The pass comes only in 2, 4 and 6-day amounts and you must use those days consecutively, meaning if you have a 4-day pass and don't use it for one of those 4 days, you can't make that time up.

There is another pass you may find beneficial for your trip.

The Passion Monuments Subscription is €70 for you and a guest, €40 for individual membership. It is valid for 1 year from date of purchase and can be renewed at a discount.

It allows free unlimited admission to over 90 sites in France. For your Paris trip this would include Sainte-Chapelle, Arc de Triomphe, The Pantheon, Conciergerie, Hotel de la Marine.

You also get to use special entrances at some sites or skip the line security at others.

In addition there are other benefits like discounted tickets to cultural events, discounts on book/gift shop purchases...

I used the pass in April including a discounted ticket to a concert at Sainte-Chapelle.

I’ll just add that not all museums need to be booked ahead of time. The Louvre-yes, Orangerie -yes. The Orsay if you don’t have a museum pass. Sainte-Chapelle - yes. Many of the rest you can just walk in.

Which ones are you considering?

Do be aware that the Louvre limits the Museum Pass entries. So if you go with the pass and are going to the Louvre book your time right away.

It looks like we can save money with the PMP versus buying individual tickets directly on each museum's website. For example, a six-day pass is $144, or an average of $18.33 per day. This would allow us to enter any of the more than 50 places in the PMP once during the six continuous days covered by the pass. The actual savings will depend on how many sites we choose to visit, and the price of an individual ticket. We would reserve in advance a date and time and just show up approximately 30 minutes before the reserved entry time and join the line for the security check which may take up to 30 minutes. Am I correct?

In the past the Museum Pass allowed multiple entries within its time period, so you could visit the Louvre more than once, for instance. Now, just one entry is allowed, so the value of the pass is not what it used to be. Also, figure out if you will have the time for your chosen visits within your 2 or 4 or 6 day time frame. If it were up to me I would go for the Passion Monuments Pass with its better flexibility. Try to chart a comnparison between the two passes and just getting your tickets individually. Be sure to factor in how much time you want to spend in a location as well so you don't overschedule your pass days.

I will. I haven't been able to determine how much time we can spend after entering the various sites. I understand that we will have a timed entry reservation. Once inside, can we stay as long as we like? For example, if we enter Notre Dame, do we have an unlimited time to explore (this will be our first visit to Paris), or will be ushered out after a set time like 30 minutes or whatever. Here in America, my wife loves detail and could spend all day in a museum. Do the various sites have different requirements about duration of visit? I have not been able to unearth this kind of detail on the official museum websites.

You'll have no trouble spending as long as you like once you enter.

Notre Dame will let you stay all day unless there is a special service or something else occurring out of the ordinary. You could also consider attending a service.

All the places in Paris I listed above under the Passion Monuments Pass will allow you to take as much time as you like. And you can return as often as you like.

The Louvre has 3 wings. Once you exit a wing, you can not reenter with the same ticket. So it is recommended to have a plan on what you want to see so you don't miss it before exiting that wing.

If you decide to go with the Paris Museum Pass, pay close attention to closing days of the various sites so you don't "waste" a pass day. Also, some sites limit the number of advanced bookings for Paris Museum pass holders. So be very careful you understand what you're buying.

“We would reserve in advance a date and time and just show up approximately 30 minutes before the reserved entry time and join the line for the security check which may take up to 30 minutes”

Really only the Louvre and maybe Saint Chapelle have long security lines. The Orsay you get into the designated line for the Museum Pass so length of time will vary. Orangerie has a separate line for timed entries and Museum Passholders and it’s not a long wait before your timed entry. Notre Dame is free and reports are that the line moves fast.

There are also a number of free museums from the City of Paris including the Carnavalet, the Petit Palais and the Museum of the Liberation.

And a reminder, with the Passion Monuments Subscription you will skip the security line at Sainte-Chapelle. Just show your pass to the monitor and they will send you to the front of the line.

Thanks for all the great responses. Sorry to bring this up one more time. Fodors writes that a benefit of the Paris Museum Pass is that it would allow us to "bypass the line" at some places. If we decide not to purchase a museum pass and instead just purchase timed-entry tickets from the official museum web sites directly, will we "bypass the lines" (same benefit as Paris Museum Pass)?

The only line you bypass is a ticket buying line you will still be in the incredibly long security lines at all these places.

The “bypass the line” statement from guidebooks or 3rd party sellers is just an annoying false statement. As Carol says, a timed entry ticket or a museum pass both have you avoid a ticket line but NO ONE avoids the security line which is what slows things down.

I’m surprised Fodors is still saying that without qualifying it. I haven’t looked at the latest RS guides so don’t know if he too is still saying the same. To me this advice predates Covid which is when the busier museums started going with timed entries to try and control crowds and help with social distancing.