We have the St. Peter's Excavation Tour scheduled at 12:30 on June 11. I was looking into hiring a tour guide to do a 2-3 hour tour of the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. On another site I read that the only way to avoid the lines is to take the official Vatican tour, otherwise when you are part of a tour you just wait in line with those without tour. Is this true? A major reason to take a tour was to avoid lines. I thought I had this figured out and now I am confused again! Thanks for your help.

Yes, that seems to be true and is what we were told last June when we were there, so we got an official tour of the Vatican and avoided the horribly long line. We did not get the official Vatican tour the same day we got our Scavi, but it was not a problem. In fact, we did not even know that we had gotten the official Vatican tour until we arrived at our hotel in Rome and they told us we had a fax from the Vatican. We were thrilled. We had a great Vatican tour guide. It was wonderful and we really enjoyed both the Scavi and the official Vatican tour..

The Vatican changed the rules for tour group access in January. Only tours are allowed in the mornings from opening until 10 am. I'm not sure how that affects outside tour companies and afternoon tours.

julieann,How did you get the tour, I went on the Scavi tour,but St .Peters Excavation tour? I am going to Rome in October please any info would be helpful.Its not the lines but I really do like tour guides . thanks if you can help.

From what I understand "scavi" just means excavation in Italian. So, the St.Peter's Excavation Tour is the Scavi tour. We were fortunate to get reservations for the tour from a priest that we know, but I know there is a way to get reservations from the internet. If you do a search I believe I have seen how to do it on this forum.

There are now actually 2 different Vatican scavi tours. Not sure which one this post relates to.
julieann
The new changes at the Vatican museum gets tour groups in early (8:45-10:00). Individual travelers will not be able to enter until (previously lines formed early morning and everyone was allowed in at 8:45).
So an afternoon tour may not be able to avoid the lines. I normally would say go directly to the museum after your tour and the lines should not be all that bad at 2-2:30.However,I'm not sure how these new rules will affect afternoon visits.
For 2-3 hours you can get an audio tour.