Hello,
I plan to buy online ticket for Madrid Royal Palace for September 30, or October 1, but debating whether to buy guided tour or not. One concern I have is that at the end of the tour, visitors are let out of the palace, not allowed to go back in for more detailed look at our own time. This happened to us once at a different European museum. Does anyone know this would be the case for Royal Palace?
If buying self-guided ticket, the advantage is self-paced, but wondering whether there is good English narrative in the palace?
Appreciate any response!
Posted by
Brooklyn, NY
4262 posts
We used the audio guide but booked a tour of the kitchens, only way you can see them. The tour was in Spanish but we just used the audio guide. Why the kitchen is included on the audio guide but you need a tour guide I don’t understand. Anyway, after the kitchens we had to exit. So, if your tour includes the kitchens you probably have to exit.
Posted by
OP
Virgina US
25 posts
Thank you Barbara for the reply. I saw from a tripadvisor post that guided tour will not allow people linger longer. So we better just buy the guided tour and add on an audio guide. It is strange today that the online ticket website has no guided tour available for my date like yesterday did. All available is self-guided tour with early time slots that were not available yesterday.
Posted by
107 posts
Having been to the Royal Palace last April and having taken the guided tour in English, I would recommend going through the Palace by yourself. There were many tour groups in each room at the same time and it was hard to hear our guide let alone understand his English. If you go by yourself , you can wait until the tour groups clear the room so you can take pictures without strangers in them. The guide also hurried us through the different rooms.Once the tour is over, you cannot go back in. We were very disappointed with
our visit.
Posted by
Mid-Atlantic area
7157 posts
Like most palaces there’s a set circuit one takes to go through. After passing through a room you may not be able to revisit a previous room even if you’re going through it on your own. The difference is you’re going through the palace at your pace, not a guide’s, so you can stay/linger in rooms for a longer or shorter period of time.
Posted by
OP
Virgina US
25 posts
Thank you darkmist1 and Jamie for the reply. We definitely will not use guided tour then.
Now regarding buying tickets, do we really need to buy online in advance or else running risk of sold out tickets for a particular day at the counter? I assume one can always get tickets at the counter on any day of visit, which is unlike the Alhambra that do enforce limit of number of people to visit if online tickets are sold out. But I am not sure. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Posted by
OP
Virgina US
25 posts
My question is whether one can always buy tickets in person at the counter at anytime and get in without time slots like the online tickets have? Even when online tickets says not available?