Dali Museum and Parc Guell Tickets

I gather from informed posts on this forum that Barcelona barely has an off-season. That said, I do not know that Parc Guell often totally sells out. I would monitor ticket availability on the park website on a daily basis to see how sales are going. The "Check ticket availability" link on the website isn't working for me (not a new problem--apparently a website bug), but you can go through the purchase process to access the calendar and times available. As I write this I see that Monday is sold out and Tuesday tickets are available at 8:30 AM and from noon until closing. Many of the time slots indicate "last tickets available", so there may be more sold-out Tuesday slots by the end of today (Sunday). For Wednesday there are no tickets available for 10 AM - noon. For Thursday the periods 10 AM - 11 AM are sold out. It appears that mornings are more popular than afternoons, which is fortunate for you. You cannot buy tickets at the park, no matter how many remain unsold.

I visited the Dali Museum in May this year. I bought my ticket online some days in advance. If you'll day-tripping from Barcelona, you will need to coordinate your museum entry time with your train tickets.

You have two rail choices to Figueres: fast trains (AVANT and the pricier but not faster AVE), going to the Figueres Vilafant Station, and regional trains going to the Figueres Station. Figueres Vilafant is about 1 mile from the museum; there's a bus synchronized with the train schedule, but if the train is late, you'll have to walk or take a taxi. Figueres Station is about 0.6 miles from the museum.

The fast trains from Barcelona Sants to Figueres Vilafant take about 55 minutes each way; the regional trains to Figueres take nearly 2 hours each way and sometimes considerably longer. At the moment it appears you will pay 35.80 euros round-trip on one of the fast trains unless you select the 7:05 AM departure. Usually the regional trains are cheaper, but the Renfe website doesn't list them, so I don't know what the fare is.

I was staying in Figueres and bought a first-time-slot ticket for a Fridaiy. The museum was blissfully uncrowded initially, but soon a tour group (or possibly multiple groups) showed up, and the main floor got crowded. It's actually a good-size museum, so I went upstairs for awhile. When I went back down it was a lot less crowded and I was able to enjoy seeing everything. It was a very rainy day, which may have affected non-group traffic.

If you click on an individual date on the museum website's calendar, it will show you how many tickets remain available for each time-slot; it appears that the first time slot is popular but that people don't necessarily tend to buy tickets far in advance. I was surrounded by French-speaking folks at the museum; I wonder whether Friday might be busier than Monday-Thursday.

The co-managed jewelry collection in a nearby building is definitely something worth seeing, and it is free with a ticket to the Dali Theatre-Museum for the same day. I was told that one can see the jewelry museum first, if desired.

[I didnt read acravan's post, but will say that] when we went to the Dali Museum in July with 5 ppl, qe bought our tickets on site (not pre-visit) at the door and it was easy-peasy. We did arrive 10 minutes before opening. The line at that point was maybe 10 ppl deep.
We did het tickets for Park Guell ahead of time online
No tips, as they were both completely straightforward. As you won't be there in the scorching heat like we were, you dont need the tip to go to P.G. first thing in the a.m. I will say that the neighborhood south-a-little-west (south yes, west I think) of PG is charming. We walked to PG so got to walk through it and found it a nice local neighborhood without lots of tourist rah rah

Maybe book Parc Guell for the afternoon after your visit to Sagrada Familia?

We combined Sagrada Familia with Park Guell as suggested by RS (at least in his 2010 book) and that worked well for us. It involves a walk up Avenida de Gaudi and then a bust ride to Parc Guell (I think it is bus 92 but that may have changed). I have a funny story about the bus ride if you are interested.

Based on what all you wonderful folks have shared, I think we'll buy our tickets before we leave on our trip.
It'll be good for my piece of mind. And we'll likely buy our train tickets to Figueres ahead as well to make sure we arrive at the right time.

I would love to hear your funny bus story (sorry I can't see your name while I'm typing this). Funny travel stories are the best travel stories!

They enhanced the Parc Guell experience recently by including a free shuttle-bus ticket with each admission. I think the bus departs from a reasonably nearby (but downhill!) Metro station. I agree that it's a nice walk back to the center of tourist Barcelona from Parc Guell, if you have the time; it's a bit over 2 miles to Placa de Catalunya. I think that neighborhood you would be traversing is Gracia.

We did Parc Guell two days ago and it was very busy. We bought our tickets online a few weeks ahead for 9 am and were glad we arrived before it got so crowded. Take the Metro line that goes to the Alfons X stop and the Bus Guell departs from there. It's a 15 minute bus ride. You are dropped off at the entrance to the park area and there is about a 15 minute walk to the monumental (ticketed) area but there are Gaudi designed areas along the way that you'll want to see. Allow 2-3 hours for the total visit.