Paris: anyone tried a Get Your Guide ticket for Versailles?

[LadyGreySpillsTheTea]

We‘re going to Paris for a few days next weekend at quite short notice, travel and hotel already booked. The one main sight we‘ve never seen is Versailles so are keen to spend a day there - but direct tickets are already sold out until the 19th. Has anyone tried a Get Your Guide ticket, which adds on travel or a guide and inflates the prices, sometimes considerably, but does tend to have later availability? I did something similar for Last Supper in Milan and it was unexpectedly rather good. Are the Versailles ones reliable or something of a con? The cheapest I‘ve found is 39 euros for palace and garden entry with self-guided phone tour (normal price seems to be 32), or 45 including a return bus from Paris. Obviously the price goes wildly upwards from there once you get into live guides, small groups and private minibus transfers from your hotel - we don’t need all that. Any recommendations?

I’ve booked hundreds of things via Get Your Guide and have never had a problem, although did Louvre last time I haven’t done Versailles but would be inclined in your position.

Thanks felicia - if I can ask, which company did you go with to the Louvre?

We did the Get Your Guide bundle with a Seine River cruise.

If not I'd take my chances and try to buy tickets at the palace. It's an easy train ride to Versailles

Goodness, that’s something I hadn‘t considered, given that all the direct tickets are supposedly sold. Do you think they have a contingency of tickets reserved for sale on the day? And if so, wouldn‘t they get sold out fairly early in the morning? It would be quite annoying to make the effort of going there for no return - I think I‘d rather pay a bit extra for the certainty of knowing we have tickets, the problem is just not knowing which of the providers to go for.

felicia, thanks, but my understanding is that Get Your Guide is just acting as a platform and there are multiple sub-providers who have bulk bought batches of tickets, the question is knowing how reliable they are. The reviews often seem to be referring to slightly different products to the ones I‘m interested in. I‘ve done a Seine cruise in the past, wouldn’t want to do that again.

Just checked...There are tickets available for next weekend on the Versailles website so you can book online in advance. Children are free.

Thanks, I‘ll look now - not sure why they weren’t showing up when I looked. There was nothing available until the 20th a few days ago, perhaps I was looking in the wrong place.

I went to Versailles in November and it was incredible. The train ride is maybe 15 minutes from Paris so I'd just grab the train and get tickets. Even if you pre-purchase you have to wait to get in as they take people in group by group to preserve the palace so bring water if it's a hot day.

Just make sure you get the train going in the right direction.. we jumped on the train coming from Versailles and it took us half an hour going in the wrong direction to realise 🤦🏻‍♀️
I couldn’t get over the size of the place (noe the prices in the cafe) , it’s a fantastic day out!

A big thanks to @Rainydayinlondon first of all - I looked again, on a larger screen this time, and managed to get direct tickets for next weekend after all. I have no idea what I was looking at in my phone that told me it was all sold out, but it was clearly the wrong place 😁. Even better: DD got a whopping discount for being an EU resident under 26 so I got tickets for the whole thing - palace with timed entry, plus gardens and Trianon. We’ll make a whole day of it - and we’ll definitely be bringing water! We already live in central Europe so temps above 30 are a fact of life in summer.
Thanks for the train tip, @yousillygoose , we’ll try to get the right direction. We’re staying in the 8th, which station does the train go from?
Both DDs were swimming in the Seine today and said it was fab, that’s high on my list too.

Ahh that’s great!

As well as water, I’d take a light picnic as the cafe was limited and had very long queues when we went ( albeit a couple of years ago and out of season)

If you can, amend/change your booking add the bicycle hire option since le Trianon et le petit Trianon are quite a hike across the site - very boring open countryside. If we had not had bicycles, we would never have made it out to les Trianons before closing and it was not a scenic ride at all, just grassy parkland with lots of hills.
(you might be able to cancel your current one and rebook?)

Ah, that’s good to know, but I fear it would be quite risky to cancel at this point, even if it were possible - there were only 4 time slots left open yesterday for the whole day so we’d be at risk of losing it all. I might see if we can add a bike to the booking though - now I know why some of the Ged Your Guide reviews were going on about golf carts. We’re reasonably good walkers but I want to reserve our capacity for the gorgeous gardens and not for dull getting-from-one-t’other sections.

And we will indeed pack a baguette and cheese to obviate the need for overpriced and overcrowded cafes. The Sunday of the 15 August weekend will presumably be packed.

@LadyGreySpillsTheTea , good idea to bring a baguette (or two) and snacks plus lots of water if you can. We had lunch in one of the cafés (this was Easter hols) and the food was fine but service was v. slow.
All in all, I'm glad I went to Versailles so enjoy your day.

There's a little choo choo train that goes to Le Petit Trianon every half hour or so from the main palace.

There seem to be tickets available for the Son et Lumiere next Saturday, if you're there/nearby.

I went a couple of years ago, we did Versailles during the day, left for food and returned for the show. Absolutely amazing. Highly highly recommended, if you can manage it... https://www.chateauversailles-spectacles.fr/event/les-grandes-eaux-nocturnes-2025/

Bikes are now booked from the tourist office for the whole day, which I think will be the best option. A choo-choo to Trianon sounds fun but I think bikes are more our thing for getting around independently. We pick them up at 10.30, which should give us plenty of time before our timed palace entry at 3.

Once more, thanks to you all - you rock with all these fab tips.

@LordEmsworth I saw the Son et Lumiere only after we‘d booked for Sunday, sadly DD couldn‘t make it on Saturday so that one will have to be missed. But our ticket includes some fountain shenanigans on Sunday, just not sure when on Sunday that is happening. Is that ongoing thing throughout the day or at specific times? I‘m asking because I‘m clearly incapable of googling these things competently myself.