We are planning a trip to Rome in March. We only have 3 days and would like to find a good tour guide for private tours. There are a million on the web and it's hard to sort them all out.
Has anyone had good/bad experience with a particular guide in Rome? Also, what are the benefits/disadvantages between the licensed and unlicensed guides? One service promised that we would not have to wait in line at the Vatican - possible?? Any insight will be appreciated.

I'm not sure how you contact him for private tours, but Douglas with Icon Tours was amazing. We had to wait in line, but he's an awesome guide. (Rick Steves got a private tour with him, for what it's worth.)

I have been in constant contact with Icon Tours for the past few weeks to organise a couple of tours with them and going by our email exchanges, they seem to be very professional and affordable. Good Luck

We had an all day tour (ancient Rome and Vatican) with a guide from Through Eternity, but he may well have moved on (a grad student from Trinity College). We picked Through Eternity based on advice from people on this board. They have also suggested Context Rome - my guess is that you can't go wrong with a guide from either of these firms. As far as lines go, we have no wait at the Vatican Museum - Andrew bought the tickets and we reimbursed him. In fact we had no waits anywhere.

KC

We went with Vatican Tours and Beyond. You normally have to wait in line at the Vatican for security checks no matter what--it moves quickly. In Florence, our guide gave a nod to an unlicensed guide who had to move his large group out of the way for us. It is illegal to be unlicensed and the penalty is very high. Also, I listened in to his pitch and it wasn't in depth like our guide (my only experience). We took tours to learn more about the art and history from those people who study it in depth, so it was worth it for us. If you are looking for someone to take care of the logistics, keep you from being overwhelmed and get some of the highlights, then an unlicensed guide should be fine. Unless you get a complete dud, a guide is worth it.

Everyone does have to wait in line to get past security at the Vatican Museum, would love to know how some of these companies promise to get past them...we had a private with Julia from when in Rome and can't say enough good things about her - can't imagine not seeing the Vatican and Rome without someone like her. I believe the link is www.wheninrometours.com