Hi -
Wanted to share a recent experience we had with the Walking Tours of Italy: Pristine Sistine Tour and what feels like very misleading advertising.
When my family and I bought these tickets for the 7:15 AM time slot, we were under the impression that the tour offered early access. As noted on the FAQs on their website:
- 'What makes your Pristine Sistine Tour different? Our Pristine Sistine Tour is our earliest entrance tour, getting you inside the Vatican Museums before they open to the general public. We take you straight inside once the Museums open to groups (an hour before the public!) and rush you directly to the Sistine Chapel, giving you the best chance of seeing it in peace and quiet!'
However, it does not. Instead, we joined the tour at 7:15, then arrived at the Museum entrance at 7:45 behind an already large line. We finally got through security and entered the museum itself at around 8:20. Our group was on the smaller side, and our guide was nice, but the information provided on the tour definitely wasn’t worth the 200 dollar per person price tag. Our headsets were also pretty low quality, and it was hard to hear her. We ended up wandering away from the group halfway through and downloading the free Rick Steves audio guide instead, which was just as good.
In hindsight, they do say on their website that the only early access times are technically 6 AM and 6:30, which was our bad for not reading the fine print. But it feels pretty disingenuous to call the entire tour “early access” when in reality only two time slots are. I looked several months ahead on their website, and it doesn't seem like they offer those timeslots any more. 7:15 was the only option as far as a year ahead. I hope they change the name and price of the tour to reflect this.
This was our only Walks of Italy tour. I'm sure other tours offered by the group are good but wanted to share our experience with this specific tour.