How to Plan Your Day at the Louvre with Kids

We took our kids to the Louvre for the first time this summer and really wanted to give them a great experience. This is a massive museum and it can be quite overwhelming. Before you go, there are a few things to plan for that will help make your day smoother. Here are our suggestions on how to prepare for your big day at the Louvre.

Tickets: Buy the Paris Museum Pass. https://www.parismuseumpass.fr/ You only need to buy tickets for the adults and kids are free. For our family of 6 we bought two adult tickets and kids and teens were all free.

Reservations: You do however, need to to make reservations for everyone at https://www.louvre.fr/en. On the Louvre website you can make free reservations for everyone in your party, there’s a reservation section for those with the Museum Pass. In our case we made a reservation for 6.

Time: If you can, go in the afternoon. The Louvre closes at 6pm on most days. We made our reservation at 3PM to avoid crowds. Three hours was more than enough for our first time there. We did arrive 15 minutes early.

Entrance: Although most blogs say that entering the back entrance is shorter for lines, if you pre-bought tickets and made reservations, it should not take too long to go in from the main entrance through the glass pyramids. You made it this far to the Louvre, why not have the full experience and enter through the iconic, famous pyramids. I’m all for it.

Audio Guide: We reserved this ahead of time. I thought it was helpful since we didn’t do a tour. You can also pay for this on the spot. I didn’t find it super user friendly but it did the job just fine.

Where to Eat: If you need a snack during your visit at the Louvre there is sodas and sandwiches on the second floor. Note that once you exit the Louvre there’s a food court that you immediately enter in Carrousel du Louvre, that has shopping and a food court. Here you’ll see one of the famous Laduree store for the best macarons, and even see a McDonalds.

Art works to see: I think it’s important to have a plan on how you will tackle your day at the Louvre. There’s no way to see everything, so if you’re only going to see a few things with limited energy, pick the art work that you want to visit ahead of time. If you can, show your kids pictures of them before they go so that they are excited to see them. It would also save time to know, which wing the art work will be in ahead of time.

Here is our list. Everything we saw was either in the Denon Wing or in the Sully Wing.