Royal Palace & Prado Museum Skip The Line Guided Tour

We had a fantastic day exploring the Royal Palace and the Prado Museum with Eva! Her English is flawless, and the small group format allowed for a really personal, relaxed experience. She made both historical sites come alive with great storytelling, and the walking portion in between gave us fantastic local context. Eva is warm, professional, and knowledgeable—highly recommend her for an English tour in Madrid!

Reuben provided a highly informative experience in displaying and explaining Spain and its national treasures.

This was just a terrific day. Ruben, our guide, was really knowledgeable about the art we saw in the Prado, and provided a lot of context for the paintings and the same for the royal Palace.

The Palace visit was cancelled due to a State event, so don’t be surprised if that happens. A guided walk through Madrid was substituted and was enjoyable. The walk ended at Prado. Our guide Mariona, was very informative in the Prado. Overall, a very nice tour in spite of the Palace cancellation.

Experience was exceptional. Lots of walking(>16000 steps). Very educational

Great experience. Awesome tour guide. Extremely knowledgeable. Lots of walking and standing. Not suitable for people with back issues.

Good tour and great to skip the line. Our guide Lunia was knowledgeable and answered many questions. For a 5 hour tour, it would have been nice to have a short break between the two venues to grab a snack.

The Prado is a stunning museum, and also very busy at all times. Strongly rec taking this guided tour - to help you find the real masterpieces ( where there are so many) and also let you hear some good tidbits about the respective artists or the political situation of Spain at the time of the artists work, etc. We could have stayed longer at the Prado but I had booked the combo ticket so did have to leave to get to the the Palace for my second part of my tour - then we ended up having to wait at the Palace about 40 minutes for the rest of our tour group to join us - I am not sure where they were coming from. Our group tour leader was Lola and she was so well informed and interesting, both at the Prado and the Palace. She did a great job keeping us together with the crowds in both places. The Palace is so large and be overwhelming, I think that the guided tour is the best possibly way to see this - it is really spectacular and I think a must see in Madrid, so extensive and beautiful.

Having a guided tour is the way to go! Ander made both tours very interesting and had lots of information and history……..and kept it lively with lots of humor!!!! Very enjoyable!!! After the tour at the Royal Palace, we took about a 45 minute walk through the historical part of the city to the Prado Museum. Some did not want to walk, so took a taxi and met us at the Prado Museum. It worked out well. Just remember to wear comfortable shoes…….you will be on your feet for around 5 hours. Not many options to sit and take a break.

It was a great introduction to both the Royal Palace and the Prado Museum. So, don't expect much more than that. There is no time to fully explore both venues given the short time spent in each. Also, expect to walk, climb, walk, and walk some more. Other than these, the tour was wonderful. Our guide gave us elaborate descriptions of the Royal Palace rooms we visited and of the dozen or so works of art at the Prado Museum.

The tour was excellent. Lola gave us alot of historical information, the Royal Palace was incredible. We went on a city walk where we received more info and then toured the Prado Museum. Lola was a great guide and all was very informational! We highly recommend this tour!

Our guide was Adrian and he was fantastic! Very informative, funny, and clear in his directions for keeping the group together. The Royal Palace is fascinating, made all the more interesting by the background information about the history behind it. The walk from the Palace to the Prado Museum was a tour in itself, with Adrian pointing out lovely details about Madrid that brought the city to life. I'm not usually a big fan of the older style of art in the Prado, but Adrian pointed out so many fascinating details in the paintings and the stories of the relationships between the painters (Valasquez, Goya, Titian, Reubens etc) and the subjects of their paintings. I learnt so much more than if I'd gone there on my own. So thanks again to Adrian for making the tour special, interesting and so enjoyable.

Amazing tour! Adrian, have very accommodating. We went to the wrong meeting place and he waited for us. The girl at the office was very helpful , she made sure we got to the right location! Wonderful day!

We had a fantastic private tour of the Prado Museum and Royal Palace with Lola. She brought the Prado’s masterpieces to life with engaging stories and fascinating details. The Royal Palace was equally spectacular, with glittering chandeliers, ornate ceilings, sumptuous tapestries, and grand rooms. Lola’s relaxed, personal guidance made the day effortless. Highly recommend her!

Rubin was great! Very knowledgeable, sense of humor and good pace. We loved his tour

We took the Prado and Place visit and walking tour with Marta about a week ago in Madrid. It was excellent. Marta was very knowledgeable and imparted her wisdom with a great sense of humour. She was great at managing our group and keeping people together and moving along. A professional and well run tour we would recommend to others.

