YES, I got the tickets I wanted for the Anne Frank house by going online, through the official site https://www.annefrank.org/en/museum/tickets/ , 6 weeks in advance. It was a bit of a trial but persistence paid off.
I did all my homework ahead of time, familiarized myself with the system, set my alarm... and it was still a wildly frustrating exercise. Even if you do go online at the appointed time, be prepared. I hope you don’t have to go through what I did – not everyone does – but don’t give up until you get those tickets!
FIRST, double check the time difference, especially with DST kicking in in March. It starts later in Amsterdam than in Canada. I ended up getting up an hour too early - Doh! - but better than an hour too late.
When I did log in promptly at 9:59 am Amsterdam time, I was shocked to see that my place in the queue was 3257 out of 3865! Not quite what I had anticipated but, as I told myself, at least I was in the queue.
The on-screen instructions were clear "Do not refresh this page" or you will lose your place in the queue. I wasn't about to refresh anything! At this point, I was almost as excited about the prospect of going back to bed as I was about getting my precious tickets. But THEN... an alert appeared to tell me that my place in line had “expired”. Specifically, it read, “Please note: No activity was detected. Your spot in the queue has been expired. Please refresh the page to try again.” Say WHAT?!?!?
I clicked on the link provided to refresh the page. Spin spin spin. New position in queue: 3532 out of 4901, with a 17 minute wait. Argh! You’ve GOT to be kidding. This went on many, many times over during the next 45 minutes! One time, my place in the queue even ticked down to 3rd in line before the system crashed and I had to start all over again somewhere in the 3000s or 4000s. I’m glad I didn’t give up but I did think verrry hard about it every time the system crashed. At some point, my husband had joined me, and we resorted to using both our laptops and our phones to stay in the queue - definitely not good for the system but all's fair in love and war and tickets at 4:30 am.
AT LONG LAST, almost an hour after my initial login, I succeeded in getting through and I got the exact date and time I was looking for. The choices were still wide open despite my fear that 4000 people had surely gotten there before me. The system is simply not equipped to manage so many people logging on at the same time.
So, if you run into this kind of scenario, don't give up. Your persistence will be rewarded.
FYI: Two days later, I checked again, and found that there were many late afternoon/evening slots still available for the week in which I booked, May 4-11. And there were NO issue with the system crashing.
Posted by
1764 posts
Congrats! We bought tickets two years ago, but the system must be different because there was no seeing a position in the queue. What did happen was a systemcrash right at the exact time I could log in. So I decided it would have been better to wait a couple of minutes later to try. But who knows?
It's worth the effort.
Posted by
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
5770 posts
Glad it worked out. I I'm not sure if I'd have the patience. If it's the period in history that interests you as well as Anne Frank, I'd recommend the Resistance Museum as well; no need to book in advance, no need to line up, and hardly anyone inside. It's a highly underrated museum.
Posted by
OP
2 posts
The Dutch Resistance Museum is definitely on our list of must-sees. Thanks!
Posted by
USA
455 posts
I got in just fine today! Yes, official site. But I waited a few hours after they opened because I was getting evening tickets.
Posted by
Haarlem, Netherlands
211 posts
You may find the new National Holocaust Museum of interest as well: https://jck.nl/en/location/national-holocaust-museum
Posted by
San Franciso Bay Area, USA
1174 posts
Sorry for the problems you had. Getting tickets were a big challenge for me as well. I got caught in the daylight savings time difference and I was an hour late to the line. Even then, there were 1600 people in front of me. Once I was able to purchase, there was only late afternoon and early evening. Got the tickets after about 30 minutes on the phone at 3:00 a.m. PDT.
Posted by
Toledo, Ohio
29 posts
Thank you so much for this post!
I’ll be doing the early morning thing in a month. It’s nice to know about the hoops I’ll be jumping through - and the aggravation I might be facing.
Posted by
Middletown, RI
1568 posts
Another vote for the Dutch Resistance Museum. Although I think it took an apologetic step backwards when they redid it a few year ago, it is still very interesting and very much worth visiting. As noted, no lines or advance tickets needed either.
Posted by
Reston VA
529 posts
Another vote for adding the Dutch Resistance Museum, and also to add the Corrie Ten Boom house in Haarlem to round it out.
Your experience with the Anne Frank house is a bit more wild than ours was, but I do remember doing a dry run ahead of time, then the setting an alarm to wake up, getting our tickets, and feeling like I was always one step away from failing. It was worth the headache, but also a good reminder for folks to be prepared.
Posted by
TX, USA
6026 posts
What an ordeal you had! I can all too easily picture it! But I am glad you had success in the end. :)
I was there about a week ago (early April), having purchased my tickets on the first day possible. However I had done several checks ahead of time and seen that evening tickets remained available longer, with daytime tickets gone quickly. In planning, I left a whole day empty but focused around being able to go later in the day (which I know isn’t possible for everyone).
So I just logged in when I woke up and was able to quickly purchase my 5:00pm tickets on the day I wanted. That left an entire day to do other things.
I am glad I missed the middle of the night excitement!