Tours or tickets for sights in Spain?

My daughter and I enjoyed two half-day tours in Sevilla with Rick-recommended Connie (Conception) a few years ago. And Alhambra tickets are a must-reserve item -- I rearranged our schedule to fit the times available.
But for other things, we just hopped on a train to day-trip to Cordoba from Sevilla and wandered around guidebook in hand.
YMMV. We are not big tour takers. And seldom book anything ahead except for transportation and housing.

Thank you. Laura. We aren't really tour people either, but sometimes you get some really wonderful information if you have a good guide. Recently we experienced a tour that was multi-lingual, so a lot of wasted time for everyone as the guide kept repeating in each language. She also gave one person quite an individual tour as the lady spoke her native language.

Which cities will you be visiting? There are some sights in Barcelona for which it would be prudent to get the tickets ahead of time (though not necessarily before you leave for Spain).

We are going to Barcelona, Madrid, Granada and Seville. I'm really asking if pre purchased tickets are good enough or should I purchase skip,the Line tours for the very popular spots?

To see the lovely Palau de la Musica Catalana in Barcelona you'll need either a tour (booked through the site) or a ticket to a concert.

I enjoyed the 16-euro Barri Gotic Tour run by the tourist office. There are English-only tours lasting about 2 hours. There's also a Picasso Tour (22 euros including museum admission) and a Modernisme Tour (16 euros including a few minutes in the Modernisme Museum), either of which might be worthwhile, depending on your interests. I'd caution, though, that the Picasso Tour probably isn't for folks who are really knowledgeable about art.

The Convent of Las Descalzas Reales in Madrid is tricky for individual English-speaking tourists. It can only be seen on a tour conducted by the site. In May, at least, they were not scheduling English tours ahead of time. You needed to go to the museum before it opened to be at the front of the line, then ask whether there would be a tour that day. The English tours seemed to run at 10:15 AM if at all, and the number of spots available for walk-ups depended on the size of whichever tour group had arranged for the tour. I have no idea whether those tours were the type individual travelers could sign up for, but it would be worth checking out, because the convent is very interesting. In my experience, showing up at 10 AM is unlikely to get you one of the few spots available for any English tour scheduled to run that day.

Except as noted above, I visited the Madrid and Barcelona sights on my own, paying for an audio guide if one was available. I found crowding an issue at a lot of places, but tours aren't going to help with the crowds. The large museums were generally OK even if they were busy--and I made several visits on free days.

Cheryl,
If you've not booked your Alhambra tickets, you need to ASAP.
When we were in Granada last October we ran into many disappointed tourists who had not booked their tickets in advance. There were no tickets available for the whole month!

October is considered high season in Andalucía.

Have you considered visiting Córdoba?
It's one of my favorite cities in Spain & I highly recommend it. The Mezquita is absolutely magnificent!

These sights really need to be prebooked. A guide is at your discretion. Palau de la Musica Catalana is by guide only. Some of the others are best with audio guide - Alhambra and Sagrada Familia especially.

Granada: Alhambra

Barcelona:
Sagrada Familia
Palau de la Musica
Park Guell
Picasso Museum
Casa Batllo / Casa Mila

David, are you suggesting prepurchased tickets for each of these places or prebooked tours for each of them?

Tickets prerequisite for all.
I rely on pre reading and an audio guide sometimes.

I took the Moderisme Tour (run by the Barcelona TI) and it was excellent. I really saw the city differently after it. The tour doesn't go to the museum - they hand out tickets during the tour for you to visit on your own. I ran out of time☺

In Madrid, sometimes there are lines to buy tickets at the Prado and the Palace.

That's interesting about the Modernisme Museum, Chani. I'd have preferred a ticket to visit at my convenience, but my August 5 tour just got a brief visit. We entered the museum 10 minutes or so before closing. That was definitely better than not seeing it at all, but I could certainly have used more time.

I wonder whether this is a change in policy or a difference in guides?

Thank you, Chani. That was helpful input.

Thank you, Priscilla. I have gotten my tickets for Alhambra. It would have been very disappointing not to see this. I've also been told about a wonderful Flamenco venue in Seville, so I will be booking tickets for that as well. I'm still wondering if it would save us time and headache to book a skip,the line tour for Sagrada Familia

Craven - I took the tour this year in March. Now the tour description says "guided visit to the musteum" so I guess they've changed it. Too bad. My tour was nearly an hour longer than the schedule 2 hours, and without the museum.

Cheryll - I recommend La Casa de Flamenco in Sevilla for a performance. It is in an Andalucian patio - no touristy frills like drinks or tapas. Yes, you should book ahead for the Sagrada Familia. The advice I got was to book the first entry time and line up 15-30 minutes beforehand. That way, you're among the first to enter and can enjoy it quietly and take photos. An hour later, you won't believe how noisy and crowded it will be.

@cheryllduval ... you don't say which sites do you intend to visit while in Barcelona. David mentioned a few in which you're better off pre-booking as they're very popular and queues are the norm -so to speak-, but there is a handful more in which pre-booking is advised too.

As per skipping the queue, on DIY visits note there's no such thing in Barcelona as VIP tickets or things like that. What some of the most popular attractions have is time-based tickets: when you book you choose the time for entering the site -and you have a short window to do so. Once inside you're free to stay as long as you want of course. In this manner, on arriving at the site (at your designated time) you don't have to wait in line -other than the small queue if any, of your fellow visitors with the same time-band. It's a very efficient (and democratic!) way for everybody to be able to visit the site without queues. At others, you can purchase a premium ticket which allows you to visit at any time within 6 months.

It's worth mentioning that at certain sites, thinking I'll risk having to queue might turn into hours of queue or worst, not being able to visit that day -if the time-bands have all been sold out.

Group visits do skip the queue if (if!) the site is not at full capacity already.

As per whether it's better DIY or group tour that's obviously very personal but personally I prefer in general --much like David above-- pre reading and an audio guide sometimes rather than tour groups... for many reasons, but three important to me are that I prefer to visit at my own pace, I don't like 'flocks' and, since time is scarce I hate feeling I'm wasting it with poorly prepared guides (and you never know in advance which sort you'll get!). But again, that's very personal of course!