Trouble Booking Last Supper Tickets

I've booked online several times no problem but if you search this site you will see what others have recommended that have had problems. Good luck.

I had the same problem when I went to Milan. All I can say is try and try again. That is what worked for me.

Did you try calling during the hours that church is open, that is Italian working hours taking into account how many hours Italy is ahead of Oklahoma (7 hours)?

Is it possible that the short message in Italian might have been saying something like "we're closed now, please call back when we are open"?

If they're open but too busy to answer, it keeps you on hold for a while and then hangs up. You could try the other suggestions, or keep checking the website. Times may open up. Just have an account already set up and be ready to buy right away.

This advice is really for others. I'm not sure what you can do at this point.
The website to purchase tickets is www.cenacolovinciano.net . I went to the website a few weeks ago, saw that tickets for November went on sale Sept 7, so I tried buying as soon as it was Sept 7 in Italy. I even got up in the middle of the night and bought the tickets at what was 10:00 AM Sept 7 in Milan, and was able to purchase my tickets. By that night, almost all the days in November were sold out.
If you take a guided tour from a company such as Viator, they have tickets. But, then it's a full tour and a lot more money, but at least you'll be able to see it.

You can try s broker for the Last Supper tickets only, no tour. Probably a markup of about 80-100%, but still much less than a tour. Select Italy is very reliable, I use them often.

I had been calling during Italian business hours. I think there was a problem with their phone system.

But I found tickets available (not many though) through Milan Museum. They were about double the price. I think they're a ticket aggregator. It seems reputable. I should have gotten on the website 11/7, but I didn't. But I have a reservation and booking code that matches what people get when booking directly so it should be okay.

Oddly enough, I had a crazy time booking an Italo train ticket a few days before this. I pressed the "purchase" button and their website briefly went down (or something). I did not get a confirmation email, I did not get routed to a website with the confirmation code you need to travel, nothing. But what I did get was my credit card charged. Grrr. So I called them, asked for someone who spoke English, and they said "just a moment" and put me on hold for about 2 seconds before the call dropped. I tried this about 3 times over the next 24 hours (with the exact same outcome) before I gave up. I figured I would give it 3-4 days and see if I got an email confirmation. If I didn't I would have my cousin who speaks Italian call for me. Low and behold, about 72 hours later, my email confirmation showed up!

I bought mine through Viator and there was no problem.

i couldn't find tickets available for the day I was wanting to go on the site Rick suggested so I had to call the number in the Rick book. I also kept on getting an Italian recording then it hung up. This happened several times. I kept trying and I finally got through and booked the tickets. This took several tries.

Brian, I also use a ticket broker, it's still a reasonable price in my opinion, and saves a lot of time and frustration.

We have been back for over 3 weeks, so I should start posting some of our experiences. I'll start here.

We had no problem with the tickets we bought through Milan Museum. If others find themselves in the same situation as us, I recommend them.

Also, though Rick Steves' guidebook says no pictures of the Last Supper are allowed, there were most definitely pictures allowed. Just no flash was allowed. They were very quick to jump onto people if there was a flash. There were a lot of signs about the "new" lighting system onto the Last Supper (I don't know how new it is), so maybe that has made them decide recently to allow pictures to be taken.

Interesting. No photos at all when I visited in 2012.

I think the photo ban was lifted because many people use smartphone cameras that don't flash.

People who take flash photos of paintings should be out on a no-fly list.