My family and I are stopping in Rome on August 7th and 8th(Saturday and Sunday). We are arriving on Friday night. We were planning a guided tour of Vatican City, however my sister-in-law just came back from Rome and suggested that we do NOT need a guided tour. Does anyone have an opinion on this? We would be visiting there on Saturday. Sunday we will be getting a guided tour of the Roman Forum and the Colosseum.

IMO using the knowledge of a guide only enhances your experience. We were lucky to have found a guide company called Vatican Tours & Beyond (they have a website) which was fantastic. Our guide stood in line for us while a van picked us up at the hotel which saved us good amount of time just standing around. When we got done with the Vatican tour we asked if they had time in the afternoon and we hooked back up with them after lunch and they toured us around the city and we saw things we would not have otherwise known about without them. It truly made Rome a fantastic experience for us. Whether you use the guide we did or any other, I think it's well worth the money.

To simply tour the vatican, I don't think a tour guide is absolutely necessary. However, a guide is always invaluable when it comes to explaining the significance of what you are about to see. I was there in March and got around just fine....the Scavi Tour was a guided tour however, and I got a lot of historical background out of the tour as a result. It depends on your preference and your pocketbook.

The Vatican museum(Sistine Chapel,etc.) is only open Saturday morning with the last entrance time at 12:20 (www.vatican.va)and closes at 1:45 so you will have to tour that in the morning. That leaves most of the afternoon to tour St.Peter's.

We did a Vatican City tour with Enjoy Rome, and it was wonderful. We had heard great things about the Scala Reale tour, but it would have conflicted with our Scavi Tour. I am so glad we had an organized tour, because we would have missed out on so much of the history and the little details of fun and interesting facts that end up being what you remember. They do have audioguides available for rent at the Vatican Museum, but every time I have done those, I've ended up more confused and trying to figure out what they are talking about on which wall and in which room.