At the Royal Palace of Madrid two different combined tickets carry the same €24 price and contain different things. Buying the wrong one is easy, and both are sold on the same page.
The Real Cocina de Palacio is a set of restored kitchen rooms inside the Royal Palace of Madrid, and it costs €8 on a guided tour. The tour is 45 minutes long, has its own meeting point, and is sold separately from every Palace ticket. Combined with the Palace it is €24 full and €12 reduced, and anyone entitled to free Palace entry still pays the €8.
What does the Royal Kitchen tour cost at the Royal Palace of Madrid? The kitchen-only tour costs €8 per person and runs 45 minutes. Combined with the Royal Palace it is €24 full and €12 reduced. Visitors entitled to free Palace entry still pay €8, because that amount covers the guide rather than the admission.
Same price, different contents
Two combined products live at the same address at an identical price, and only one of them includes a guide.
| €24 ticket | What it contains |
|---|---|
| Royal Palace plus Royal Collections Gallery | Two buildings, both unguided |
| Royal Kitchen plus Royal Palace | A guided kitchen tour and an unguided Palace visit |
Both are €24 full and €12 reduced, and the Palacio sells both on its own website rather than on the page of the second venue. The Galería de las Colecciones Reales is the other half of the first of the two. The Gallery’s own hours and fare are in tickets for the Royal Collections Gallery.
Anyone who wants the Palace itself with a guide has to take the kitchen-only fare and buy the Palace guided tour separately. The €24 combination guides the kitchen and leaves the Palace unguided, not the other way round.
The exempt pay €8 anyway
Inside the combined fare list sits a line that reads as a contradiction: the free rate is priced at €8 per person, with a note explaining that kitchen admission is free and the payment covers the guide.
So a visitor entitled to free entry at the Royal Palace — under-5s, large families, ICOM and ICOMOS members, working official tourist guides, teaching staff in service, or people in certified unemployment — walks into the Palace free and pays €8 to see the kitchen. Those conditions are set out in who gets into the Royal Palace free.
It is the only fare Patrimonio Nacional publishes in Madrid where the charge attaches to a service rather than to access, which is why the amount matches the kitchen-only ticket exactly.
Fifteen minutes at one door, five at another
The access protocol is its own small procedure, and it is unforgiving about time.
Entry to the Palace is, on the instructions the Palacio publishes, through the preferential gate, 15 minutes before the time printed on the ticket. The specific meeting point is the Zaguán entrance hall, where visitors must present themselves 5 minutes before.
Three details follow from that, and all three are published:
- The time on a combined ticket is the kitchen time, not the Palace time.
- The rest of the Palace can be walked before or after those 45 minutes, within the building’s closing hours.
- Visitors enter from the Almudena esplanade gate at the corner of Calle de Bailén, while groups use the Calle de Bailén gate opposite Calle de Requena.
Interactive audio guides are available on site.
Five sessions a day, six in the long season
The kitchen keeps shorter hours than the Palace, and it is the part of the visit that runs out first.
On the timetable the Palacio publishes, it runs 11:15 to 14:50 every day from October to March. From April to September it stretches to 15:50 Monday to Saturday, while Sundays keep the 14:50 finish in both seasons.
| Session | Runs on |
|---|---|
| 15:50 | Monday to Saturday, April to September only |
| 14:50 | Every day, all year |
| 14:15 | Every day, all year |
| 13:15 | Every day, all year |
| 12:15 | Every day, all year |
| 11:15 | Every day, all year |
That is five sessions for most of the year and six in the long season, at 45 minutes each. Every tour sold online is in Spanish.
Four dates close the site completely, 1 and 6 January, 1 May and 25 December, and on 24 and 31 December it shuts from 15:00, with the box office closing at 14:00. How that calendar differs from the rest of the city is mapped in who sets Madrid’s opening hours.
Across the Plaza de Oriente there is a second building that opens outside its own programme, because the Teatro Real runs a guided tour of the house for 5 €, or 3 € without the main hall.
Frequently asked questions about the Royal Kitchen tour
What are the two €24 tickets at the Royal Palace of Madrid?
One combines the Palace with the Royal Collections Gallery, both unguided. The other combines a guided Royal Kitchen tour with an unguided Palace visit. Same price, different contents, both sold on the Palace page.
How much is the Royal Kitchen tour in Madrid?
The kitchen-only tour costs €8 per person and lasts about 45 minutes. Combined with the Royal Palace it is €24 full and €12 reduced, and every tour sold online is conducted in Spanish.
Is the Royal Kitchen included in the Royal Palace ticket?
No. It is a separate guided tour with its own session time and its own meeting point in the Zaguán entrance hall, where visitors must arrive five minutes before the time on the ticket.
What time does the Royal Kitchen tour run?
Sessions leave at 11:15, 12:15, 13:15, 14:15 and 14:50 all year, with an extra 15:50 tour from April to September, Monday to Saturday only. Sundays never carry the late session.
Eight euros that one fare calls free, forty-five minutes of kitchen, and two doors running on two different clocks.