The Many Tours of the Vatican

I haven't been to the Vatican myself, but I've had three friends state the Pristine Sistine Tour is a great way to see it. Getting to tour the Vatican before the mass crowds was worth it for them.

We will be doing our second trip to the Vatican in a couple of weeks! We too are Catholics and visiting the Vatican museums, etc. is very important to us. Last trip we did visit the Necropolis of ST. Peter (scavi tour) and it was well worth it, spiritually moving. We toured the Vatican museums, which includes the Sistine Chapel, on our own and bought skip the line tickets through the Vatican website. It was wonderful but the Sistine Chapel was overly crowded. This trip we have booked the Sistine Express tour through Dark Rome tours. I have heard excellent reviews of the Pristine Sistine tour but we want to wander the museums by ourselves. We will have a guided early visit to the Sistine and then we are free to do the rest of the museums on our own. For us we can easily spend three or four hours in the museums where as with tour groups you go at their pace and see only the highlights. The Scavi tour ends in the crypt of St. Peter's Basilica so you can just stay and explore St. Peter's then (this way you avoid the security line check to enter St. Peter's). We have not toured the gardens. Whatever you choose you will enjoy and want to return to Rome!

We did the Sistine Express early entry tour with Dark Rome and were very pleased. We were first of all the tour groups into the Sistine chapel, so we it practically to ourselves for 20 minutes. Note that the guide does not go in with you and provide commentary; one is supposed to maintain silence in the chapel, which is good. We were able to sit on the benches lining the walls, and admire the ceiling in an atmosphere of reverence and awe.

Afterwards we were free to do another "lap" of the Vatican museums on our own, to explore at our leisure.

We are Catholics and would like to see as much as possible. There are
so many options, the gardens, Necropolis (unfortunately we cannot see
the Scavi), early access, etc... Which companies are scams or are
there any you would recommend?

If you are mainly focused on Christian sites, then you may want to skip the Necropolis. That one would be very interesting to me as an excavation of a pre-Christian Roman burial ground but maybe not to you.

I personally wouldn't spend the time to tour the gardens. Again, if you are mainly interested in sites with special meaning to Catholics, there are probably other more important sites to see. For instance? You'll want to see San Giovanni in Laterano - the Pope's own church as Bishop of Rome and higher in patriarchal pecking order than St Peter's - San Maria Maggiore and some others of Rome's more notable churches.

The museums and basilica (including the crypt/grottoes underneath) are where you should plan to use your time. St Peter's and the grottoes - where some of the Popes are buried - are free, and you can trust the Vatican's own website for ticketing to the museums:

http://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/visita-i-musei/scegli-la-visita/visitatori-singoli.html

Should you choose not to use one of the Vatican's own tours, Walks of Italy, Dark Rome and The Roman Guy all offer trustworthy tours. I'm sure there are others but these are the ones which seems to be most frequently mentioned on the forums. One benefit to booking any tour which include both the museums and basilica is direct access to St Peters via a back passageway from the Sistine that's reserved for tours.

You have some good recommendations here. I, too, am a fan of the Pristine Sistine tour because of the early access without the crowds. I wanted to suggest switching your days, and see the Vatican on your first full day. If you are doing a 10:30 PM tour of the Colosseum on the first day, it might be tricky arriving for a 7:15 or 7:30 meet up time for a tour the next morning. Additionally, if you move your "check out" of the Colosseum until the morning after your evening tour, you will have more background knowledge to relate to what you are seeing. Either way, you would have time for your fine dining experience. Just a thought.

I don't know if you've found this? While not an official Vatican website, it contains some useful floorplans, photos and information about the basilica. I don't know as I'd use it as a current guide for hours and fees - the blog hasn't been added to since 2005 - but little of the church has changed for a very, very a long time. The site does note the relocation of John Paul II's remains in 2011 so it evidently sees some updating from time to time.

http://stpetersbasilica.info/index.htm