You can buy the pass at any participating museum - since there are often long long lines at places like the Louvre I always buy mine at a minor museum - last time at the Conciergerie, right near Notre Dame and there was no line and also that is an interesting place - see where Marie-Atoinette was impirsoned awaiting her trip to the guillotine. Plus the pass will be cheaper if bought on site - no need ever to buy a Paris Museum Pass in advance IMO and IME.

Thanks, that's a relief!

It's not the end of the world, I never buy one, anyway. Buying it from a private company and paying more for it, plus delivery fee, would hve been a bad idea, anyway.

I agree with PalenQ that it is absolutely not necessary to buy the Paris Museum Pass in advance. We were in Paris this past summer, & bought the pass at the Cluny Museum. It's a smaller museum (but awesome) & we got there at 9AM, so there were no lines whatsoever. Because of where you are staying, it wouldn't make sense to go to the Cluny to buy the pass; Conciergerie makes the most sense.

We thought the Pass was well worth it. We avoided long lines at the Louvre & Musee D'Orsay. Also, it's great if at the end of the day you are near a museum that accepts the pass; you can stop in for an hour or so without feeling like you are wasting your money. For instance, on the day we went to Versailles, when we returned to Paris, we were near the Rodin Museum, so we decided to go inside & had about an hour. If we didn't have the pass, we wouldn't have done that.

Yes indeedy - like Kwoo says having the pass will let you on a whim go into some museum covered that you pass by without thinking well is it worth several euros entry fee - with the pass you can take a quick look or if you like it a long look.

I went in many places I would not have - even places like the Pantheon or the Ecole Militaire (see Napoleon's stuffed dog!) or climb the Towers of Notre-Dame - and the lovely Saint-chapelle.

Folks like Christina never buy the museum pass because they have seen most of those sights - but newcomes to Paris will want to see such a remarkable place as the Pantheon or Saint-Chapelle (think it is covered) as well as major museums and again just skipping long lines to get into Louvre or Orsay makes it priceless for some.


And it is also good at Versailles for the palace.

Keep in mind that Versailles is closed on Monday and the Louvre Tuesday so keep that in mind when buying a museum pass - be sure what you want to see is not closed that day!

http://en.parismuseumpass.com/rub-museums-monuments-by-name-5.htm

the official site of the Paris Museum Pass - see which museum is closest to you to buy the pass - a non-major museum that is.

and note what is covered - the Arc de Triomphe; Pompidou Center Museum of Modern Art; Rodin Museum; Egouts (sewer tours); Notre-Dame Crypts; Towers of Notre-Dame; Orangerie Museum; Sainte-Chapelle; Pantheon and many many more in addition to Louvre and Orsay.

Thanks for all the information. I now feel much better about being disorganized!!!

There are a half dozen places at the airport to buy them, but here is the list of places in Paris where you can buy a pass: http://www.parismuseumpass.com/rub-le-pass-points-de-vente-3.htm?cat=1

It's silly to buy the pass ahead of time - you pay more and you have something else to worry about carrying over the ocean with you. You won't have any trouble getting it once there.

it's silly to buy ahead of time IF you are a seasoned veteran traveler who have been to Paris a lot - but it is not silly for the OP - assuming he/she is not familiar much with Paris to do so - for the reasons she had.

Be careful of using words like 'silly' lest we offend some of Fodor's cherished new posters and they extrapolate it personally.

IMO it was not silly coming from where the OP was coming from knowledge wise and now thanks to fodorGarchs she/he knows better!

You can even buy the Pass at CDG airport upon arrival as I did this past October.

In hind sight, it ended up being a mistake for me to have bought it (a four day pass, though you can get a 2 day pass I believe). It cost me around 54 euros. I knew I had just 6 days which my schedule would allow me to use it and I had to use in on 4 consecutive days of those 6. I had planned on visiting 4 museums on 4 days and had I been able to do that, the pass would have been worth it. I almost managed it but thanks to a strike that caused the Musee d'Orsay to shut down and another extended appointment that messed up my plans, I visited only two.

The cost of the 4 museums I picked would have been around 60 euros, so a small saving, but the main advantage of having it, I think, is the avoidance of line-ups. With my luck, even at the notoriously busy Louvre, there was no discernable lineup on the morning I visited so I could have sailed right through without the pass.
Now, it's no more than a nice souvenir, with lots of information on the many museums and sites of interest it covers.

It is absolutely not necessary to buy the MP ahead of time, unless you like to spend extra to get same thing as others do. It is also not needed in most places, and you only make your money off it if you see more then three sites a day usually.

There is no line issue at most sites, including the Louvre if you simply learn the tricks, like using an alternate entrance ( and yes, this works for Louvre like a charm, has for my last dozen visits all in busy summer anyways) .

Some sites are covered like Notre Dame Towers, but you do not get line skipping privildges there with it, and some places do not accept it Eiffel Tower for one.

It comes with a little booklet with good information about each place where it is accepted, like hours and days open, so you don't waste time making your way somewhere only to find it closed.

My husband and I have been to Paris 3 times in recent years. We bought the museum pass the first time when we were definitely planning to see a number of museums within the time frame and found the pass to be worth it, even though our individual admissions would have been about the same as the pass. It was worth it because we did avoid lines at Musee d'Orsay and Ste. Chapelle (this was in April); also, we loved Musee d'Orsay and went back a second time to see all our favorite paintings again (which we probably wouldn't have done if we hadn't had the pass). On later trips we knew we weren't going to concentrate so heavily on museums, so we didn't buy passes.

One boon to the museum pass is that you may pop into a museum you hadn't planned or thought about--or just because you need to use a rest room.

Some museums in Paris are free on Sunday (Louvre first Sunday of month I believe) or have reduced prices on Sundays - another factor on which days to profitably use a Museum Pass.