Need Help with Vatican tour!

I would go with the Vatican Museum tour and do St. Peter's on your own. It was my understanding that only the official tours bypassed the line, saving you a lot of time. Just use Rick's self guided tour of St. Peter's. You can also try to get a tour of the excavations beneath St. Peter's - it is an amazing experience. Rick's Rome book has the e-mail address and it is also listed on the Vatican website (www.vatican.va). After selecting English and then the Info button, scroll down to the heading 'Visits to the Vatican Necropolis'. The Excavations Office link has all the necessary information. Enjoy!

Can I ask how long it has been since you requested the tour from the Vatican? We faxed a request last week for a tour late in July. After reading other posts (after sending the fax) I had concluded that we wouldn't hear back from the Vatican tour office until the day before the request, and we will be in Italy by then. For what its worth, the Vatican tour would be my preference, although I will be tempted to book a different tour if there is no hope of hearing back before we leave.

Yes, we emailed them first on June 12th asking for a July 5th/6th date, by dialing 011390669884019. When I didn't hear anything on June 19th, I tried a different fax : 011390669885100, per their website. At 6:30 am this morning, I got the fax! It came from the 4019 number...I am leaning toward taking this tour since its offered by the Vatican themselves...but Enjoy Rome was a Rick Steve's and Frommer referral and their 3 hour tour includes St Peter's and we have a reservation with them,too...What would you do if you had to choose?

Thanks for the detailed info! We sent our FAX June 14, so hopefully we will hear back soon. We sent to the number listed on the vatican website. Partly because we already have a somewhat pricey tour booked with ContextRome tours (Roma Antica), we would like to get the Vatican tour rather than pay a premium for another tour company. It sounds like the Vatican guides are good.

We just took the Vatican tour at the end of May and it was great! I sent a fax 15 days before we wanted the tour and the fax reply was waiting for me at my hotel in Rome (make sure you include the hotel fax number in your request). We walked right in - no lines - and had headphones included in the tour so we could hear everything our guide said - and she was great! Just before we entered the Sistine Chapel, someone collected all of our headphones as there is no talking allowed inside. At that point we simply followed the Rick Steves directions to exit through the rear door marked group tours only and we ended up getting right into St. Peters withour having to wait in line or go through security again - it worked out great!

Does anyone know if you are supposed to give them payment information ahead of time or if they let you know that there is space and then you send the info?
thanks

We did not have to provide any payment info up front. With the Vatican-led tour, they will fax you a confirmation of your reservation and you take that sheet they faxed (from the Office of Guided Tours) to a side entrance where they direct you to a payment desk for your tour. With the independent tour-company we were going to use - they request you come in the day before your reserved tour date and pre-pay at that time for the tour and your entrance tickets, but you are still in line at the Vatican Museum for entrance the next day. Hope this helps!