There are many companies that sell tickets to go up the Eiffel Tower but as usual I had left planning to the last minute and therefore we had no choice but to buy tickets when we got there. The area outside the Eiffel Tower was extremely busy with sightseers, people queueing to get in and street vendors waving tiny Eiffel Tower keyrings in our faces every few steps. The main queue to get into the Eiffel Tower was pretty long so I asked the security guard if we could skip it and he showed us to the front. This queue was essentially for security and took you through metal detectors and a bag x-ray machine. You didn’t need tickets to go through this point.
We followed the path round to the base of the Eiffel Tower. It was surprisingly bigger than I had imagined and you could look straight up the middle into the structure. It was incredibly busy with extremely long, winding queues of people trying to buy tickets or tours.
We first made our way to the toilets, the queue to the female toilets was, as expected, a lot longer than the male toilet queue. The toilets were downstairs though and I did notice that there was a lift for disabled users which took you near the front of the queue at the bottom of the stairs.
I had been told you could queue jump by visiting the West Pillar Information Point. It was hard to work out which was the West pillar but I managed to find a member of staff who showed me where to go. Here I told the tower staff I wanted to buy a disabled ticket and queue jump and they escorted me to a ticket window with no queue which is reserved especially for disabled guests. Once we had our tickets we were escorted to the security scanner at the front of the lift queue. From here we had to queue for around ten minutes. This included a small queue between security and the area outside the lifts and a short time in the area outside the lift waiting for the lift.
We waited near the lift door so that we could get on first and stand near the windows rather than be in the middle of the lift full of people. The lift is actually quite fast and, as it travels up the leg of the Eiffel Tower, it moves diagonally upwards. You can see out the windows as you go up. The lift stopped at the first floor where some people got out and then carried on up to the second floor which is where we disembarked.
The views from the second floor were amazing! It was so much higher than I had imagined and you could see for miles in every direction. We were able to walk all the way round the second floor looking out in every direction.
After this we decided to walk down the stairs to the first floor. This was a lot longer down than we thought and in hindsight I would definitely have got the lift down! On the first floor there were more views, seating and a small cafe. We took the lift back to the bottom of the tower.
It was definitely worth the trip up the Eiffel Tower – not only can we say we have been up the Eiffel Tower but also the views were incredible.
You can watch our adventure up the Eiffel Tower over on our Youtube channel here:
Taking an autistic child up the Eiffel Tower?
Visitors with disabilities are welcome to present themselves to the Eiffel Tower staff so that they are served more quickly.
Disabled tickets are available without a long queue at the Information Point in the West Pillar or the ticket office.
The Information Point and other ticket counters are fitted with hearing loops for hearing aid users.
There was a grill fence over the gap so there was no way of falling even if you climbed.
There is a need to pass through security both on the way into the Eiffel Tower base area and on the way into the lift.
There is a lift for disabled guests to use to get to the toilets.
Disabled tickets only take you to the second floor of the Eiffel Tower.
The lift holds quite a lot of people and can get crowded.
Once on the second floor it wasn’t as busy as people spread round the tower and the lift only takes up a certain amount of people at a time.
The stairs are steeper and longer than you might think.
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