908 ratings on the eleven Residenz listings, and 658 of them were left after a concert
Sixteen listings sit on this site. Eleven of them are about this building; the other five are Munich-wide things that appear beside it. Between the eleven there are 908 ratings, and across all sixteen there are 113 reviews with a sentence attached. That is the entire written record this site has to work with, and the useful thing about it is not the average. It is the shape.
The music outruns the palace, and it is not close
Divide the 658 by the 908 and you get 72 per cent. Nearly three quarters. Put the two headline listings side by side and the same thing shows up in one line: “Munich: Classical Concert at the Residenz Palace” carries 389 ratings, and “Munich: Residenz Palace and Hofgarten Skip-the-Line Tour” carries 190. Divide those and the answer is 2.05, so the concert has been rated more than twice as often as the guided visit that walks you through the whole building.
Two more concert listings sit behind those. “Munich: Gala Concert in the Cuvilliés Theatre” has 109 and the best score of anything here with a real sample, 4.9. “Munich: Concert in the Court Chapel of the Residenz” has 108 and the lowest score of the four concerts, 4.4. “Master Concert in the Max-Joseph Hall in Munich” has 52. The fifth concert listing, the Munich Festival, has no rating and no written review at all, which is what a new listing looks like and is the reason it is quoted nowhere on this site.
None of that is a verdict on the museum. It is a fact about what the booking platform actually sells at this address, which is a guide or an evening rather than a ticket — nobody on it sells plain admission, because the palace sells that itself at its own desk (what the three tickets cost). Which hall each concert uses, and what none of them includes, is on concerts inside the palace.
Two listings that never come inside are bigger than all eleven put together
Here is the number an affiliate site is not supposed to print. The Neuschwanstein and Linderhof full-day trip carries 16,428 ratings. Divide that by the 908 on every Residenz listing combined and the answer is 18.1, so eighteen times over. The Third Reich and WWII walking tour carries 7,257, which against the same 908 is 7.99, so eight times over. Neither of them goes inside this building. One of them does not go within a hundred kilometres of it.
The Munich hop-on hop-off bus has 4,638 and the German-language old town walk has 2,628, and neither includes admission to anything at this address either. So four of the five listings on this site that are not about the Residenz hold more ratings each than the whole Residenz catalogue does between them.
What that measures is search behaviour rather than quality. People book a castle in the Alps months before they land and a bus on the morning they arrive; they book a city palace when somebody tells them it is there. If you want the version of that argument written from this side, it is on is the Residenz worth it, and the honest comparison with the other Munich palace is on Residenz or Nymphenburg.
The five sentences in the whole record that will change what you do
Most of the 113 say the guide was knowledgeable or the music was beautiful, which is pleasant and tells you nothing you can act on. A small number carry information the seller’s own page does not, and they are worth more than the averages they sit inside.
- The tickets may not be in your voucher. Manfred, on the Max-Joseph recital: “Unfortunately, my vouchers didn’t mention that I had to pick up the tickets with the seat numbers at the box office. It caused some irritation!”
- The chapel is cold, except when it is not. István, on the court chapel programme: “they could have put in some warmers, it was very cold.” Fiona, on the Saturday concert in the same room: “I brought a coat thinking I would be cold but in fact it was quite stuffy.” Both are five stars. Both are describing the Hofkapelle.
- The theatre has its own way in and people miss it. Two of the ten written reviews on the gala concert say independently that the entrance was hard to find (the chapel, the theatre).
- A guided-tour ticket is not always an admission ticket. Ursula, the only reviewer on this site who spells that out, dropped a star for it. Her review is quoted whole on the either-or tour page.
- An advertised audio language may not exist on the day. Tina booked the bus expecting Danish and got Swedish, which she reports cheerfully and which is still a thing that happened (the bus page).
Every one of those is a practical problem with a practical answer, and the answers are on the pages that deal with doors and clocks rather than opinions: which door to use and what is open when.
Four listings here have almost nothing behind them
“Residence of Munich private tour with skip-the-line ticket” has five ratings. “Private Historian-Led Munich Residenz & Treasury Tour” has two. “Munich Residence Tour: Historical Highlights & Storytelling” has one. “Munich: Munich Festival in the Munich Residenz” has none, and no rating either.
All three of the ones with any are showing five stars. A five-star average built on one rating is a number rather than a recommendation, and stretching it into a review page would mean writing several hundred words around a single sentence somebody typed in a hotel lobby. So none of the four has a page here. What each of them says it includes, in its own wording, is set out on every listing at this address.
