JeanneB, I put in a request on Oct. 26 for a tour in March. Within 2 hours I received the automated response similar to yours about October bookings.

Checking my email to them, I did not note the month of March in the subject line. Hopefully that will not be a problem for me.

I guess I now join the throngs who are waiting for an additional response. I may send a fax within the next couple weeks if I don't hear anything.

I also had a problem securing a reservation for the Last Supper in Milan over the internet. My booking came back as not having been accepted. However, a call to the ticket office directly (they have an English speaking prompt which is very handy!) made getting a reservation a snap.

kopp:
I re-sent the email on Oct 21 and still don't have a reply. I'm worried that my 2nd request got coded with the dreaded "2nd email" designation. I think I'm going to have my travel companion send it from her computer. (Only problem, she rarely checks her email!)

ttt

JeanneB - try sending a fax to the number on the scavi website. That might be more reliable. But patience is the key. January may not be a busy month so you may just make it. We were able to have someone at home monitoring our e-mail JUST IN CASE we got confirmation while we were on vacation. That happened, and my daughter was able to send the confirmation to our yahoo e-mail account just days before the actual tour. Internet is just amazing!!!

I had been told that the tours were booked and we could not have tickets. The night before our trip I read so many people talk about their frustrations but those who had experienced the tour said to try and try again. At 11pm, I wrote a hand written plea and faxed it from NY to Rome. When I woke up the next morning, we had reservations. It was worth the effort. It is true that they are very disorganized because our tour was not even filled. If you do not get a reservation, I would try when you go to the Vatcan.

I wanted Scavi tickets for December and faxed a request on September 9 (couldn't get the email to work) After 3 weeks, I still hadn't received an answer so I faxed a 2nd request with the words "Second Request" written across the top of the page. That was on a Friday and the following Monday I received a fax confirmation that asked for credit card info. I faxed that back immediately and received another confirmation back 2 days later. I think faxing is a better way of making contact. Hopefully everyting will be in order when I arrive for the tour.