Before I arrived to Paris, I read on tripadvisor that only ONE of the four elevators was working in the Eiffel tower, due to technical difficulties. Getting a slot online was very difficult. But you must book ahead online in order to avoid the wait. The people on the forum said they waited like 3 - 4 hours to get up. I booked my tickets 3 months ahead of time. I always wanted to take the night time slot for the Eiffel, because I heard the night view is magnificent. Anyway, that was the only time slot available on that day: 10:00pm! Everything else was fully booked.
*** remember to book through their original website: Tour Eiffel***
If you can't find any empty time slot on your desire date?
Try checking if there's anything available for the 2nd stage/floor instead of access to the top. Because the tickets to the top are usually booked up first, but there are usually tickets left for the second floor.
OR: you can take other options:
(1): Walk up the stairs, not too bad. No wait + cheaper fee. Yet, make sure to check the time when do they close the stairs.
(2): Wait in line, some actually said the lineup is not too bad....2 hours?
(3): get there super early, or super late.
(4): go to the expensive restaurant up in the Eiffel, that would save you some wait time if you don't mind paying $$$ and spending a romantic lunch or dinner up at the Eiffel :)
Eiffel tower's poor staff's attitude:
We went there a little early to take some nice shots of the exterior - Eiffel tower...it's so beautiful. It sparkles every hour. Since we booked online, we went up to the reservation line and asked the staff if we should line up there. There was no one lining up there, and the staff said we could hang out and then come back at 10pm. Well, it was 9:45pm already, we were going to wait but he told us to go away and then come back later. Then all of the sudden there was this tour of 50+ people coming to the line up and we were like wow? maybe we should get back into the line. That tour group (maybe Italian?) kept pushing the individual guests away which pissed a lot of us off. When I went up to the staff and I asked him why didn't he let us line up first ten minutes ago. He told us to get back to the end of the lineup.......WTH...First of all, they booked the same time as we did. Second, no one deserved to be pushed....Anyway, so we went back to the line up and waited patiently, but some of the tour kept non-stop pushing us, and when it was finally our turn, the staff stopped me from going through....Anyway, long story short, I blew up on the staff and things were settled. It wasn't a pleasant experience to start off my visit to the Eiffel....
All I want to say is, the French workers don't really care about their tourists and their customers. Most of them think we were just bothering them. Do they not understand tourism is pretty damn important for their economy? I guess they just don't care. That's the French style. Anyway, I think if you really encounter an unreasonable problem that they could easily solve, you need to SPEAK UP. Confront them. I don't think they like the confrontation. Bring that aggressiveness part of you out when you really need it: Yes! the American style.
Second floor of the tower:
After the rainy day of Versailles, we each bought a Paris' poncho in case it would rain again. Fortunately, it cleared up, yet it was super duper windy when we were up there. It was so windy and cold that it almost blew my head off. Looking down from Eiffel was amazing, yet it was hard to enjoy the view with the super strong wind. It was hard to hold the camera still for the night shots and my fingers were freezing.
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| looking down at the Seine River :) beautiful night view - facing the Pont Alexandre III and the Les Invalides (Napoleon's tomb) |
Was it very romantic?
I guess it could be quite romantic. But it wasn't that romantic for me that night. First, the staff really pissed me off with his attitude. Again, I really don't blow up on people easily....really.. It was too cold and windy up there. We did stay until the tower sparkles......yes it was quite romantic at that part. I could imagine why people love to pop the question there.
Best part of the night:
We bought some hot chocolate.....so warm...so sweet.....it felt so good after the anger and the coldness....
Rats parade:
After the visit, we were looking for the metro station. While we were walking to the metro, we walked on the darker street, and there were many rats running around the street (right across from Eiffel). It was dark, and I'm afraid of rats; so that was quite scary for me......
never knew about the rat part....I guess the scene from Ratatouille was true...you need to watch that film if you haven't lol
ReplyDeleteThe view looks amazing, now I really want to go to Paris...
Yes I watched that cartoon before... It wasn't that romantic for me on Eiffel as it was super cold . Almost blew my head off haha
ReplyDelete