We booked this with a booking website and didn’t know but you do need to go and get proper tickets as the code it gives you isn’t an actual ticket. We found this museum in the best things to do with kids in Paris webpage and the reviews here were so good..… short review - give it a swerve go walk down the river instead that’s way more fun…

Long review- it’s ok Firstly we arrived and there was a huge queue I asked someone if this was those with tickets and he said yes. Seemed a bit odd to have to queue in a massive line when we had booked in advance. We were there for 20 mins with no idea why we were even queuing. When we did get to the main entrance it turned out the issue was 2 small bag check machines and gates to go through and it was a massive bottleneck.

Second stage was the ticket hall. We didn’t know we had to go back to the desk to change our tickets from the booking site code to small tickets. They required a print out of the screen for some reason and luckily I had brought one with us but she only tapped in the numbers on the paper which she could have done on the screen of my phone just wasted more time in our opinion.

Once through there was thought great finally in the museum. Nope another massive queue on some sweeping staircases. It seemed to be the only way in and we weee queuing on here not even sure why we were! We couldn’t see about but someone was talking about the museum and people we waiting to go into a light show. We’d have rather not done this and got on with the rest of the museum but we were again all herded into there. The room was full when we got to the front (typical at this stage in our queueing history here!) and then a woman proceeded to explain about the museum and the light show but it was all in French. I caught some bits that were actually important. As we didn’t know there was a strobing light show they should have translated this information or at lest given other guests who don’t speak French the important bits. Seemed a shame they didn’t cater for this when all over the rest of the museum there was dual languages in announcements and signage.

The light show was a large round room full of mirrors and it went dark (when full of people not very pleasant) and there were lights and images and music which was nice. The kids were impressed but it was just good for adults.

Finally out of that room we were able to explore the rest of the museum by ourselves. However, it’s housed in a sort of an old style mansion (which is very beautiful) so small doorways and one way entrance so in the end we were still in a queue that was moving and stopping low and again to take photos. We skipped some bits in order to move on. There were a number of local famous people we had no idea about so headed for other rooms.

The statues were impressive and the place seems well maintained and there’s always something to look at. The kids loved it when a person they thought was wax came to life! There were famous people from history which was nice and the kids learnt about the French Revolution. We ended up onto really wanting to see ladybug and cat noir the cartoon people so perhaps it wasn’t at all worth it just for that!

In the end we spent the same amount of time queuing as we did inside the museum. If you are in Paris for a few days and at a loose end then yes maybe it’s something to do but like us we regret buying tickets in advance as we could have done much more with our precious time than spend it in a queue in an sort of underwhelming place. The entrance system needs a serious overhaul and they could do without that light show room or at least an option not to go in.

We won’t be going again and there’s just other more interesting things to do in Paris - live and you learn.