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Quick Question re: Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel Guided Tour

Quick Question re: Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel Guided Tour

Old Jan 13th, 2009, 10:43 PM
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Quick Question re: Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel Guided Tour

The online booking system currently showing only one guided tour per day, usually at 10:30am. We have already booked our Scavi Tour at 9:15am in late April. Does anyone know if there will there be more than 1 guided tour per day in April (as it is a busier season) or should we think about trying to get a later Scavi tour to accomodate the Vatican Museums 10:30am time slot? Any thoughts?
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Old Jan 14th, 2009, 09:33 AM
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Don't know if this will help but we reserved the 10:30 am tour for the Monday between Xmas and New Years, and it turned out that others in line behind us had a tour time of 12 noon (but didn't know that "ora" meant hour and just got in line for the 10:30 am tour). My point is that the info on the online booking system may not be accurate. Perhaps you could call them?
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Old Jan 14th, 2009, 07:29 PM
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Completely unrelated to your actual question, but I have to ask...

When did you hear about your Scavi tour reservation? I am going to Rome in May and I emailed them maybe two months ago and haven't heard anything yet. One of the posts a while back said that after you emailed, you would get a standard reply saying they received the request, but we didn't get anything. Did you ever get that sort of reply?

Sorry again to go off topic, but I would really appreciate any info!!
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Old Jan 14th, 2009, 07:48 PM
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You usually get the standard response about the Scavi tour very fast (we're processing requests, this is not a confirmation, don't respond to this e-mail). If you didn't receive that, it might have gone to your spam folder. Some e-mail accounts (AOL is one) don't even let the e-mail get to your spam folder. They are filtered out. Try using a gmail account and request again. Also make note of the Scavi office phone number. The Vatican is very hit-and-miss about these tours and don't seem to care if they fill them or not. If you don't have a response by the time you travel, call them to see if they have any openings (or have your hotel call). The tour I took in September wasn't full and and 4 of us were last minute requests (I had e-mailed before traveling, but only got the generic response, no reservation). They prefer you call for availability instead of showing up and trying to get past two levels of security to get to the office.
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Old Jan 14th, 2009, 09:24 PM
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I used a gmail account and got a really quick generic response (same day) and then a personalized response with a tour time 1 month later. We then sent our credit card information and got our confirmation/receipt the next day. It was suprisingly efficient.

Anybody have any insite on the original query?
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Old Jan 15th, 2009, 04:32 AM
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I think currently they have their winter schedule listed of one English tour per day (until 2008 they closed at 2 in the winter). They may have added extra tours for the Christmas holiday week as Ruff described. The number of tours should change in April, but they don't have that available for online booking yet. In past years, there have been tours at 10, 12, and 2. You could try e-mailing or faxing.

e-mail [email protected]

fax:
06.69.88.40.19

I would not attempt to change the Scavi tour.

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Old Jan 15th, 2009, 04:42 AM
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Do you feel you need to go on a tour of the Vatican Museums ? I prefer seeing them at my own pace, lingering over the bits that interest me and not lingering over the bits that don't.
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Old Jan 15th, 2009, 05:08 AM
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As a couple who prefer contemporary art, I thought the tour provided just the amount of detail we wanted. If this genre appeals to you, however, I think you would want more time on your own. The ideal scenario, it seems to me, would be to take the tour and then come back (or find a way to go back to the galleries) to spend time on your own.
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Old Jan 15th, 2009, 11:53 AM
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I am not sure if this will help you. When you go into St. Peter's Square, you'll be bombarded by people offering you a guided tour. On our first visit to the Vatican, we used a guide arranged through our hotel. It worked out very well. On our second visit this past September, we were not interested in going through the galleries a second time but just walked through the Square to enter the Bascilica (sp?) and hand multiple people, in multiple languages, ask if we were interested in a tour. I don't know how much they wanted for the tour.
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