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Paris Museums with Kids - D'Orsay, Louvre, Paris Pass?

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Hi all,

We arrive in Paris on Monday November 4 in the afternoon and will be flying out Monday November 11. So we would basically have 6 full days in Paris. We are a family of five and my kids are 3, 8, and 9 years. I am thinking of visiting the following museums and am confused over when to do them, and whether the Paris Pass is worth it:

1) The Louvre - thinking of doing this over two days. First time to go on a kid friendly tour to see the highlights, and to go a second time to see the Islamic Art section (we are arab and muslim and apparently they have the biggest Islamic Art collection in the world). Do you have any recommendations for a kid friendly tour? So far the top two on my list are the Paris Muse tour and the Context travel tour. Alternatively we would do the tour with the guide which lasts two hours, take a break and eat, and then visit the islamic art section. But that would be maybe 5 hours in the louvre which would be too much. What do you think?

2) Orsay: Not sure if its better to do a tour of this or just go without a tour.

3) Orangerie: This is mostly because I have never been. How is it with kids? Should we skip? Go to another museum instead?

4) Versailles: My husband and kids really want to go. Otherwise I would skip :) Any good book recommendations to prep my kids for this visit? The tours are too expensive so would do this on our own.

5) Institute de Monde De Arabe - We would love to go to this. Like the Orsay museum and Versailles, it is closed on Monday.

When should we go to the Orsay museum and the Louvre? Which days are the least crowded and what times are the best to go? Is November that bad when it comes to crowds?

If we do a tour for both the Orsay and the Louvre which includes the tickets, would it be worth it to buy the Paris pass? We would basically then use it for the Orangerie, Institute de Monde De Arabe, Versailles, and going in the Louvre a second time. But then with the Paris pass, my understanding is that you have to use it on consecutive days, so if we got it, what would be the order we should do the tours and then what day should we start using the Paris Pass? Thanks so much.

Posted by
734 posts

Do you mean the Paris pass or the Paris museum pass. The Paris pass is rarely worth it because they’re charging you for a bunch of stuff you’ll never get around to doing some of which is not worth doing if you’ve had the time.

for the museum pass, you can only go to Louvre once. So for your other visit, you would have to buy a ticket. It also looks like you’re probably thinking one museum a day or two at most - that means you’d have to buy the five or six day pass. Unless you’re going to go some other smaller museums I think you’re probably better off booking directly on the website and booking the date and time entry you want. One of the other problems with the museum passes for the Louvre is they don’t open up a ton of museum pass options so it’s better to just book a ticket that way you know you’re going when you want to go, etc.

Posted by
8599 posts

FWIW. the Louvre lilmits the number of slots for those with the Museum Pass -- given six days I'd just book separate tickets. Some places e.g. Louvre require kid tickets to be booked although free. Others they just walk in with you.

Posted by
463 posts

Can you get your husband to take the kids to Versailles while you do something else? Like go to the Louvre, the Orsay or the Orangerie? This is a whole lot of museum time for children this age. Unless your kids are very used to this type of schedule, I would only attempt the Islamic art section of the Louvre and the Institute de Monde De Arabe. For both, I would want a guide who is experienced with young children and probably a native English speaker (or whatever language you speak at home). I find that young children have a very hard time understanding heavily accented English.

Posted by
977 posts

In general it’s asking a lot of young children to cover all of those museums in a 6 day span. Yours may be exceptional kids, but your museum itinerary plus Versailles is a lot in my opinion. Five hours at the Louvre is much for adults. Le Orangerie is a small manageable wonderful museum.

Posted by
734 posts

Oh, by the way, there are no uncrowded days at the Louvre or Orsay, just pick the ones that work for your plan. There’s no one day that’s going to be better than the others. It’s going to be fully booked every day at both of those museums based on recent history.

Posted by
8599 posts

They are always crowded but TUESDAY is definitely the worst at the Orsay often with every line out front regardless of type of line being 100+ long

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