Juan Antonio provides a lot of interesting information and, beyond basic data, makes the experience very pleasant and fun, in addition to his patience in answering doubts or questions.

This was a complete sham. Cancelled place visit. Guide gave the wrong address for meet. Vendor would not respond. Stay away from this!!!! Have asked for refund but am doubtful it will happen. Will call bank to reverse charge!

The Prado portion was cancelled due to uncontrollable circumstance. The remaining the Royal Palace portion was rushed, overcrowded and generally underwhelming. The biggest disappointment however was the Viator customer service. The promised refund on the cancelled portion of tour amounted to less than 10% of the total tour price. Viator claimed that they had no control over the refund provided by the local tour provider. I have used Viator many times but will never use them again.

This was a great tour of the Prado Museum and the Royal Palace. It was great to skip the lines. Especially for the palace Tour which had a several block long line that we skipped past.

Definitely recommend visiting both when visiting Madrid. Absolutely beautiful full of history. Negative is the last minute swap starting at Prado Museum then Royal Palace not allowing extra time at the museum as well as exploring Retiro Park next door. There was over an hour gap between both tours, so it may be better to do them individually even though you'll probably pay more. Our tour guide was sweet but struggled doing the tour in English. There was a mixup on the meeting time for the Palace so we had another guide who was easier to understand and had a plethora of interesting historical tidbits. Unfortunately she had to leave in the middle of the tour so the first guide could finish it

Absolutely fascinating. Ruben was an exceptional guide with his kindness, knowledge of paintings, and his humor! He taught so many things to look out for in paintings. Ruben made it a wonderful experience

It was an unfortunate situation that caused our tour day to be unorganized. But there was no contingency plan for an unexpected occurrence and we had to ask the tour group to purchase tickets for us to the Prado so we could at least go in for a self guided tour. And then the group for the Palace was too big and it took extra time there to get the ticket situation worked out again. There were just too many people in the Palace and in the group. The guide walked ahead quickly and the entire group could not see what was being talked about. We are glad to have seen both buildings but disappointed overall.

Marta gave an informative review and answered all of our questions throughout the day! I learned so much! Thank you Marta!

Lola was an excellent guide and shared lots of historical information about the Royal Palace and Spain itself. At the Prado, she told us about the historical significance of the artist and painters and also shared her appreciation and regard for the art we saw. The tour of the Prado is quick, highlighting some of the important pieces. If you like to take your time perusing the art, you’ll need to stay after the tour, or just go on your own. We had limited time in Madrid, so this tour worked well for us.

Was above expectations! Carefully selected pieces visited on a well-paced tour. Lola was very professional, informed, and kind.

We were very disappointed in the tour. Meeting place changed last minute, several people went to original meetings place and were told of the change and had to take a taxi to the new location. We booked this tour with the palace first followed by the Prado specifically so we would be able to remain touring the Prado after the tour was completed. At the last minute they change the order and started at the Prado. We decided to skip the place tour since the Prado is soooo big!

The Palace and Museum tours themselves were nice. However, it was not revealed in the description of the tour that you had to find your own way from the Palace to the Museum. Some people took an Uber ... we did not feel comfortable leaving the guide in case we got lost. So, we ended up walking with the guide from the Palace to the Museum. We were also running late, so we had to walk fairly quickly, and it was over a mile walk. It was just an unexpected revelation during the tour.

Terrible. We showed up and they told us our palace tour and guided tours of prado museum were cancelled. They gave us unguided tour for museum and have not refunded the entire amount. I will call TripAdvisor and complain

Maria was an excellent guide! Enjoyed the tour very much. Only suggestion would be to include time for a lunch break after the Royal Palace before the long walk to The Prado museum.

There should be a shuttle from palace to museum. In spite of information during walk, after 40 minutes of walking to the museum I was too tired to enjoy it fully. There was no info provided in tour description indicating of the long walk between the two sites. I would not recommend this tour on that basis.

Rueben was an excellent and enthusiastic tour guide. His love and appreciation of Madrid and art showed through. Be advised that this tour involves a lot of walking and standing!

This tour does not include transportation from the museum to the Royal Palace they walk and it’s a long walk. Also, they changed the location to meet last minute, so make sure you read your emails before you head to the tour. We wasted €20 on taxis and almost missed it tour guide was excellent

It was very thorough. Angela was amazing, very informative. She was very knowledgeable and made sure we understood everything!

