The Vatican policy changed in January and now individuals cannot enter before 10am - and with the crowds, to get in at 10, you have to get there much earlier than that and wait on line (people I know that arrived at 8:30 waited over two hours, and that was in March, in off-season!).

There are a couple of very informative threads about this on the slowtravel website:

http://slowtalk.com/groupee/forums/a...422#3601024422

http://slowtalk.com/groupee/forums/a...5/m/1951007692