Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel Skip-the-Line Tour

It was a long day. Walking from meeting point to museum and passing through security took quite awhile. Our guide Francesca was knowledgeable. After our tour ended we were expected to walk back to meeting point to get Basilica tickets. This made no sense—other tours gave participants both tickets together. Because our time in Rome was so limited, I wished I had just done the Basilica. (For me personally)

The tour was a very disappointing experience. It started around 45 minutes late amongst chaotic scenes with 3 or more groups congregating near the tour office. It was apparent that there were not enough guides (especially english speakers) and communication was poor. Even inside the Vatican, the queues were long and badly organised. Around six or seven of our group were then arbitrarily told to join another group whose guide had already started a presentation. On completing the Vatican tour we were advised to go to the front of the Basilica queue only to be told we should have returned to the office to collect Basilica tickets. After the morning's chaos, this was the last thing we needed and we did not understand why tickets had not been distributed when we had been waiting outside the tour office. Staff at the office could not really cope and were then blunt and defensive when faced with complaints.

While our guide was very knowledgeable, the organization of this tour ruined the experience. The tour was advertised as lasting 3 hours including St Peter’s basilica, however when we arrived the tour of the museums lasted from 9:30-12:30 and then we were told we had to exit and then re-enter to see the basilica which we had ended up not even being able to do because the wait to go back in was well over an hour. Our guide just dropped us in the line and said we were on our own. We had to leave because we had another activity planned for 16:00 which based on a 9:30 start time and an expected duration of 3 hours should have given plenty of time between the two activities. However I am writing this review as we are exiting the line to go back in for the basilica part that we will now miss so that we can attend our next activity. This was such a huge disappointment and a complete waste of money and the time we had in Rome.

Skip-the-line ticket was very helpful! Really liked our guide, but he was a little hard to understand at times. You could tell he really cared about the Vatican and artwork. The Vatican was packed and very hot, but he kept us moving. We were there on a Monday and he recommended to not do a Monday, if possible. Vatican is extra busy on Mondays as a lot of museums in Rome are closed on Mondays. Sistine Chapel was my favorite part - incredible!

The fact we had to run from the museum from the Sistine Chapel to St Peter’s meant we had a terrible end to our paid trip. Only be sheer luck did security at St Peter’s let us in!!! The door to the left of the Sistine chapel is a very bad idea - trying to herd lots of people through a tiny door. We were told that the right hand door is no longer used but we saw plenty of groups going in there with the tour guide saying ‘we are now going into St Peters’ - this is not good and that is why I can’t recommend this tour to anyone. Especially for the price we paid!