Does Vatican guided tour of the Sistine Chapel allow you to miss the crowds?

Karen, which tour are you looking at? "Guided Tour" can apply to many.

In 2019, we paid a lot for a "Pristine Sistine early entry" tour through Walks of Italy. People raved about it. However, the Sistine Chapel was very crowded and we didn't get in early. Maybe the Vatican tours are more honest about it. Maybe we went on a bad day in early May. Maybe we're just not tour people. Maybe we don't need a delicious American breakfast. The last time I checked, the secret doorway between the Vatican Museums and St Paul's that tours used to go between the two were closed. The secret passage is worthwhile but who knows if it will be opened. All I know is we want to go again but will try not to book a tour unless it provides a tangible benefit. We all have different styles of travel. If it appeals to you, do it.

We booked the City Wonders Sistine Chapel early access tour in #015, and we had the place practically to ourselves for the first 20 minutes. I counted about 25 others in the whole chapel for that time. This one:

https://citywonders.com/vatican-tours/sistine-chapel-early-access

Note that the guides do not give you a “tour” in the chapel itself; they are not supposed to speak in there. apart from a few people whispering, we enjoyed that magnificent place in near silence.

City Wonders does state that they are the first tours allowed in, and that seemed to be true.

It not what Aimee said—-tourism has not built up yet, so if you are going soon, you may not need a tour to have an uncrowded experience there.

We are going to be there in mid May. The tour I was looking at is directly through the Vatican Museum website, and included viewing the Sistine Chapel in the hour after it is closed to the general public. I'm more interested in viewing the Sistine Chapel with out a large crowd, than having a guided tour. However, if crowds remain small due to COVID, than perhaps it isn't necessary to pay the high price in order to have a less crowded experience.

Wow, I wonder what went wrong with Walks of Italy’s Pristine Sistine? Did you ask? We did that in 2015 and it was fabulous. There were maybe 100 people in the chapel instead. We were in before the public opening with other tour groups. He was so knowledgeable and really excited about teaching us. He would whisper so very softly and we could hear him perfectly through our headsets in the chapel. We loved it so much we booked it again for May.

I took the Pristine Sistine last month and thought it was fabulous -- indeed, we were the first group in, and there were only 20-30 other people in there with us.

When we cut back through a couple of hours later, the place was packed.

I was very glad I had paid the extra money to have a little more "tranquil" expérience.

You might want to check online with some of the private tour companies (Walks of Italy, The Roman Guy, even the consolidator Viator) JUST to get an idea of how many other tours are offered at the same time as the one you're looking at-not necessarily booking through these. I'm guessing that the Vatican orchestrates entry times to limit crowds as much as possible; however, Sistine Chapel visits are high in demand. I really believe a guided tour adds so much meaning to your visit.

Viator isn't a tour company; it is a consolidator that sells tours conducted by other companies. I'd address questions about Vatican tours to the companies that conduct them.

Edited my above response to clarify-thanks, acraven.

I have no idea what went wrong with our Pristine Sistine tour. I emailed them about our experience and received no explanation. Our guide was one that people raved about. There were about 10 other Walks of Italy Pristine Sistine tours going on at the same time, so perhaps they had overbooked. That would have been 130 people minimum in the chapel if we had gotten in early. At the end of the day, it was a valuable experience because it solidified our feelings that we're just not tour people especially not for $90/person. We want to go back to the Vatican on our next trip. As long as we can get tickets in advance and not wait in a line, we'll just use audio guide and let our fancy take us where it will.

130 people on the chapel is not bad at all. Have you seen pics when all the public is there?

I agree. 130 people would have been a massive improvement. It was shoulder-to-should when we were there.

We have been in the Sistine Chapel completely alone twice. After the first few visits and the sea of people we were in there with we decided to do something differently. We booked the very first entry time and raced through the halls (probably a half mile walk) and got tho the Sistine Chapel before any was there. It was amazing. We then back tracked through the museum and saw everything. Another advantage of this is seeing The School of Athens all alone too. Equally amazing. There are tours that give more of a VIP access but I prefer to go about it on my own. Good luck!

Jack makes a good point -- once you know what to do, and if you could get the very earliest tickets, one could do the same thing on one's own.

But I wouldn't have had any idea how to accomplish that prior to my tour with Walks of Italy. Which is why it was worth it to me.

The fact is that there are multiple companies allowed to conduct early-access tours, and the Vatican offers one of its own. Promotional material for those tours doesn't come right out and say that there's more than one such tour, so it's natural for potential customers to assume their tour group will be the only one in the Sistine Chapel for a period of time. It just doesn't work that way. However, in normal times, those early tours provide a less-crowded experience than what a general-admission tourist gets. Perhaps at times of abnormally low tourism, the early-access tours aren't much (or any?) better than the experience one can have later in the day.