Best Option To Visit Sagrada Familia in Barcelona

[twonewtocruise]

Together with general sightseeing, we want to visit the Sagrada Familia on one of the two days that we're berthed in Barcelona on our upcoming cruise. I've been looking at 'skip the queue' tickets but I'm wondering if we'd be better off booking a tour that includes the SF.

 

I'd appreciate your thoughts on this and if any of you have done a similar tour, who did you book with and would you recommend it?

 

TIA

[Keith1010]

Let me suggest that you post this on the Spain Ports Of Call Board located at:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=-1&f=596

 

Keith

[OzKiwiJJ]

It's very easy to book a specific entry time online so if you prefer sightseeing on your own then that is the way to go. We stayed in Barcelona before our cruise and prebooked our Sagrada Familia visit. It worked very well.

[Markanddonna]

We booked it through the website, chose an early time and just traded our voucher for tickets. No need for a tour. I love to go to European churches and this one is in my top five.

[capriccio]

We were in Barcelona last October for a day and booked a morning tour which included a walk around/thorough discussion of the outside of the cathedral but not entrance into it with Barcelona Day tours (a great company!). In correspondence with them I noted that we (group of 6) wanted to visit the cathedral in the afternoon. They recommended getting tickets on line as soon as possible (about 3 months in advance if I remember correctly). I'm glad they did because that day (a Sunday) there was a special mass with a visiting cardinal and tours didn't begin until around 2 pm. I notified Barcelona Day tours of our ticket time and they arranged our morning tour to end at Sagrada Familia. It ended around noon (the other 8 folks on the tour were taken back to the ship), we had a delicious lunch at a 'locals' restaurant recommended by our tour guide, and then did the audio tour (highly recommended). It was a great day - and we even got back to the ship before the 5 pm demonstration in support of Catalan independence began and messed up traffic. Hard as it may be to believe - the photographs of the Sagrada Familia don't do it justice especially on a sunny day!

[marco]

If you do not do the ship's tour, get tickets in advance. If you don't and just show up you will probably be in a queue for probably at least an hour or longer.

[Cruisercl]

When we went, we bought tickets online in advance for a specific time. We also bought the audio tour which was great. We walked right up past the very long line. We went late morning, 10am.

We were able to take our time and walk around vs being on a 'tour' where you go at the pace of the guide.

They schedule times for admission to regulate the crowd so it did not seem crowded.

I would do it this way again.

Hope this helps.

[Essiesmom]

It's been a number of years since we visited, without a reservation. We did not have to wait - not much of a line. the value of being independent, no tour, was that tours were not allowed all the way down the aisle to the altar area. They could only go about half way. EM

[wishIweretravelling]

Also, read the description of the ship's tour carefully to make sure it actually goes inside the church. A number of tours take you around it to view the decorations (which is a definite must-do), but don't take you inside.

[Pudgesmom]

The outside is spectacular, and the inside is amazing. As others have mentioned, entry is timed. You MUST arrive at the time on your ticket. We had a private guide for the day in Barcelona and she was so interesting with the details about the cathedral. I highly recommend you take a narrated tour, either live or with the headphones or you will miss many interesting and important facts about the architect, construction and meaning behind the design.

[Malleykatt]

We visited in July last year. As we exited the cruise building there was a tourism desk that had some handy maps of Barcelona. There was a long queue for the shuttle so 4 of us got a taxi and went straight to Sagrada. The driver pointed out some areas to head back to and showed us the best route on the map to see everything. Cost €15 one way but easy to get through the traffic. On the day of our visit all times were sold out by 10am so definitely buy in advance. After our visit we followed the map all the way back to Las Ramblas a lovely walk look up as you go some of the architecture is fantastic. Look out for Casa Mila and Casa Batilo amazing places.

You can walk all the way back to the port shuttle buses near the Columbus statue. We love the city.

[6rugrats]

Pudgesmom - if you recommend this guide, can you please provide the contact information? Thank you.

[Aquahound]

We rode the hop on/hop off bus through Barcelona. It has a stop right at Sagrada Familia. I recommend it. It wasn't a bad way to see the city and many sights.

[SbbquilterUT]

We found it very easy to get tickets online for earliest admission - so glad we did as we could enjoy the experience of the beauty of the church in relative peace. When we finished I wanted to go back inside to review some windows and it was a crowded mass of people.

 

You will line up with your printed ticket, once inside the gate the kiosk for the headset is to the right, then enjoy the beauty of the Nativity entrance as you enter.

[ozziewanderer]

La Sagrada ia magnificent and a must however you do it. As is visiting some of the Gaudi houses. BUT the best thing we did in Barcelona was to visit la Boqueria the fabulous fresh food market on las Ramblas. There my Hero and I sat at wine barrel...I kid you not....at one of the 'open' tapas places. The barrel actually had the menu on it but as there were no available tables, the owner wisked out a small tablecloth and sat us there! We then had one of the most fun and memorable meals of our 25 years travelling.

[Markanddonna]

BTW- you all have probably seen La Sagrada on the huge TVs at the big box stores. I was surprised the other day that they use photos of this church to demonstrate the brilliant and amazing colors in HD. It is like no other church in the world!

[lamchops]

I went to the Sagrada Familia on Monday. I had prebooked entry, audio guide, and the nativity tower in advance. I had a 1:00 entry time and was shocked at how many people were there. I heard security tell someone who didn’t have tickets that if they purchased them they could enter in about 2 hours.

It’s changed so much since I first saw it in 2008.

I strongly recommend prebooking as we had our pick of times when I booked 2 weeks in advance. Bare in mind it’s low season but if there’s a couple of ships in, is it still considered low.

[lamchops]

We booked it through the website, chose an early time and just traded our voucher for tickets. No need for a tour. I love to go to European churches and this one is in my top five.

 

I printed my tickets at home after booking the visit. I strongly suggest prebooking as walk ups are about a 2 hour wait based on what I saw on Monday.

[Pudgesmom]

Pudgesmom - if you recommend this guide, can you please provide the contact information? Thank you.

 

We booked our tours through Heritage Tours in NYC. The also arranged a day in the Wine Country of Priorat and a day going north to the Dali museum and old city. We've used them numerous times in Portugal (each time for several days after a transatlantic), Morocco and Spain. If you're looking for affordable its not the best choice. Quality of tour guides, dependability, drivers etc is always excellent. Conde Nast cites them as the go-to for these countries. I'm sorry I don't have the name of the guide.

[twonewtocruise]

Wow, thanks everyone for all the great info and tips for getting the most out of the visit - pre booked tickets with audio guide it is! :-)

[donaldsc]

Also depends upon how long you want to stay there. Most tours might give you an hour or so at most at the place. We stayed there for more than half a day.

 

DON