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Considering the Sydney Opera House Tour during your visit?
Great idea. This is one of the most popular tourist activities in Sydney, and for good reason. We have accompanied guests on our Sydney tours on this experience many times. We always enjoy it and learn something new about this fascinating and iconic building. So, what’s it like to do the tour? How much does it cost? When does it operate? And is it worth adding to your Sydney city tour itinerary? Read on to get the perspective of seasoned Sydney tour guides.
If you are coming to visit Sydney for the first time, it will be impossible to miss the beautiful and timeless curves of the Sydney Opera House. Whether you fly over it as you arrive, enjoy it from your hotel window, or as a backdrop on an evening meal or Sydney Harbour cruise, it is a landmark that will grab your attention and make you look again and again. The visage of the beautiful sail-like facade changes during the seasons and during the day, reflecting the light and begging to be photographed from every new angle it reveals.
But if admiring from afar is not enough for you and you want to get more intimately acquainted, then a Sydney Opera House Tour is for you. And it’s also the only way to get inside without having tickets to a performance or event. It is wonderful to walk the entire way around the base and get up close to the exterior facade, especially at dusk, but to get inside, the tour is essential. The Sydney Opera House tour is a 1-hour walking tour with headsets to ensure you don’t miss anything.
Sydney Opera House Tour group sizes are kept to around 12 and you will hear all of the fascinating stories about the architect Jørn Utzon, the dramas and conflicts, the huge construction challenges that were overcome, the reaction of the Sydney public at the time, and the ultimate triumph of this landmark which was included on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2007. There are plenty of opportunities to stop and take photos (however, videoing is not permitted), and a variety of media is utilised to tell the stories. The tour does get you inside some of the performance spaces, but with many live performances being staged, these are subject to availability at the time of your tour.
The standard Sydney Opera House Tour runs every day of the year (apart from Christmas Day, 30 December, and New Year’s Eve), and there is a very generous schedule of 1-hour tours that start from 9am and leave every half hour through till 5pm every day of the week. Entry is $48 for adults, $28 for children, $38 for concession, and $124 for families (2 adults and 2 children 15 years and under. Children under 5 free of charge).
Other tour offerings include The Backstage Tour which runs for 2.5 hours, Tour & Dine featuring an exclusive lunch menu, and the Architectural Tour. See the Sydney Opera House website for more information and a full list of tours.
For those with limited mobility or access needs, a Mobility Access Tour is available. Click the Mobility Access Tour link for more information and to request a booking.
The Sydney Opera House also offers tailored guided tours in French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin languages. For more information, visit the Sydney Opera House website.
Unfortunately, prams and buggies cannot be used on tours as they are not permitted in Sydney Opera House venues. But with the Sydney Opera House Tour involving over 300 stairs, it’s not ideally suited to visitors with prams anyhow, so consider bringing a baby backpack or sling if you plan to visit with small children.
The only way to get inside the Sydney Opera House is on a scheduled tour or if you have purchased a ticket to a performance or event in one of the many performance spaces. You can, however, walk the entire perimeter of this immense structure and up the stairs at the front of the Sydney Opera House, a very popular location to take photos. Visit early morning or at dusk to get the best light and most evocative photographs (the image featured in this blog was taken late in the afternoon).
You sure can. We frequently build a tour into one of our tailored Sydney city tours and usually suggest a later afternoon tour so that touring time around the city is not affected. Our guests usually then just head back to their Sydney hotel on foot, or grab dinner nearby at one of the many waterfront dining options, either casually at the Opera Bar or fine dining at Bennelong or Aria.
If you have more specific questions that we can help with, feel free to contact us.
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