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Vatican Ticket/Tour Packages

My husband and I and our teenage sons, 16 and 18, will be in Rome for 3 days this summer as one leg of our trip. We know that we can spend an entire day at the Vatican. I've been reading about the different ticket packages and guided tours. I'm looking at the package that includes The Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, and Saint Peter's Basilica. My question is, does anyone have any experience with this tour? It's only three hours which seems an awfully short amount of time to cover these three venues. Can we still stay and explore on our own after the guided tour is over? Or does anyone have another recommendation for getting the most out of our time? We specifically want to avoid lines as much as possible.

Posted by
4105 posts

Look at the Vatican site.

https://biglietteriamusei.vatican.va/musei/tickets/do?weblang=en&do

St. Peter's Basilica is free, good audio guides available. There is a charge to climb the Dome.
Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel you can spend as much time as you want with their tickets. They also have a group guided tour. If you happen to be there on a Friday, the nite entry is less crowded.

Posted by
23 posts

If you'd be working with a travel agency. You could also obtain some real-time information from the agency, they'll help assess with the current factors that would affect your staying back e.g Visas, security etc.

Posted by
15679 posts

Sorry, brantjudith4, but the OP likely doesn't need any info about visas and whatnot. There's also no need to work with an agency for this.

If you take a tour which ends in St Peter's, you can spend as much time in the basilica as you wish to when your tour is over but you cannot backtrack into the Vatican Museums. Still, being able to enter the church directly from the Sistine/museums via a back entrance - as all tours with include both the museums and basilica do - is a plus as it eliminates standing in a separate and often long security queue for the church.

The Sistine is part of the Vatican Museums so it's really just 2 and not 3 venues for the museums/Sistine and basilica.