Schindlers Factory & Rynek Museum

Can't help you with the other bits, but re the Schindler factory museum...yes, it's very popular (an understatement). When we were there in summer of 2018 (peak tourist season), we had no advance tickets, and just one afternoon to spend on that. We showed up in the afternoon, the place was crowded, they were turning away many people (a few of whom were getting visibly angry and demanding to buy tickets). We had already purchased the "Krakow card". We walked up to the guard, showed our Krakow cards, and were quickly waved in. I don't know if that has changed, but it worked magic for us.

I am seeing the same thing you are. They have changed the booking process since my visit to Krakow. I can only speculate that either they've reduced the number of tickets being sold or tour companies have started buying them more heavily. I suppose there's also the possibility of some sort of website glitch. There's a telephone number provided near the bottom of this webpage: https://www.muzeumkrakowa.pl/tickets-booking. I suggest calling to ask whether more tickets for your two potential dates will be loaded in the future.

Krakow was full of tourists during the summer of 2018. The Schindler Factory was sold out on the day I visited (and Auschwitz tickets were sold out for the next eight days), but it was nothing like this.

I don't know anything about the Rynek Underground.

If you click this link "soon" you should see how I expect the Schindler Factory booking engine to work, with 5 red boxes for the timeslots on May 29th that still have tickets avaialble, and the number of tickets available noted in each of those timeslot boxes. So, you may be seeing days with just a single ticket left - displayed as a single red box that gives the available timeslot and "avail: 1" as the remaining tickets.

I noticed that they've modified the online booking system since I used it (fall 2018) to have separate booking processes for individuals vs groups. That's good news because it means that at least they're allocating a number of tickets exclusively for individuals.

I note that the group tickets in May are fully sold out. Unless all of those tours, in turn, are booked, you still would have a chance of seeing the Schindler Factory through a tour, albeit at the higher price of a tour.

For the Rynek Underground, as you correctly noted, the free tickets for Tuesdays can only be booked 14 days in advance. And they probably get snapped up quickly. Tuesdays beyond the 14 days (such as in May) are not showing availability because they haven't released those tickets yet.

I would suggest that you check the site daily for a while and see if you can find out on which day of the week they release the Tuesday tickets. Or if they respond to your email, ask them on which date and time they release Tuesday tickets.

Then be online at that time (whatever time of night or day) to have a chance of getting some of the free Tuesday tickets. Of course, you run the risk that your other dates may be sold out by then, and you'd be out of luck. I suspect they recognize this will funnel the non-risk takers into purchasing tickets, rather than taking their chance to wait for free ones.

I’m glad this was posted. I was planning to visit the museum on 3/29 (a Sunday). I just checked and there are no tickets available. Those who have been - is online the only way to buy tickets? Can I show up on the day and buy a ticket? Thanks.

You can buy tickets at the door, subject to availability. I've seen comments of people being turned away after the day's supply is given out. So it's smart to go early, and expect to wait in a line.

I've also read of people who have bought the Krakow card and gained skip-the-line entry using that.

I would not count on buying a walk-up ticket. My experience during the summer of 2018 was that I had a first-entry-time ticket, and when I walked up to the door a few minutes early, there was a "no tickets available" sign already posted. So I think--at least in 2018--they didn't hold back tickets for sale at the door. That could have changed, of course, but I'd be haunting that website daily (tours might release tickets they do not need), and I'd call the phone number on the webpage I linked to in my earlier post.

There's no harm in going by the factory before opening time to see if something is available if you are unwilling to sign up for a tour.

Are you going to any other cities in Poland? There are good, historically-oriented sites and museums focusing on the WWII period in both Gdansk and Warsaw as well. The others are not as crowded as the Schindler Factory.

We just went to the Schindler's Factory Museum in September 2019. Because we like to plan most of our activities in advance, we signed up for a guided tour and had no problem getting four tickets for the day we wanted. I always find guided tours beneficial to get an oral guide well versed in history instead of just reading signs. I can't remember how far in advance we bought our tickets.

If you go for a last-minute ticket, you should be there when they open and come back at the time for the ticket you get, assuming they have any to sell for the same-day. It is not realistic to depend on getting tickets for a free day to anything, anywhere.

I enjoyed our visit, but make sure you understand that this is primarily a museum of the occupied-Krakow experience, not purely a "Schindler" museum. That's not a bad thing, but it can be misunderstood before your actual visit.