Granada - is Alhambra tour guide necessary?

Reservations are a MUST, and many months in advance, but not sure a guide is. We did RS' walking tour on our own.

Ben,
It's imperative for you to book your Alhambra tickets way in advance, as far as 3 months in advance.
We toured the Alhambra Complex on our own.
You can read more about the Alhambra here: Alhambra-Patronato.es

Enjoy your trip!

For sure get a reservation. Guide is not necessary.

At least when I saw it, there was an audioguide to the Nasrid Palace. I remember reading on this forum a few years ago that there was a temporary suspension of audioguides, but I believe that has been resolved. If they now have audioguides again, you don't need to hire a human guide, unless of course you prefer that.

No guide is needed. Michelin Green Guide or another guide book. Better yet, rent audio guides.

Booked our tickets three months ago for our visit last week. No need for a guided tour. We hired audio guides which cover the entire complex.

Of course you can do it without a guide. However I think it is a place where a guide certainly deepens both your understanding and pleasure and allows you to move about the enormous complex in a way to both minimize crowds and maximize both your time and enjoyment. We used 'Margarita Ortiz de Landazuri' when we were there a few yeasr ago. She was absolutely brilliant and I would recommend her without reservation. We did contact her in May for our October trip. I think she is quite highly respected and you should set it up sooner rather than later. Her tour covered everything and the Alhambra is just mind boggling. Have so much fun. info@alhambratours.com

Generally, I'm not a fan of taking guided tours, but I think the Alhambra is a case where it is worthwhile.

The "complex" is large and has a varied/confusing history to which I don't believe a few pages in a bog-standard guidebook can do justice. If you do want to go "by the book", then consider buying one of the Alhambra-specific guidebooks.

The audio-guide may be better (I have no experience), but I'm not sure it really covers the whole sight - and you cannot ask it questions, of course.

You'll quite possibly only visit once, so get the most of it and hire a guide is my recommendation.

Whatever you decide, don't delay once you know your dates - the non-guided general tickets sell out quickly and even guided tours can become fully booked well in advance

Just returned. I would say no to the tour guide. I made a copy of Rick's Alhambra section and brought that. I also bought the guidebook the night before and read thru much of it. I noted the tour guides were going thru at a much faster pace than I would like, but then most people did the Alhambra, Alcazar, etc., at a faster pace than we did, so take that into account. Sometimes people weren't paying full attention because they were trying to get their pics in.

Another note--Tickets are timed for every half hour. We had 11am tix. That gives you until 11:30 to get in. We approached the line (and went to the front at 11:15. That way we were behind our group and ahead of the 11:30 group so we didn't feel like we had the crowds to deal with as much. We did note that guided groups do come in at all sorts of times, not necessarily on the hour or half hour. We just tried to stay ahead of them or let them pass us.

I will admit to occasionally pausing and eavesdropping when I hear an English speaking guide.