uffizi and accademia reservations

Ok, the official site for Florence's museums is here. If you click "booking" you will see how to do it. Basically, you call and get an English-speaking operator and you tell them when and how many people and which museum and you get a number that you take to the museums and you pay the fee plus THREE euros extra. You don't pay anything out of pocket until you show up. What you did was book through a third party, who not only made you pay more for your reservation, but made you pay for it up front. Just get a cheap phone card at Target or WalMart where calling Italy is pennies a minute and do it yourself. Money is better in your pocket than some third party who is preying on unsuspecting tourists :)

thanks for that! i understood the booking was 3 extra, but the place i tried was more like 5 extra. i did not give them my cc number, so i'll probably cancel my reservation with them and just do it through the official site. thanks!

oh, but i can't book online there =-( bah, it's worth the extra 3 euros not to have to buy a phone card and make the phone calls. i mean, a phone card is gonna cost me at least 5 bucks, right? or not?

No, sorry you have to actually call.Yeah, calling cards cost a few dollars at major stores like Target, etc., but I'm one of those kooky people who uses those for my long-distance calls too, so I always have one around, so I guess it was no big deal for me to use a few of the minutes to call Italy and other places. If you buy one of the major phone cards (I think Target sells AT&T brand and probably many others) they even have access numbers so that you can use the card overseas to call home for very good rates, so if you were to want to do it yourself and get a phone card, you wouldn't be wasting the rest of it. for me I must admit it's more of a principle than the money. These middleman websites are just trying to gouge tourists who don't know they can do it themselves for less. LOLOne final thing would be.... see if your hotel will do it for you? Mine offered to do it for me for the Uffizi and Accademia but I did a couple of the others myself and called.

Not paying the reservation fee up front is a good deal. When we got to the Uffizi on New Years'Eve, there was absolutely no line. So we didn't use our reservation, walked into the regular line and saved our family of four 3 EUR each. Also, if you pay ahead and something delays you, your money is lost. Making the reservations with a calling card costs pennies and saves the gouging. With the poor exchange rate, those kinds of expenses really add up. Italy is full of better places to spend money!

I just emailed my hotel and asked them to please make my reservations for me. They did it very quickly and fREE and emailed me back with my confirmation numbers. You should just ask your hotel to do it for you! They are usually happy to since they want you to stay with them. =)

i'm not staying at a hotel, i'm staying in a hostel. 5 euros vs 3 doesn't seem like a huge gauge. they asked for my credit card, but i didn't give it and i instead checked "pay offline." it was unclear whether i had to pay in advance for a reservation. someone should have their hotel make a reservation for me =-)

Interesting, I haven't heard of this type of reservation before. But are you sure that the 5 euros is not in ADDITION to the 3 you pay at the museum upon collecting your ticket? Well regardless, I hope it works out for you and that you have a good time, that is really all that matters in the end :)

hmm, no, i'm not sure that it's not in addition. and i haven't gotten a confirmation, so i don't know that it even worked. i might be able to get a friend of mine in italy to make the reservations for us, or i guess i might just get a phone card and do it myself. at any rate, i haven't lost any money yet! thanks for all your advice.

If you can't get a reservation just get the Accademia close to closing time and you can walk right in, after paying of course! I do this with most of my guests that come to visit since it's a small museum and you don't need to spend a lot of time there. Uffizi I've gone to the museum window the day before and gotten tickets.