uffizi gallery reservations

HERE'S A LINK to one site to get tickets. If I remember, it's 6.50 Euro for the ticket and 3 Euro for the reservation. When we went in late May last year, we showed up without reservations thinking they were easy to get. We easily got tickets for David but the Uffizi was fully booked a week out. You would be wise to reserve early.

Reserve as soon as you know what day and time. Your hotel can also book reservations for you.

Hi Dennis, I just booked over the phone for both the Uffizi and the Accademia. It was incredibly easy!
call 011 39 055 294 883
it is less expensive than booking online.

We made Uffizi reservations and while it did allow us to cut a significant portion of the line, we still waited over an hour to get in. What a disappointment.

Marco, what time of the year were you there? Can you give more detail on what happened?

My experiences (2 visits) were different, but my visits were in Sept. Each time I went to the reservation window about 15 minutes before my scheduled time and picked up the tix, then walked across to a line of maybe 20 people on the left side of the door. We were inside within 5 minutes.

mike, we were there mid-october of this past year. We showed up about 15-20 minutes before our time, picked up our ticket, and walked to the right door, where we were greeted by a line of about 20-30 people going from the door along the wall toward the river. However, at the same door, but going in the other direction (away from the river) there was an enormous line of tour groups. For every person/couple/family in our line, they would let in an entire tour group. And since the gallery has a limit to how many people are inside at once, you can imagine this took quite a while... like i said, we waited for at least another hour before we got in...

We had a problem last October with reservations. Apparently one of their screening machines was broken and we ended up waiting an hour before they redirected us to another line.

I would recommend at least a week in advance for reservations in October.

One suggestion: Using the phone number can be a problem as you may have a long wait for a reservation agent when you select the English option and the wait is costing money. There are probably only a limited number of English speaking agents but they all speak Italian. So if you have a friend who speaks Italian, have them call for you and select Italian.

Interesting experiences. I will be taking my family of 4 in early July. I deliberated a while if I needed to reserve or not, since I am thinking of going at around 3 pm, hoping that by that time the tail end of tour groups are on their way out.

But finally, I called Italy reservations, and agree with others how easy it was!!! I suggest calling there after 2 pm their time. It was after 6:30am PST and I breezed right through the recording and even though I said "Grazie" afterwards, the lady replied in English, "Thank you!"

I am curious what time those who waited in the reservation line went ? And, if you did not have reservations, would you say it might have doubled your wait time ?

Make a reservation by phone - it was easy. We were there in late April, had a short wait to pick up our tickets and a short wait to enter. Well worth it as the line up for people without reservations was very long.

First off, if you stay at a hotel in Florence they will all make the reservations for you. Just let the hotel know what day you wish to visit and approximate time. As for being "disappointed" because of a wait to get in, everyone else should understand the alternative. Stand in line for 4-5 hours to buy a ticket for the next day. At least that was the scene in May 2008. With a reservation we did have to que for perhaps 15-20 minutes. Given the number of people visiting this fabulous museum, the system is quite efficient.

We made reservations on April 1 to go to the Uffizi on June 17 through b-tickets.com (link in another post above). Even that far in advance, not all the time slots were available.

On the day of our reservation, we walked over to the reservations desk and picked up our tickets without waiting more than 2 minutes. We then went to the appropriate entrance and walked right in without a wait. At this time there was a line of several hundred people without reservations, waiting to get in.

Reservations made all the difference - we had reserved tickets for several sites in Florence and Rome and that made things fast, convenient and stress free. b-tickets.com worked great for ordering in advance on Florence sites.

We made reservations to go at the end of June. Quite a busy time in Florence! Since I needed 6 tickets the online booking option didn't work for us and I simply phoned, talked to an English speaking reservation agent and had my reservation numbers within 2 minutes. There was a short line to pick up the tickets and another even shorter one to get into the museum but the total wait time for us was no more than 15 minutes. Only problem was that I had to ask some staff where to pick up the tickets as the door was hidden behind a construction fence. That was another 30 second "delay".

We just returned from a trip that included Florence. We made a reservation for the Uffizi through tickitaly.com and it was worth the booking fee. We received a printed reservation voucher that we presented to the reservations desk at the Uffizi. Got our tickets, walked across the court yard, got into the short line and waited about five minutes. Our reservation was for 9:30 a.m. on June 29 and there was already a very, very long line for those who didn't have a reservation. I must point out, though, that the Uffizi is so crowded it can be very frustrating. My husband gave up and went out to a cafe while I continued to wander through the museum with my Rick Steves guide and a museum guide that I purchased. Dig deep for patience and it will be worth the effort. My favorites were the Botticelli paintings and the view of the Arno.

With regard to Marco's posting -are there particular times of the day tour groups generally come through? (such as first thing in the am, or first in the pm) We will book our reservation ahead of time, but I was wondering if I should attempt to look for times when there might not be the tour group issue, if that is possible. Maybe later on in the afternoon? Thanks

Jean, the problem with that question is there are all sorts of tours from cruise ships etc. so the timing will likely vary. We saw the same line ups in mid May, which was peak season according to our hotel, but it was really no big deal. One mistake some people make is arriving well before their reserved time. You just end up standing around. Anyway, I really wouldn't sweat it. Just pick a time that works for you and I think you'll be fine. Our wait (while both lines seemed long) was only 15 minutes or so, which is remarkable for such an amazing place. If its a bit longer? Heck you'll be in Florence where the rest of wish we could be!!!!