There are 7 adults visiting Rome in late May 2024 and we want to know if we should try to book a Vatican museum tour directly through the Vatican museum website or do it through a tour operator like walks of Italy or through eternity tours. I’ve heard that the Vatican museum tickets sell out quickly and my concern is that if we wait until those dates open up via the Vatican museum website we won’t be able to get 7 tickets. Any ideas and experiences are appreciated.
Posted by
12 posts
I found that the tours on the official Vatican ticketing website are a bit slower to sell out compared to the admission-only tickets. I think the tickets including a tour also go on sale a bit sooner than the admission-only slots. We had no problem booking a tour for our visit in November. I suspect that May will be busier, but you can start checking the site to see when your dates become available.
Posted by
alameda, ca, usa
2693 posts
The best money I ever spent was the approximately $64 ticket for the Prime Experience tour through the Vatican Museum website--it got me in at 7:30 am (the museum opens at 9 am), excellent guided tour in a small group of 20 or so, with a good 20 minutes in the Sistine Chapel, then at 9 am we had a very good breakfast. After that you can go back in and explore as much as you want all day. I visited in late April of this year and the peace & quiet and time to see & enjoy the art before the insane rush of people at 9 am was well-worth it to me. I bought the ticket about 3 months prior to my tour date.
Posted by
Washington DC
28247 posts
My observations match jsolar's. I don't think you'll have a problem getting tour tickets through the Vatican Museums if you monitor the website for availability.
Posted by
Indiana
24 posts
I am in a similar situation. I only wish, I knew how many days out in advance the Vatican opens up the days that you and I are looking for. It frustrating.
Posted by
Minnesota 🎒
16623 posts
Linda, the question about how far in advance the Vatican's tour tickets usually go on sale - and what I'm currently seeing - was answered in one of your other posts.
But a caution? I highlighted that word "usually" as sometimes things just don't go according to usual plan. For instance, on Jan. 1 the Vatican changed their hours, some of their tour offerings, and made tickets nominative to eliminate scalping.
Parco Colosseum was supposed to change their ticket vendor - currently Coopculture - on Feb. 1 but it hasn't happened yet, and no firm date I'm aware of when that will happen. Heck, for a period of time a few years ago they were changing their ticketing schedules so often that it was nearly impossible to keep up! As well, the website was blocked to some IPs the past couple weeks because of some sort of fraud attack.
Galleria Borghese very recently wasn't making tickets available as far in advance as normal, and also announced that their entire 2nd floor is going to be closed for "major works."
I'd assume that lot of this has to do with WAY too many people wanting to see a limited number of attractions with not enough room to accommodate them all. And sometimes stuff just happens. So go easy on responders trying to help 'cause we're just doing the best we can with "usuals" which can change on a dime without much notice, OK?