Paris: 2-Hour Orsay Museum Masterpieces Guided Tour
Badge of Excellence
Paris, France
- 2 hours (approx.)
- Offered in: English
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Overview
The Musee d'Orsay is packed full of artistic masterpieces, but is also well known for its long lines and wait times. Save precious vacation time with prebooked entry and breeze straight inside with your group and art historian-guide. View famous paintings by artists such as Renoir, Manet, Degas, Monet, Cezanne, and Van Gogh, and listen as your guide's commentary brings the world-renowned artwork to life.
- A fully guided tour provides insight you miss if visiting independently
- Prebooking your entry guarantees your place inside the popular museum
- Check off multiple artistic masterpieces in one comprehensive tour
- Choose the tour size that suits you best, including a small-group option
What's Included
- Expert, English-speaking art historian guide
- Entrance ticket & reservations fee for the Musée d'Orsay
- Tour in a group of 6 people or fewer [if option selected]
- Tour in a group of 25 people or fewer [if option selected]
- Headsets [when necessary] so you can hear your guide at all times
- Hotel pickup and drop-off
- Food and drinks
Meeting and Pickup
Meeting point
- 5 Rue de la Légion d'Honneur, 75007 Paris, France
Meet your guide at the entrance of the Musée de la Légion d’Honneur (Rue de la Légion d’Honneur), situated next to the stairs ascending toward the Musée d’Orsay. The nearest public transport is the RER on line C, stop Musée d'Orsay.
End point
- Musée d'OrsayEsplanade Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, 75007 Paris, France
This service ends at the Musée d'Orsay
Itinerary
1
Musee d'Orsay
2 hours • Admission Ticket Included
Additional Info
- Confirmation will be received at time of booking
- Not wheelchair accessible
- Near public transportation
- Most travelers can participate
- This tour/activity will have a maximum of 20 travelers
Supplied by
Cancellation Policy
You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the experience for a full refund.
Traveler Photos
Reviews
4.4
based on 97 reviews
Dinah_P, Dec 2025
Hamish was an excellent tour guide. I would recommend this tour for a broad overview of art and history of art at the museum.
Jalina_M, Nov 2025
The museum is beautiful and houses a great variety in its collections. Heimish is a wonderful guide. He was professional, informative, knowledgeable and considerate. The tour was at an acceptable pace and he provided the group with ample opportunities to ask questions and take pictures. We usually book private tours due to a few unfavorable experiences in the past, but Heimish renewed our hope that being in a group can still be an enjoyable experience. You just need a great guide to facilitate a good experience.
Curtis_E, Oct 2025
The Orsay is one of the most amazing museums we have ever seen. It’s a must see experience. Our tour guide, Laurent, was incredibly knowledgeable.
Emma_S, Oct 2025
Our guide Anais was excellent and gave us valuable insight into the gallery and the artists and their work
Carol_T, Sep 2025
presenter talked to the paintings with his back to us. we couldn't hear him. I told him but there was no change. He spoke about art history and the Acadamy but we just wanted to know what was special about the paintings.
Response from Host, Oct 2025
Hi Carol,
Thank you for booking the Orsay Museum tour.
We are sorry to hear that you are not satisfied with the guide's performance.
We have passed on your feedback to our Guide Manager in Paris and we can assure you that they will act on your advice to improve our tour going forward.
John_H, Sep 2025
The tour is not with Viator, they simply act as an agent, so great the small print off the pdf to see who you are with.
Claire, our guide, was lovely, very knowledgeable and passionate about art and clearly loved what she does. The 2 hours breezed by, though it did take a while to get the headphones sorted out.
We had lunch in the cafe on the 5th for which was excellent - very efficient and delicious food
Amy_C, Aug 2025
It was great to have a guide to show you directly the important pieces. We were told lots of useful information.
JeffB_R, Aug 2025
Romana was a wonderful guide. Very knowledgeable and passionate about the subject. We learned a lot about the various impressionist painters whose work is displayed. The artwork at this museum is incredible. The museum itself is lovely.
Aleksandra_Z, Aug 2025
Heimish is a great guide! We enjoyed a lot! The tour started on time and he went us through all the main pieces of every section.
Steven_A, Jul 2025
The main issue was that the guide only was willing to speak in a very hushed voice. One person expressed a hearing deficit which didn’t help. The guide was deeply concerned with historical context rather than the overall experience.
Response from Host, Sep 2025
Hi Steven_A,
Thank you for joining our Orsay Museum Masterpieces Guided Tour.
I am sorry to hear you had difficulties hearing the explanations. We have forwarded your comments for review to our guide management team.
I hope you had a lovely stay in Paris.
Lisa_T, Jun 2025
We enjoyed Christina as our guide. She gave us great insight into the progression of art throughout the years. It was a well selected and thoughtful tour.
joel_s, Jun 2025
Great way to see entire museum and guide was engaging and very knowledgeable . You can stay after tour and continue to wonder as lots to see and take in
simonliddle, Jun 2025
A good tour that took us through history of styles from Salon, realism, and then to the development of the Impressionist movement. Yan was our guide and she told the story well, so its a lot more than just standing in front of famous pictures. It was a big help being guided through the crowds.
As there were 20+ in the group, we did spend 20+ minutes waiting for the group to assemble, disperse, reassemble and in collecting headsets, and getting them to work. Time in the gallery was less than 1h45m, but it was only advertised at 1h30 in any case.
