I can imagine you all are wondering, how does it work to get tickets to the Olympics? How did you guys get such great seats? How did you find a hotel for such a big event? Well, in this blog post I will cover all of the logistical details that are a part of attending an Olympics!
Then, maybe it will inspire you to attend the LA games in 2028!
What is Step 1 to attending the Olympics?
Step 1 to attending an Olympics is to sign up for the ticket lottery. I signed up for lottery around November 2022 and then we bought our tickets in March 2023. We were thinking about attending the Olympics about a year and a half in advance! In the first round of ticket sales you can purchase what they were calling “party packs,” basically you needed to get tickets for event groupings of 3. This was really to help with selling tickets for the bigger and less popular events like soccer. For example, a lot of people “filled their pack” with nosebleed soccer tickets as they were like $30.
In the “party pack phase we purchase 6 events in 2 groups of 3. Later, we bought and sold different other tickets as well. Everything is done in the official platform so people aren’t able to hike up the prices a ridiculous amount. For example, we bought our diving tickets last minute the day before on the resale platform no problem.
How did you coordinate transportation and find a hotel?
Thankfully, living in Amsterdam, Paris is only a little over 3 hours away via the high speed trains. I had an alert set for when train tickets would go on sale for our dates and then I booked the train immediately since the prices go up the closer to the day you go. Then, as for hotels, I spent A LOT of time comparing, browsing, etc. I probably booked hotels about 5 different times all with Booking.com and their free cancellation policies. The overall boost to tourism in Paris was lower than expected so the prices for hotels were actually lower than normal and that is why prices kept going down close and closer to the event. Paris is basically the #1 destination in the world for tourists so they have tons of hotel supply.
How much did everything cost?
Everything is relative to the person on if they thing something is expensive or cheap. For us, living already in Europe and not having to book a plane ticket from the States is a much cheaper way to do the Olympics as the plane ticket will typically be the most expensive cost. Overall, the tickets for the sports were between $40-$250 each. The diving was the most expensive coming in around $250. Partially, this is because the venue is quite small compared to the massive Track & Field venue. Then, for the hotel, I scoured the best deals and ended up getting the a nice, but simple room at a boutique hotel in the city center of Paris for under $150 a night and then stayed for a total of 5 nights. For me, this is a bargain compared to the price we pay for chain hotels in the US for various weddings being from $200-$300 a night. For the trains, since we didn’t plan our event tickets as well as we could have, we went to Paris twice and each round trip trip was about $180. All in all, it was about 1,500 euros per person for us to attend the Olympics! Considering we often pay around 1,000 euros on a flight to visit family home in the States once or twice a year this seems like a very reasonable cost for a trip of a lifetime!
I hope that has you already thinking about LA 2028 or even Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in 2026.
Cheers,
❤️Melanie
Smiles from Miles Away 