The Louvre, Orsay on "free" Sunday

Don't do it,, it will be crowded right from opening,( a couple of hours, ha ha,, how about 15 minutes,, doors will open, and crowds will file in as fast as security can screen them) its JULY and free. Teens/kids can find crowds especially annoying to deal with, and will likely push to leave museum earlier then usual.

Really, not worth it,, you only have to pay for TWO of you as teens under 18 are free anyways.

If you want to do some free museums perhaps choose a few of the lesser known ones, they will be less crowded, and if you don't like them at least it didn't even cost you for the two adults.

Consider buying 2-day museum passes so you can "go to the front of the line" as RS suggests; really does save lots of time, and you can plan out your museums to get the most $$ value from the passes.

To add to Carys idea, kids get to skip line with you and still get in free most museums covered by pass, so a two day pass is I think 30 or 32 euros, so for two adults and three kids you can line skip to hearts content for 2 days for 60 euros.

Now, just so you know,, if you are only planning on visiting Louvre and Orsay I would not get pass as that would be a waste of money. Long lines can be avoided at both without pass.

Thanks for the info, Pat and Cary.I think we will avoid that day. I had forgotten students are free. Since it is a 1st trip for kids, I think those may be our only 2 museums, as other adventures beckon - Eiffel Tower, Fat Tire Bike tour, Catacombs, Notre Dame, eating and shopping. Now if I can figure out how to get them up each morning.....

I will also be in Paris in July with teenagers and I also do not have the secret to getting them up in the morning. Though I hope that France and pain de chocolat may be enough of a draw to get them out of bed, I'm not really optimistic. My only tip is that the Louvre is open till 10 pm Wed & Fri...if I can hold up that late, maybe that will work for us!

If you could consider NOT seeing the Mona Lisa, the crowds would not be so bad. Sad to say, at least half of the visitors make a beeline for ML and then maybe stroll through another nearby hallway, then go home. There are miles of hallways and I'll bet many of them are sparcely visited even on free days.

On our last trip the Rick Steves audioguides for the museums were magical with my teenagers. They actually enjoyed themselves, and maybe learned a few things too. They liked it a lot more than listening to Mom read the guidebook! As for getting them up early, good luck. My son actully likes getting up and going with me to the boulangerie to get the mornings breakfast. I hope he will again on this trip.

wow,, we sure have some softie parents. We have teens, three of them, and on holiday we set the schedule, we do not get up at crack of dawn,, its everyones vacation, but we do not let teens waste hours and hours in bed when we are paying literally thousands of dollars for the holiday.

We have found that since teens generally do not stay up as late when we are in Europe( no video games, no computers and tvs rarely have more then one or two channels in english) that sleeping in isn't a huge issue. If you lights out by midnight, most teens can get up by 9 or 9:30 am latest I would think. In Paris, many places don't even open till 9 or 10 so its not too bad to sleep in a wee bit.

The poster who suggested the evening hours was smart, the museums with evening hours tend to be less crowded then.