Best of Rome Tour Question

You should contact the Steves' tour office with your question. This is not the best place to ask that question.

As the itinerary is the same for all dates , i.e., Sun-Sat they always are at the Vatican museum and St Peter on Wed.

It states that AFTER the museum and basilica the rest of the day is 'on your own'. To me that indicates it is a morning tour
How it worked when we were there ( on the Best of Italy tour, but not a Wed. ) one spends most of the AM in the museum ending at the Sistine Chapel. The Best of Rome looks to include the basilica as well, which the BOI did not.

You could probably schedule the Scavi for a mid to late afternoon.

As already noted, contacting the RS office may produce the most reliable info.

When I went on that tour in 2018, we had the papal audience in the morning, which was optional. Then we met up at the Vatican early afternoon for the tour of Vatican and St Peter's. No time for an afternoon tour.

This doesn't exactly answer your question but includes information you may not yet have:
We took the Vatican Scavi tour in 2019. At that time, you had to email the Scavi office and give them a range of dates that would work for you. For example, we were going to be in Rome for 4 days, so we gave them all 4 dates. If you only give them one date, that date may already be full or there may be no Scavi tours on that date. Also, you do not pick the time. They pick the date AND time for you. Tours in English are only offered at certain times. So even if you are lucky enough to get tickets, the time could possibly not coordinate with your other tours. The more dates you give them, the better chance you have of getting tickets. This was how it worked in 2019, and I've looked at the Scavi office website--it looks basically the same as it was in 2019.

Thank you for your help. I have reached out to the Rick Steves office, but they are very slow to answer these days.

I hoped there might be Best of Rome tour alumni on this forum that might be able to answer the question.

I have done the Scavi Tour twice in the past, but my husband has never had the opportunity.

I appreciate you all taking the time to answer.

I did Best of Rome this past Sept. and we had a free morning then the group met up at the Vatican Museum Entrance at 4:20. (If I remember correctly, we were supposed to go in the morning, but our Guide switched us to the afternoon because it wasn't as busy. It was shoulder to shoulder during our tour in the afternoon, so not sure how much worse it could be. lol)