jamesclandestine

Hi,

I got recommended a tour of the vatican museum for 2 persons at 190 euros. I checked out the tour and to my surprise all other tours of the same kind the same day are priced at almost half. Our tour is early in the morning with max 12 people, while all the others are max 20 people. Both include "skip the line access etc.".

Is it worth it to pay that much extra for the early tour? Any experiences?

Thx

mbluecpa

All advice we received was that mornings are preferred due to crowds. In fact, our tour guide emailed the day prior to see if we were amenable to moving our tour up from 9 to 8:30.

The price you quote is very high. We paid 170 Euros last month for a ~3.5 hour private tour (2 people).

jamesclandestine

Thx for the info. Who was your operator on the private tour?

mbluecpa

Private Tour of Rome: https://privatetourofrome.com

We were very pleased with the tour and the arrangement/logistics.

Perche

When are you going? When I lived in Rome I would sometimes just walk straight into the Sistine Chapel. I'd be one of only 5-6 people in there. Even when I wasn't in Rome and I was on a layover at FCO I'd take the person with me straight into the Sistine Chapel. You can't do that in July or August, but in other times of the year you can. The price and wait time, and what company you choose are very seasonally dependent.

Yllanes

I think it's really too expensive. Just buy the tickets online and you'll skip the line anyway.

jamesclandestine

Going end of june, beginning of july. I checked pricing for the private tours (only 2ppl) and the quotes are definately higher, I guess due to the season. We will though not pay nearly double to be part of the early group with 12 pple vs 20 I think. I have send in some requests and hope I have some answers later today.

jamesclandestine

Ok so we ended up with a skip the line tour for 2 starting 10am at 115Euros for two. I checked several sites myself and that offer is reasonable for the dates (end of june). This tour has more pple (20 instead of 12) and is during more busy hours.

ac921ol

so I just emailed Privatetourofrome.com to see how much it would cost for the Vatican Tour, and the Best of Rome Tour for Sept 16-18th


I also saw someone mention just buying ticket online and Im able to skip the line for the Vatican, is this true? how much doe these tickets run? any link for these?

Yllanes

Just buy the tickets from the official website of the museum (http://www.museivaticani.va/3_EN/pages/MV_Home.html). This is the only site that sells them (the Vatican is not included in things like Roma Pass, for instance).

It's € 20 for the full ticket (€ 16 + € 4 in fees) for the museums and the Sistine Chapel, half that for children between 6 and 18 years old. The entrance is timed and you skip the queue. You can also prepay for the audioguide if you want. The best option is to book the earliest possible time. The door to the museum opens a few minutes before the official opening time and you can get in and get oriented before everybody starts flooding in (in the summer there is already a pretty long queue well before the opening time for people without tickets).

I don't see how you can justify paying € 40 extra for a tour (and not even a private one), there is plenty of information in every room of the museums and you go at your own pace (plus, you get to choose what to see, there's really too much for one day).

philemer

Check out gladiator tours-- http://gladiatortours.com/tours.html

Very reasonable. They usually have employees outside the venue (Vatican, Colosseum, etc) so you don't even need advanced rez.