I booked this tour 9 months ahead only to have it shifted back by 3 hours to 12.45 less than 24 hours before start of tour. The explanation for delaying the tour was they failed to secure the tickets at the time they wanted. It took 50 minutes to ensure that all headphones and receivers were working as the tour party was 30 and the equipment was poor. In the end they had to borrow equipment from the Palace. The tour of the Palace was good with Ruben providing lots of information and he managed to catch up a bit of time. The walk to the Prada museum was slow with too many stops for no particular reason, and we were late arriving for our tour, which was scheduled for 15.45. Having arrived at the Prada museum, we were ready to start our tour at about 4.20. We had another experience organised through TripAdvisor for a flamenco show at 6pm so meant we would have to leave the museum at 5.15. We therefore took ourselves round the museum to see the highlights as Reubens tour was to be an hour and a half. In hindsight it would have been easier and better to have organised it all ourselves. Avoid.

The tour would have been much more interesting if the Prado Museum would provide the tour guides with a headset with a microphone that moves with the guide's head. Each time she moved her head to address the group or show something, we could not hear what she said. The result is that the information was chopped up. One couple even left the group halfway through because of this. The guides are obliged to use what the Prado provides. A great pity. We would have done better with a self-guided audio tour. On top of that, the Royal Palace which would have been on this same tour, cancelled all entries on that day so we could not see it. Still waiting for the refund for that part.

Disappointing, the palace was closed because of a private function— I get it, you cannot control what the king does. However, we had a whole itinerary laid out with places to walk by and see and all we got was a guided tour of the Prado museum. I feel that we need 2/3 of our money back because no palace , no walking tour!!very disappointing. I messaged the guide through the Viator app a week before the tour because of friend of mine tried to book tickets for the palace and she got a reply that it was closed for a private event. So , if the guide was not aware of this my message should have triggered an investigation and planned an alternative solution. I feel that we were ripped off and misguided from what we signed up for and expected to get out of this tour. Less than 24 hours before the tour , the meeting time and place changed 😡and due to travelling I did not get this message in time to not show up at the original meeting time and place. I know I should have checked that morning! Lesson learned! However, let’s not forget I picked this because it had a good walking tour itinerary and skip the line for both the palace and the museum—very disappointing. I would have preferred to meet at the original time and place, walk the route ( obviously not go into the palace) and then finish early! Maybe people could have seen the museum highlights as planned and then given the option to be done or continue with the guide in the museum. I chose to get a partial refund, the tour was 4 days ago— still nothing. I will be watching and hoping for 2/3 of my money back!

We booked this tour some months prior. With less than 24 hours to go our morning tour was suddenly cancelled and we were offered a much later time. We already had other paid for arrangements that couldn’t be changed so we had to miss out. Very disappointed. Still waiting for a refund to occur !

Very difficult to find starting point, frustrating

The cancellation of the Royal Palace tour was due to royal family having an impromptu stay day of tour. We accepted the Prado Museum tour at a different time but same day a tour booked. The guide was late to meeting place by 25 minutes and had to go purchase our group of 11 our tickets. She was friendly but talked very fast. However she began by saying she could get the tour done in 45 minutes rather the scheduled 1 1/2 hour. We stopped again for bathroom break before starting. Then a long interrogation. The first room of paintings but her microphone faded off and on. Then my hearing apparatus stopped working. We decided that the tour was not going well and left to do our own tour.

Marta was a great guide and host!

Marka guide was excellent. Good sense of humour

Guide was great! Good sense of humor and very informative

An excellent guided tour!!! We were treated to many stories behind a range of beautiful paintings at The Prado. The walk over to the Royal Palace was lovely with a short stop for gelato and rest. I could not imagine visiting either cultural sight without the benefit of a guided explanation of what I was seeing. The pacing was brisk but bearable. I’d recommend this tour to anyone.

We’re so glad we had Lola as our tour guide! She was incredibly friendly, knowledgeable, and informative. We learned so much about Madrid and its history, and she made the entire experience enjoyable and memorable. We couldn’t have asked for a better tour guide! 🇪🇸❤️

We both really enjoyed this tour with Miguel. The 5 hours flew by. He really showed us how to look at the paintings and the effects some of them had. Time built in for Prado gift shop and coffee/ snack before the royal palace.

Our guide was so accommodating to one family members needs. He was extremely knowledgeable. I would recommend this tour!!

The Prado and Royal Palace are a must see in Madrid. Our tour operator was very knowledgeable. We enjoyed the tours very much.

Adrian's knowledge of the paintings at the Prado were excellent and well informed. It was a wonderful tour. Would always go again.