Paris Museum Pass

Here is a post from last June (2021) that might answer your question: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/france/how-can-i-get-paris-museum-pass-in-advance-to-reserve-louvre-timed-entry.

When I was in Paris (2018), I used Viator to buy Skip the Line Museum Passes, hop on hop off tickets. In some cases you can bundle a few excursions at a time. Viator also has timed entrances to the Louvre. They sent me confirmation via e-mail, which I printed out before I left for France. If you have a cell phone you can use the digital signature on your confirmation.

I am nearly certain that you'll pay considerably more than necessary if you buy museum tickets on the Viator website. Viator marks everything up. The museums have websites of their own. Although every now and then you read about someone having a problem with a museum website (probably credit-card-related), much of the time everything goes fine, and no unnecessary money has been spent. I'd also rather trust a museum's own website to have full information on discount tickets for which I might qualify and combo tickets (though I don't know that there are any of the latter for major Paris sights).

A museum's website is also the best place for accurate info on its days and hours of operation. There are a lot of holidays in May. I'd wnat to know whether any of my target museums are closed on any of them before I committed to a schedule and started buying tickets.

You can input any number that you makeup and that works to reserve an entry time at museums as a museum pass holder. The reservation number is never checked for pass holders.

Any ticket purchased in advance gives you skip the line access, as the only line you can skip is the ticket purchase line. Security lines are mandatory, with no skip possibility. The only difference between the tickets purchased through a museum's own website or FNAC and tickets purchased from Viator is that Viator adds a middle-man markup fee. Some find value in paying more for tickets, others consider it pointless.

Before COVID there were separate security lines for those with tickets and those without; now that most places require timed tickets, the security lines are not long. After COVID is no longer a. factor I assume the old two tiered lines will be re-instituted.

When there this fall we bought our museum tickets on line from the web sites of the museums and used them on our phones and never had to wait in long lines -- those with timed entries were shown right in on time. Many museums have several lines which note what time ticket belongs in that line so if you arrive early, you get in the line for your entry time.

There are multiple discussions. Put 8, 9, or 10 0s (or whatever ## you want) to book your timeslot w/o the PMP in hand. Works at Versailles too.

I used my cell phone number as my serial number and it worked to provide a pretty official looking ticket.

Have you tried the new e-ticket option?

We just purchased Paris Museum Passes for the end of June and you can download your tickets after you purchase them online. (You can also either print and bring them with you, or show the ticket on your phone once you're at the museums.)

There's a serial number on your ticket that you use to reserve a time slot.

Another question: does anyone know if you can change time slots once you've booked for the Louvre? Our trip is still several weeks away so I'm concerned with booking a time slot so far in advance and not being able to change it.

Appreciate the wealth of information on this forum!

@DBMom- Well I did not know this. I just went back to the email with the ticketing information and see this statement regarding changes:

“Please note that you can log into your account to change the ticket holder information, date and/or time slot up to midnight (French time) of the day before your visit.”

So you CAN change the time BUT my concern would be that the day in question would have sold out. I’d take a look at the website and look to see how they are filling. I recently visited twice. On one of the days they were completely sold and had big signs up at the entrances saying so. The other visit I went in at 9A so am not sure if they sold out that day or not.

@Pam,

Agreed. I think we're going to go ahead and book now so we don't run into the chance that we don't get to visit while we're there (only 3 days). Hopefully we won't need to test the rescheduling of our time slot.