Vatican - Skipping the line

Cora, the problem is that the official tour the Vatican offers is not easy to book! You have to do it within a certain time frame, you HAVE to do it by fax, they often don't reply before you leave so you have to give them the fax # for your hotel in Rome and so you arrive in Rome not even knowing if you've gotten a tour (and many people come home and report that they never receive a reply at all), and the list of problems in trying to reserve it just goes on and on. A few people have had good luck with it and have good things to say and if it works for you then yes it is the perfect solution because it's also not too expensive... so it's probably worth a try, as long as you follow their directions exactly and don't get your hopes up too high!

Be sure to read the other posts on this site concerning the Vatican/Sistine Chapel. I requested a reservation 15 days before we wanted to visit the Vatican. I gave them our Rome Hotel fax number for the response (assuming they would prefer a local call). Also, I listed four possible entry times in order of preference and I gave them our names and ages. We had a 7/23/07 noon entry time. We walked past blocks and blocks of people in line and were sent right in at the entry. After the security check, we were not forced to go to the tour window--in fact, we could have just bought the 13 euro ticket and gone on in. But we wanted the tour so we pain the 23.50 for me and the 18.50 for my college student daughter. Our group had about 12-15 people but several of them drifted off to the Sistine Chapel early (which our guide expected and gave directions to do if we wanted). To avoid crowds in the Sistine Chapel, perhaps going at the very last 20 minutes would help.