Roman Catacombs & Vatican City tour question

[puppymama1]

We will be on the Mediterranean Odyssey cruise in October and are hoping to be able to book this excursion when booking time opens for us… the tour description says there is 3 hours of free time which we would like to use to see St Peter’s and the Vatican museums.  We have seen both previously so we don’t need to see everything in the museums.  I know we need to prebook timed entry  tickets for the Vatican museums.. but I don’t know what time of the day our free time will be…. If anyone has done this tour, can you let me know what time period I should book the entry for?  The excursion says it is from 7:45 - 4:15, but I know that includes travel time to/from the port.  Thanks!

[mkerner]

I also would be interested in this information.

[DrKoob]

18 hours ago, mkerner said:

I also would be interested in this information.

Me too!

 

[wonderingnana]

I'm also interested in the information. 

[RonnBarb]

We did this excursion in April. We booked the Vatican Museums for 12:30, and we probably could have done anything after 12:00. We arrived at the Vatican a little before noon, after encountering some traffic entering Rome. This was a great excursion. The Catacombs were awesome. 

[puppymama1]

9 hours ago, RonnBarb said:

We did this excursion in April. We booked the Vatican Museums for 12:30, and we probably could have done anything after 12:00. We arrived at the Vatican a little before noon, after encountering some traffic entering Rome. This was a great excursion. The Catacombs were awesome. 

Did you do the catacombs before the Vatican?  I was trying to figure out how long the catacombs portion of the excursion was… thanks!

[puppymama1]

When you are dropped off for your 3 hours of “free time”, where do they drop you off?  Is is closer to the Vatican museums or to St. Peter’s?  Now that I have learned they closed the cut-through between them and we would need to take a taxi to get from one to the other, we are most likely going to pick only one instead of trying to revisit both of them.  Thanks!

[RonnBarb]

The catacombs were first. The excursion was 7:45-4:15, and we got to St. Peter’s around noon. The drop off was nearer to St Peters, but on the side of the square to the left of St Peters. The walk to/through the museums took us about 30 min, and we walk fairly briskly. We were there the week before Easter, so everything was very crowded. The line for St Peters was very long, so we didn’t have time to go there.