Two emails to St. Peter's Scavi Office, a month apart, no auto-reply...

You've probably already seen this from the official Vatican Scavi site:

"When a visit is possible, the Office will send a proposed date and time. If the proposed date and time are acceptable, the visitors must so inform the Excavations Office, which will then definitively confirm the visit.

When a visit is not possible:
Given the limited number of groups possible, not all requests can be answered positively. On occasion, due to the vast number of requests received and the time needed to process them, it may not be possible for the Office to even respond to an application prior to one’s arrival in Rome. In such cases, the Excavation Office regrets that a visit will not be possible."

I've e-mailed twice and didn't get a reply either time.

Kent is correct, if you don't get the reply then there is no availablity for your date/times. They only allow a limited number of people in each day and you need to book months in advance during the tourist season.

maggie, thank you for your reply (same to you, Kent), but I'm not talking about the confirmation of the tour itself. I'm talking about this automatic email response everyone talks about, where the Vatican just confirms that they received your email. That's all.

Since so many people seem to get those, I was wondering why I didn't get one? It makes me wonder if my emails got through to them. I don't care if I have to wait another 3 or 4 months to get confirmation of the tour, I was just hoping to know whether or not they got my email. So I hope there are instances where people sent a request, received no automatic reply, but still got the tour confirmation later on.

My trip isn't until mid-October, and I sent my first email to the Scavi office in April. If the real reason I'm getting no response is a FULL tour in mid-October, then the economy is a lot healthier than people think.

Not really, Kent. Mostly stuff about people waiting for confirmation AFTER getting their automatic reply. That is something I am more than willing to do. Some people said they emailed and did not get an automatic reply, but then emailed again and DID receive an automatic reply.

I have emailed twice, with no automatic reply either time. So I'm not sure if I'm even in the "consideration phase". For all I know, my emails are floating somewhere over Bermuda right now.

This seems to be the general consensus, from a former thread on the subject:

"Basically, you send an email with the requested info. The scavi office acknowledges that they have received your email. Then you wait to hear back. I did not get confirmation about the tour until about 2 weeks before the date that I had requested." - Laura

The Scavi office hasn't acknowledged me whatsoever, not even to say, "We got your email, now suffer in silence as we determine your fate." Hence my concern.

Ben: Here's a more specific search I did just now using different Google search words, I reduced it to four topics with multiple replies in each, I browsed them and a few of the posts may be more helpful than my first search, although don't know if any of them answer your exact question about why you didn't get an auto-reply.Ben: Here are prior discussion topics here that specifically mention (I browsed them) your issue, it's better than the first search I did in my first reply:http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm?topic=4560http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm?topic=18039http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm?topic=5694http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm?topic=1240

Another possible explanation: Possibly your e-mail spam filter has filtered out an e-mail from the Vatican if the e-mail address was not in your address book? Have you checked your spam folder?

Thanks for your help, Kent.

And yes, I've been checking my spam folder too. :-(