Guided Tours - Vatican Museum; Uffizi or Accademia

In my opinion, a guided tour is not needed for the Accademia. The museum is not large, and the main attraction dominates the space. Purchase your ticket beforehand for ealy in the morning, and you will have most of the day ahead of you to do something else, like spend hours at the Uffizi, a much larger museum which requires much more time.

I would get an early morning guided tour for the Vatican Museums and go to the Accademia on my own. The Vatican Museums tour can also include Saint Peter's Basilica and takes half a day.

The Uffizi is a toss-up; RS has an audio tour, or you can rent an audio-tour onsite.

For the most part, I find museum guided tours too rushed. The audio-guides let you set your pace.

We did all of these on our own - with guidebooks - however there can be a benefit to booking the three-hour combo tour of the Vatican Museums and St Peters. Those tours enters the basilica through a back stairway reserved for tours and eliminates the need to deal with a separate entrance and security line at the church.

You can book it through the Vatican website:
http://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/visita-i-musei/scegli-la-visita/musei-e-collezioni/musei-vaticani-e-basilica-di-san-pietro/visita-guidata-musei-e-basilica-s--pietro-per-singoli-e-gruppi-.html

(Whoa! They have a brand-new website!!!!!!)

For the Vatican, look into tours that get you in either before or after the crowds (really, thundering herds). There are Friday evening tours, as well as "breakfast tours" like the Pristine Sistine, by several different companies. Some of them are expensive, but I'd definitely pay a premium not to have the experience of the Sistine Chapel ruined by the mobs.

The Pristine Sistine tour of Vatican museum and Basilica by Walks of Italy is marvelous with wonderful guides. I have visited these twice on my own but for most recent trip booked their early morning tour so I would not have to fight the crowds. It was great! I would do it again because sometimes it requires multiple visits in order to fully appreciate all that's there and take it all in. For Accademia and Uffizi you can definitely visit these on your own, especially Accademia which is relatively small. Rick's book has excellent self-guided tour of both and his free audio app has excellent tour of Uffizi.