Should I book a guided Vatican Museum & St. Peter's Basiilca tour?

Thanks!!! I cant even book the guided tour. They are no available tickets.

I have mixed feelings about Vatican Tour Guides. I'm not an art connoisseur so I don't want to spend hours and hours walking around looking at paintings even though I know they're famous. On the other hand, how many opportunities do you get to look at great works from the masters? And since you have the opportunity while at the Vatican to view the enormous collection, why not pay a tour guide to actually explain some things to you.

I've been there with and without a tour guide. I know I learn more when I have a guide, but I know I get a little impatient at times just wanting to get it over with so I can get to the Sistine Chapel.

I think you just need to reconcile with yourself about what you want to know about these great masterpieces. Do you really want to gain some knowledge or do you really just want to get to the Sistine so you can say you've seen it?

I personally kind of think of it as a waste to have gone to all the trouble/expense of getting to Italy, getting into the Vatican and then bypassing all of these great works as I head with 90% of the other tourists straight to the Sistine.

I am still grappling with the very same issue and will have to decide very soon whether I want the info that I could get on a tour or whether I want the time to just roam by myself and not feel rushed. Did anyone else feel rushed on a three-hour or two-hour tour and wish they had more time?

Maggie

We didn't do the guided tour but did use Rick Steves audio tour and enjoyed it. We did however do the Scavi Tour underneath St Peter's and found it very worthwhile and would recommend it to anybody. With St Peter's, the treasury, Scavi Tour, and Vatican Museums we spent all day there, from opening to close.

I just talked to a friend who just returned from Italy and said the guided tours was great and the best reason to do it was you didn't have to wait in the 3 1/2hr line to get into the Vatican Museum and then after you left there another long line to get into St. Peters. Does anyone know if the RomaPass will allow you to bypass these lines? We could use the Rick Steves book to get ourselves throught the exhibits, its the lines I'm worried about!
We leave Wednesday and would love an opinion.

You can book tickets to the vatican but not st. peter's
this is the site: http://biglietteriamusei.vatican.va/musei/tickets/do?action=booking

We were there in June last year and went to the Vatican Museums first and the lines were long so we went to St Peters in the morning and almost nobody was there. Then when we went to the Vatican Museums in the afternoon the line was about 20 minutes.

We just got back over on Sunday. We didn't have the tickets nor guided tour before walking into St. Peters square. But there was someone approaching us offer the tour guide for $25 on top of the ticket. After looking at the long line (almost form a circle around St. Peters), we decided to go with the tour. We enter the Vatican from the museum side along the old wall. We actually had to wait for half an hour so we were not happy in the beginning because we thought we should be able to skip the line. But once we got in, we felt that having a tour guide is a really good idea. We learned some new things without have to read everything ourselves and it was not as dry as an audio guide provided at most of the sights. Our guide just took us thru the main parts, pointed our what was worth looking at and get us out from both the museum and Sistine chapel in a couple of hours and left us in front of St. Peter's basilica. All in all, we were happy about our decision to go with her.

Cindy,we tooked the guided tour of the Vatican museum and Sistine Chapel, we really enjoyed the tour, we did not have to wait in line, and the guide was very knowledgeable, the tour last around 2.5 hours, we then went in St-Peters on our own and climbed all the way up to the cupola.

Tour can be alittle pricey just be aware.

Rick has an audio tour of the Sistine Chapel, but not the entire Vatican. We used the book for most of the museum, switched to the audio tour in the Chapel, and were happy that we could go at our own pace.

I am still havinng trouble with decisions about tours myself. I know I want one and cannot afford private. I tried to book Francesca but she was not available. Trouble with each tour I am looking at is they do not include the things I want to see! I want to go at 8:00 AM. Museum tours do not do that on a Friday, which is when I shall be there. Dark Rome has a skip-the line semi-private which so far I like the best but does not include all that I want. Whoever got a private guide for $25 is very lucky! I guess I will have to compromise for sure on this one. By the way, I thought that Rick Steve's does not have audio tour of the Vatican. If I am wrong, please tell me. Thanks.

There is so much to see in the Vatican museum that if you don't have someone showing you what's what you can go numb after a while.

I booked a private tour with ANGEL CITY TOURS (recommended by Rick Steves). They are Irish owned and are fantastic. They also do group tours that start at 9 am AND you don't have to wait in line for those. We couldn't make the 9 am so I booked a private tour later. The guide met us at the hotel, we took local transportation to get to Vatican Cith AND the guide stood in line for us while we looked around the shops nearby. We felt like we were going through the tour with an old friend. My mom did their group tour and had a blast. They have a website and are very thorough at getting back to you via email.

I highly recommend.