Day and Time to go the Vatican Museum/St Peter's

If you have the stamina to do it after an overnight flight I would say to do it. The afternoon is always a good time to go to avoid the long wait outside. the inside will be crowded but you'll find that everyday within an hour of the museums opening. I think you'll have plenty of tine to see the museums and the basilica. don't know if you'll have time for the dome as well. You might want to leave that for another time or do the whole thing on another day. It really depends on how much time you spend in the museums and basilica.

Donna

Have you checked www.roninrome.com? He has a helpful article on the Musei Vaticani.
We took his advice and went on a Tuesday afternoon--this was last month, early May. Crowded, yes, but not the way I'd been reading about it--you could still see lots of floor! And only maybe 4 crocodile tour groups making life difficult--get caught in the middle of one of those and you're like a salmon swimming upstream. I did book our tickets on-line at the Vatican website and highly recommend it--we sailed past the lineup, to the barricade with the guards, showed our printout, and voila!--smiles and a step to the side, so we could slip past the barricade, and nobody at all in line at the "on-line/group" counter inside. Plus our reservations were for 13:00 and we got there half an hour earlier, and it was no problem---they let us redeem our voucher and go in for 12:30.
I would NOT recommend doing the museums and St. Peter's on the same day--we didn't, and it was still exhausting. We were in the museum till closing time. I guess it depends on how many "highlights" you want to see!
We'd been to St Peter's the day before (Monday) since the Scavi office had given us 14:00 that day as our reserved time for the tour (highly recommend it, by the way). Then we had the mid-to-late afternoon to wander the church---and you do wander, it's huge! Don't miss Michelangelo's Pieta--it's so beautiful you want to cry. We took the elevator to the base of the dome and enjoyed the views both inside and out, but that's as far as we went. Neither one of us had the urge to climb hundreds of steps inside a narrow space to get to the very top, but I can tell you that, half an hour before closing time, there was still a huge line-up (in the rain, no less) hoping to go up. But, from high above inside, we were privileged to hear some of the late-afternoon mass--beautiful.

Thanks for the suggestions! I may consider doing just the museum that day depending on how long we're there, and maybe the Basilica the next. It would be nice to take advantage of one of the few museums that's open on Monday. We're young, so I think we'll have the stamina.

Ron is not doing tours anymore as he is moving in just over a month.

Donna

How far in advance would one need to book tickets online?

Is it necessary to do it now for mid July or can I wait until I am in Italy at the start of July to do it?

Justin,

Have you read Rick's Vatican tips about booking a tour ahead of time online to avoid waiting in line? Please do yourself the favor. It saved us from waiting in a line that went on FOREVER. I cannot stress enough what a time savor this was! You meet the tour guide at the front of the line and they take you/the group in! I felt sorry for all the folks stuck back in that L-O-N-G line. I would never have made it if I had to wait for hours...

We just returned from Italy on June 6. We visited St. Peter's and the Vatican Museums on the first Friday in June, arriving at about 14.00 and there was NO line to get into the Vatican Museums at all. There were plenty of people moving toward the major sites - Sistine and Raphael Rooms - but no just plain standing.

I would think that in September you will find fewer people than we did the first Friday in June. I wouldn't buy tickets online - you pay a €4 fee per ticket and I don't think it's necessary for when you're visiting.

Also - avoid arriving in the morning - that's when the tour buses arrive.

In general, everywhere we went in Italy, locals told us that tourism is way down. So use that to your benefit and buona vacanza!

I'm currently in Rome and went to the Vatican/St. Peter's today - a Saturday. I had the same concerns as you and even knowing it's summer and Rome would be crowded, I am still astonished at how many tourists there are everywhere. Picture the worst day at Disneyland. (Not that I'm comparing Rome to Disneyland!) I booked 1:00 p.m. tickets to the Vatican this morning online using my hotel's email address, and they were kind enough to print the voucher. Arriving at 12:45, we walked right in along with everyone else who did NOT have tickets; there was no line at all. There was a line for the dome, though -- not sure what the wait was.

As far as time, we had more than enough to see what we wanted and would have had time for the dome if energy levels had permitted it (still jetlagged), but I confess I'm not a lingerer in museums.

We just got back from Rome on Sunday, we booked a skip the line tour with Dark Rome Tours, it was a wonderful tour of not only the sites in Vatican City but the outlying Vatican Churches. We did a number of tours with Dark Rome and would highly recommend them.

We returned from Rome Tuesday evening, the 15th of June. My recommendation is to go early, but also suggest using tour company. You get in an hour before the doors open to the public; you enter via the Vatican Museum and we went directly to the Sistine Chapel. We used the tour company Italywithus:
http://www.italywithus.com/

Also, the Basilica is very crowded and a long line to go through security, go early and there will be no line.