Margaret_J, May 2025
It was a very interesting tour - learned so much from our fabulous guide Christina- loved the paintings and sculptures- everything was very efficient from start to finish- I would highly recommend Christina- she is a wonderful guide and extremely knowledgeable
Staci_M, May 2025
Anaise was a fabulous tour guide. Having been an art major, she described the art and what to look for were a tremendous help for those of us with an untrained eye.
Donna_L, May 2025
In a very crowded museum in Paris it is nice to know the history and character surrounding the art. We didn’t feel like we wanted to see everything but our guide gave us all we needed. We took the 9:45 tour and I would have preferred 1.5 hrs to 2 hrs because it was too busy after that
janet_l, May 2025
Our time in the Museo D'Orsay was wonderful! We throughly enjoy seeing the greats of the Impressionists and Neo Impressionist art eras. Cristina our guide was excellent! She is well educated in the arts and made our visit very special. She took time to cover all of the important highlights and helped us understand the social and political art climate of the time along with is connection to artists of our time. Thank you for an excellent experience!
Joshua_W, Apr 2025
Our tour guide was incredibly knowledgeable and very much enhanced our enjoyment of a lot of the pieces. Understanding the history and a lot of the nuance of the different paintings and sculptures was great. Simultaneously, going with a tour guide, you get to skip the line!
Ana_A, Dec 2024
I would not dare approach these amazing museums without a guide. Anaïs was great. She took us on a journey in art. I would say if you can pick the 2 hr option, do so, because there is so much to see and learn. This was a lovely tour.
Juliette_W, Oct 2024
Our tour guide was exceptionally great- knowledgeable and so enthusiastic. He made the painters and their lives come to life. The Musee d’ Orsay is spectacular and not to be missed.
Unfortunately the meeting location connection was extremely frustrating and terrible! We used the address and the photo of where to meet- very deceiving. Next time- under where to meet should have the company providing the tour’s name written in bold letters and the word “elephant” should have been in bold letters rather than placing (or in addition to) them in the body (hidden) of the information. A flag or some identification labelling the guide would also have helped. The entrance area was packed.. I persevered along with the help of three other company guides found our guide.. Although we came way early we missed our tour time by about 2 minutes. Luckily the next tour guide welcomed us along with a few other lost souls. Think he counted thirty people in his group. I had read reviews of others who were a minute late saying that their tour guides wouldn’t take them with them.
Julie_C, Oct 2024
Fantastic tour of the Orsay! Our guide was super knowledgeable and gave us interesting information on history and painting and the artists themselves. He even included my 7 year old son, who said the visit was “way better than what I expected.” And THAT is a compliment!!
Audio system was AWESOME so that we could hear him clearly in all galleries.
Entrance to museum was seamless and efficient and allowed us to skip the admissions lines. Would 100% do again.
Solomon_F, Oct 2024
Blerta was well versed with the paintings in the Orsay. Very articulate and well rounded. We went through specially the Important pieces.
David_D, Sep 2024
Great tour but a little hard to hear. Learned a lot about the impressionists but also felt like there was more to see.
Sally_L, Sep 2024
Yen was a very knowledgeable guide. She gave us plenty of historical information to enjoy the experience. The masterpieces were exquisite and the museum setting breathtaking!
Julia_R, Sep 2024
Learning about how the Impressionist movement came to be. Then actually seeing the works by Seurat, Chagall, Renoir etc. our guide Tuni was very informative. Loved being able to stay after the tour to view on our own.
Danielle_C, Sep 2024
Great tour! Easy instructions to find the guide at the beginning of the tour and was very informative. Highly recommend doing this tour as a convenient and fast way of getting around the Musee de Orsay without any fuss.
William_D, Jul 2024
I never write one-star reviews, so you know it had to be a bad experience. I was so looking forward to this tour, but my arriving flight was super delayed. This meant I landed at CDG about an hour before the tour was to start. The traffic into the city was bad. I reached out to the company via email immediately when I was on the way to say the plane was very delayed and that I was in traffic. I asked if I could reschedule from a Thursday to a Monday. 12 hours later they replied I could not change my date or get refunded. TWELVE HOURS. I could understand the refund, but why not reschedule? Then someone else wrote me to say the museum is closed Monday but good luck. Well, that was not very helpful. I tried again to suggest a different day by contacting the company again after a few hours and the person on the company's website chat said absolutely no. No changes, no refunds. They even said that I should try contacting my travel insurance instead because they could not help me. I felt this was unfair as I desperately wanted to go on this tour and was flexible in date, having already paid for it. I had to go ahead and book another tour with a different company. Hours after this person in the chat said no, I got an email saying they could reschedule me for the next day, but I would have to pay them a fee and to call them with my credit card. Why didn't they tell me that when I originally asked to reschedule as I would have done that instead of it taking several days of them telling me no? The whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth. All I wanted was to change the date and I could prove the flight was delayed and that I was in traffic as I raced to the tour appointment. As I said at the start, I really don't give one-star reviews because all of these people and groups work hard. So do I though, and this tour company might as well have ripped my money up in front of my face and stepped on it.
Robert_W, Jun 2024
The guide was a no show so we never did the tour. Viator was good, though, in refunding our money. It was our last day in Paris so it left a very bad taste in our mouths.
Rhea_R, Jun 2024
amazing tour! i’ve learned so much because of addie. would happily visit again and have her as my tour guide.
Mandie_M, May 2024
The audio quality on the headset was terrible, the volume kept coming in and out and the feedback was constantly hurting my ears. The guide’s accent also was quite strong and so even as a native English speaker I couldn’t understand a lot of what she was saying alongside the audio issues. Also, as much as I don’t like to mention it, let’s just say she needed some more deodorant as well… as it was quite distracting being right next to her due to this.
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