The two remaining concert listings — the court chapel special-date programme with 108 ratings and the Max-Joseph recital with 52 — do have plenty of written reviews, and they are quoted where they belong rather than here: on the concerts page, next to which hall each one plays in and which nights each is on. The Christmas market crawl and the two Munich-wide walks that are not the WWII tour are on the full list.
Seven listings, seven pages, every quote printed as written
One page for the guided visit, one for each of the two concert rooms that carry the weight, one for the private tour, one for the tour that will not choose a palace for you, and one each for the two Munich listings whose numbers dwarf everything here. Each page prints the reviews in full and says how many there were to print.
Munich: Residenz Palace and Hofgarten Skip-the-Line Tour
The most-rated way into all three parts with somebody talking. Ten written reviews, all five stars, and three of them name the same guide.
10 written, one in TurkishRead the page ›
Munich: Classical Concert at the Residenz Palace
The single most-rated thing sold at this address, and it is an hour of music with no museum visit in it whatsoever.
10 written, one very longRead the page ›
Munich: Gala Concert in the Cuvilliés Theatre
The best score here with a sample worth the name — and two reviewers in ten who could not find the door.
10 written, one with emojiRead the page ›
Munich: Residenz Palace, Museum and Treasury Private Tour
Sixteen ratings, four written reviews, and the highest price in this catalogue. Quoted whole, because four is all there is.
4 written, all five starsRead the page ›
Munich: Nymphenburg Palace or Residenz Guided Tour
One listing, two palaces, and reviewers who mostly do not say which one they were taken round.
9 written, two in GermanRead the page ›
Munich: Third Reich & WWII Walking Tour
Eight times the ratings of every Residenz listing put together, on a walk that never comes inside one.
10 written, all naming one guideRead the page ›
Munich Hop-On Hop-Off Tour: 1-Day or 2-Day Ticket
The lowest score in this catalogue, on a bus that passes the door and includes admission to nothing.
10 written, none about the palaceRead the page ›Read the count before the score. A 5.0 from two ratings and a 4.3 from 4,638 are not two points on the same scale, and the second one is far better evidence about what you are buying. On every page below, the number of people who actually wrote something is printed next to the number who clicked a star.
What none of these reviews can settle
Whether to go in, and which of the three tickets to buy. No rating in this catalogue answers that, because not one listing on the platform sells plain admission — the museum, the treasury and the theatre are the palace’s own tickets, sold at its own desk, and every review here is a review of something added on top of them. The tariff, with both savings written out, is on tickets. What you walk through once you are in is on what is inside. How much of a day it takes is on how long you need, and the whole argument in one place is the Residenz explained.
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Frequently asked questions
Which Munich Residenz tour has the most reviews?
None of them. The most-rated listing at this address is a concert: “Munich: Classical Concert at the Residenz Palace”, with 389 ratings, an hour in the old court chapel with no museum visit attached. The most-rated actual tour is “Munich: Residenz Palace and Hofgarten Skip-the-Line Tour” with 190. Dividing the two gives 2.05, so the concert has been rated more than twice as often.
How many written reviews are there, and where did they come from?
113 across all sixteen listings, taken from the listing pages themselves. They are printed here word for word, including typing errors, capitals and emoji. Reviewer countries were not recovered when the reviews were extracted, so no reviewer on this site is given one. Each quote names the listing it was left on and appears under no other.
Why do some listings not have a review page?
Because there is not enough behind them to fill one honestly. The Munich Festival in the Residenz has no rating and no written review at all; the storytelling tour has one rating, the historian-led private tour two, and the second private tour five. The two remaining concert listings have plenty and are covered on the concerts page instead, beside the halls they play in.
Is the Residenz itself rated anywhere on this site?
No, and it is not going to be. Every score here belongs to a product — a guide’s two and a half hours, an evening of chamber music, a bus ticket. Averaging those into a mark out of five for a state palace would be inventing a measurement. Whether the building is worth your afternoon is argued from the building on is it worth it.
Are these reviews independent of this site?
The ratings and the words are the booking platform’s and the reviewers’; nothing here has been tidied, softened or attached to a listing it was not left on. Booking through a link on this site pays me a percentage, which the disclosure page sets out in full. That is the reason this page opens with arithmetic instead of a testimonial: a page paid by bookings owes you the unflattering number first.