St. Peter's from Vatican Museums

Is there still access to St. Peter's from the Vatican Museums? And if
there is, is it just limited to 3rd party private guides?

Only tours are allowed to use that internal shortcut, and only those tour companies which specify that they're able to do so. The Vatican's own tours currently do not end in the basilica so do not use that passage. Even tours which are allowed to use it can't access it on Wednesdays so not a day to book if the shortcut is important to you.

Just to be clear, the companies which are allowed to use the passage aren't what I consider "3rd party". They are independent of the Vatican but are not middlemen as they organize and conduct the tours they sell. 3rd parties (Viator, Get Your Guide, etc.) are resellers (middlemen) of tours. Most of us recommend booking tours directly with the companies which actually provide them versus a 3rd party. Make sense?

Editing to add: I think that trying to visit the church at 7:00 and make it to an 8:30 tour is pushing it but let's what others think?

Yes, that's very clear and is what I thought would be the answer.

Does "The Basilica" 7 euro tickets purchased here get me access to a faster/dedicated security line for St. Peter's?
https://www.basilicasanpietro.va/en/products/the-basilica

If I did that way, how much after my St. Peter's ticket should be my Vactican ticket? Or if I did the reverse, how long after my Vactican ticket should my St. Peter's ticket be? I think the later would be easier since that probably is a more definitive timeframe. Like if I had 8:30am self-guided Vactican tour, I would do 11am entrance to St. Peters?

Hey back -
Arg, I sure wish I had a solid answer for you but the ability to purchase a timed-entry ticket to the basilica is a very, very recent development and I've no firsthand experience with it. But this recent thread (thanks Sara!) with a youtube link from a first-hander might be very helpful?

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/new-vatican-booking-system

Are there plenty of good places to eat near Vactican Museums/St. Peter's? If that's the case, I could do one of them at 9am and the other one at 1pm or something like that and have lunch in between. That way no real risk of being late for the 2nd one.

I'll look at this link now.

Seems like timed access to St. Peter's is a very positive development.

I would not count on good restaurants but would settle for whatever there is; the Vatican is ringed by thieving tourist traps. Be sure you see a price posted as they specialize in cheating customers. Never let a restaurant suggest an item that you don't see a price for on the menu.

If there's no where very good to eat lunch around there, maybe we just do Vatican at 8:30am and buy a noon ticket for St. Peters and then head out of Vactican after that for lunch.

Toughts on Vactican/Sistine official guided tour vs listening to Rick Steves' audio tour?

We used Ricks audio guide in St Peter’s and were satisfied with it. Quite possible that you may get more information from a live guided tour, but probably depends on the guide and the tour company. When we were there in 2019 it didn’t feel extremely crowded, probably because it’s such a huge place. But if it is extremely crowded, it might be easier to use your own audio guide rather than try to stick with a group/hear a guide in the midst of a crowd (unless they use an earphone whisper device system).

I want to warn you about the size of the Vatican Museums, since you're trying to figure out how much time to allow between entries to the Museums and to St. Peter's. The Museums are huge. You could easily spend the entire day there. Tours probably run between 2 and 3 hours because that's about all the average customer wants. To keep the tour to that length, they'll probably skip the entire Pinacoteca, just as one example. This is perfectly fine if you know 2 hours or a bit longer in the Museums will be sufficient for you.

Appreciate that advice. We have less than 4 days in Rome and we typically keep things moving along so I'm sure 3 hours will be absolute maximum we'll need.

We'll probably do either Rick Steves' audio tour or official guided tour for 830am admission and then get St Peter's access for noon and probably expect to get there a bit before noon. And then we'll have lunch somewhere after that.

I think that works. Just deciding if I pull the trigger on the 8:30:self tour tickets now or wait until the guided tour tickets go on sale 60 days in advance and stress over getting those a bit longer. It does seem like the guided tickets are easier to get though who knows how crazy things will get by mid June. But, I started to listen to Rick's audio tour and I'm not sure why that wouldn't suffice.

I just took the tour and our guide says the hallway access is going away March 1st

Respectfully, if anyone is interested in a tour which states that it includes the basilica via the shortcut, I'd verify that info via the tour's email contact versus what a poster's unknown guide may have told them.

We visited St. Peter’s in the morning then had lunch about 1:00 on the way to the Vatican Museum. My wife’s knees hurt so we stopped at the first restaurant on the street to the right after leaving Vatican City. The food wasn’t spectacular but it wasn’t bad and the prices were in line with other Rome restaurants. It was way better than trying to carry sandwiches and try finding somewhere to sit and eat them! Our museum tour was at 3:30 and we got there before 3:00 so there was plenty of time. Good luck with the trip!

8;30am Vatican tickets are gone, but there's still 11:30am. We should be good with 9am St Peters' (no dome) and then 11:30am Vatican, right?

The alternative at this point is to wait for the official guided tour tickets to be available.

Crazy that tickets the 2 days I'm looking at additional times keep getting sold out. Now noon is the earliest Vatican tickets. We won't be out of there until 2:30 or so which will be late for lunch at that point, plus that's the less preferred day of the 2 we days we have available.

I guess I'll wait until the 60 day out point and try to get the guided tour tickets for 8:30am for Vatican and then noon for St. Peter's. Will probably arrive at St. Peter's a little early and will be done there by 1, which will be a better time to find lunch somewhere.