Vatican Tours

[cruisingmoose7]

I've been scouring the different threads here for tour companies. My husband and I have decided on going with a guided tour of the Vatican. Is there a huge difference between the different tour companies and/or just booking a tour directly with the Vatican or on ticketitaly.com?

[CruiserBruce]

By going with a private guide, you typically get a smaller group, typically just your immediate party. Booking with the Vatican gets you a group, 12 minimum, IIRC.

[cruisingmoose7]

Also I forgot to ask - Any recommendations for awesome tour companies?

[Thejuggler]

We had a group of about 15, booked day before and chose the last tour of the day. Company was based in St Peters Square.

 

To be honest size of the group probably makes little difference. You will still end up in the same flow as the 20-30,000 people who go through every day and all tour guides know how long it takes so will keep you moving along.

[CruiserBruce]

Also I forgot to ask - Any recommendations for awesome tour companies?

 

A little reading here would find many vendors, including the wonderful Rome in Limo, which we have used many times.

 

And yes, group size does matter. A guide for two or three is far better than a guide for 15 or 20, or more.

[The Other Tom]

What do you mean by "tour of the Vatican" ? Do you mean St. Peter's Basilica, or the Sistine Chapel, or climbing the dome, or ???

There are tours for each, or you can combine them, or.....

[wizdiz]

I've been scouring the different threads here for tour companies. My husband and I have decided on going with a guided tour of the Vatican. Is there a huge difference between the different tour companies and/or just booking a tour directly with the Vatican or on ticketitaly.com?

 

The Vatican gives new meaning to crowded. Crowded is an understatement. The Vatican has no AC and is very HOT. There is 3 official tour company for the Vatican that can take tour groups before it officially opens. Yes you will end up paying a bit more for this. I ended up paying 30Euro more but would suggest if you can afford it to do it this way. Darkrome.com is 1 I used

[The Other Tom]

The Vatican gives new meaning to crowded. Crowded is an understatement.

Correct !

Our Sistine Chapel "tour" was terrible due to the crowds. We lost two people on the tour....we never saw them again. Our guide was upset because she was responsible for the radios that we each had.

[cruisemom42]

The Vatican gives new meaning to crowded. Crowded is an understatement. The Vatican has no AC and is very HOT.

 

Not true. Key areas of the Vatican museums do have air conditioning / climate control systems (to help protect works of art, for example, in the Tapestry room). However, due to the combination of summer crowds, hot temperatures and older buildings, the systems aren't terribly effective....

[Cindy]

We toured the Vatican with Livitaly and highly recommend them. Their tours are a little more expensive than some, but they take a maximum of six people per group. We did not need headphones for our Vatican tour or our Colosseum tour with Livitaly. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable, and we thought we made an excellent choice.

 

 

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[Island wannabe]

We used Angel Tours and loved them. Small groups and the tour guides were art and religious studies students. Ours was from Ireland and was fantastic.