Anne Frank House and Museum

We were there about 2 1/2 hours. I would guess for most people, this would be on the higher end. We bought our tickets online well in advance.

Time is about 2-3 hours. I believe you can only buy tickets in advance. There may be a small number offered each day, but I wouldn't risk it. IMO opinion it is one of the best authentic sights in Europe to visit. Enjoy

We spent about 75 minutes there and that felt adequate.

I’m going next week and my electronic tickets say expect to spend 1 hour. I’m curious how people ended up staying more than twice as long and wondering if I should change the dinner reservation I made nearby for 1.5 hours after our start time...

@Margaret. Granted my husband and I spend more time at museums and similar than most, I can't imagine getting thru Anne Frank in an hour. Anything less than two hours and I would have felt rushed. Why not change the reservation and if you end up with extra time, you can take a relaxed walk to the restaurant along the canals and/or stop somewhere for a cocktail/drink to fill the time

Thanks for the input! Where did you find yourselves spending extra time? Rick’s book says the tour is 1 hour so just wondering if there are additional displays or exhibitions after the audio tour.

For a variety of reasons it’s more challenging than it sounds to shift our dinner plans so I just want to get a good understanding of how people allocate their time in the museum to evaluate whether we are likely to go way over the estimated amount the museum and Rick provide.

Margaret, are you looking at a current guide book? There may have been changes/additions. It's just that one hour seems super short. There were videos and exhibits with text. It was a bit crowded so there was need to wait to read some of the exhibits. I did spend about 10 minutes in the gift store. I'm not a shopper, but no photos are allowed in the museum and I wanted to purchase post cards of the interior. I guess, your timing would stress me out. It is hard to get those tickets and it would be difficult to return to see more.

I was there in 2017 and spent about 90 minutes, if I recall correctly, another 15 in the gift shop--I wanted to buy the red plaid covered facsimile edition of her diary there as a special souvenir. You move through it in one direction, no backtracking or wandering permitted, and though the entries are timed it does get bunchy in some rooms so guides are there to restrict access until a room or area clears a bit. I had a 10 am time slot. Visiting the huis was a major event for me and I was only sorry I couldn't have been alone in any area for even a minute to fully process my feelings about being there and what it must have been like for those who lived there.

I don't recall being "ushered" thru the museum. I stayed in rooms as long or as little as I wanted. Not to say this doesn't happen during super busy times although it was sold out the day we were there so I'm assuming that would be as busy as it gets.

Thanks very much everyone for your feedback. Jules, to answer your question I am looking at the 2018 edition of Amsterdam & The Netherlands, in which Rick says to allow one hour. My tickets from the museum itself say on their face that a typical museum visit is one hour as well, so that’s why I felt fairly confident that 60-75 minutes was sufficient (we usually spend the estimated average amount of time in museum) and was surprised to see the answers of 2-3 hours to Renee’s question. It’s helpful to know some people take longer than 60-75 minutes. I’ve rearranged our plans so that we can stay longer if we want to, as I’d never want to miss out on any element of this unique museum, and I’ll try to remember to report back here on what we found worked for us. Thanks again everyone!

As an update for Renee and anyone else with the same question:

I did my tour of the Anne Frank House last week. We did not have tickets for the introductory film. Our tickets were for 3:45 and we got there about ten minutes early to join the short queue waiting to be let in at 3:45. It was 3:55 by the time we were actually going through the turnstiles to begin the tour. We weren’t ushered through but had audio guides that routed us through the house room by room. At the end, there are several rooms of additional exhibits and items on display, along with a film of people talking about the impact of Anne Frank. All told, we were in there for 75 minutes. I listened to every stop on the audio guide, read every piece of written material posted, read Rick’s tour of the House room by room, viewed every exhibit at the end, and watched the entire film at the end, so I think this time estimate should be fairly accurate. Of course you might want to take more time to absorb or move more quickly but I think 75 minutes is likely a safe estimate for the average visitor. Note that I’ve excluded any time for the gift shop as that will vary by person.

Hope this is helpful for anyone wondering about timing. Thanks so much to those who offered advice! I felt less stress having rearranged our plans so that we could spend more time there if needed, so that was helpful.

Thanks Margaret and all who shared the time spent at Anne Frank House. We will be purchasing our tickets in a couple months. I am currently reading "Anne Frank Remembered" by Miep Gies. Beautifully written.