http://www.wantedinrome.com/news/news.php?id_n=2422

New rules I read on another website regarding the Vatican Musuem so wanted to share it here.

Slightly off-topic, but does anyone know why (as mentioned in the article) the Vatican museums close at lunchtime in winter?

It's certainly not because of lack of demand; last time I was there in winter the queue stretched almost as far as St Peters square and it took over an hour to get to the front.

So public can't go in before 10am without going thru some agency - i went a few winters ago about 10am and didn't have time to see everything before being shushed out. Maybe a higher authority can help put some sense into Vatican officials.

that's optimistic, PalB, - I was appalled at the way visitors to the vatican museums are herded through various bottle-necks [twice in our case as we wanted to see the egyptian exhibits]. consideration for the paying public does not appear to be top of the agenda.

As I understand the website I posted visitors that have not made a reservatation 30 days in advance with an approved tour agency will have from 10:00am to 12:20pm to enter.

I am so glad I have visited all the sites in Rome years ago..it seems to me the rules, regulations and cost are getting worse and worse. Yes I would love to revisit but "no thanks". And how sad for our younger travellers.

Wow.

Topping for those that will be in Rome in 2007.

WWJD?

Just did VM last Tuesday with Select Italy. Crowds and bottlenecks were terrible....is there a Thanksgiving vacation in China?

Thank you, we will be there in mid January just for a day in Rome and I am sickened by this news. Does anyone know then what would be the best tour group to book a vatican tour through?

This is more than a little disheartening. I just sent ContextRome an e-mail with your link Love. I asked them to tell me how these new rules and fees will affect their tours. I will post their reply.

-Bill

Hi Bill, how strange, I was just thinking of you and thought I should email you the website, and here is your post.

Disheartening to say the least. And I would assume do to the 6000Euro fee that the approved Tour Companies will be required to pay the prices for the tours will increase considerably.

Bill, please do post back when you get an answer as I am sure so many people will be interested in the information you obtain.

I felt I should post that website as miserable as the news was..just to give anyone going to Rome advance notice.

As of this morning the various Italian news websites I read did not have any information regarding this. Quite strange.

And of course Bill I meant to type "due to"..I am sure you cringed, lol.

We'll be there in December, just before this occurs, but it's certainly a disappointing approach - raise the price so some can no longer afford it. Good grief.

It just occured to me that the Vatican Museum folks should study Disney's "Fast Pass" system. You walk up and pull a ticket that tells you a time to come back. The times could be in 15 minute increments and you wouldn't be let in before your time. That would solve the problem of long lines, and folks could do something else while waiting for their entry time to come up.

However, I suspect that they weren't looking for an entry method that would be the most effecient, but rather, had some financial motivations.

missypie, that is a brilliant idea.

I can't seem to get that link to work and can't find an article on that topic on the Wanted in Rome site. I am headed to Rome over Christmas. Can someone tell me briefly what the new rules are, and will they affect us since our trip is December 23-29? We weren't planning on using a tour company. Thanks!

Hausfrau, the article does not come up with the link any more, but my memory from reading it yesterday is that the new rules don't go into effect until a date in January.

Paul Bennett from ContextRome wrote me this message yesterday in answer to my questions about these new rules.

"Thanks for your email. At the moment, no one is sure how these rules will change the landscape at the Vatican. As you may have learned during the course of your planning, the Vatican is one of the most crowded museums in the world. It is also one of the worst organized, with very restrictive hours and, until this coming spring, no system for reserving spaces or pre-buying tickets (such as the Louvre in Paris or Uffizi in Florence have had for years). The new system announced by the Vatican is vague and problematic. They have hand-chosen a small group of very large tour companies which will have exclusive contracts to bring their groups into the Museums between the hours of 8 and 10 in the morning. These companies are the ones that regularly lead huge groups (50 people or more) into the Vatican; and the idea is to try to get these groups through the Museums before the general public, which will have unfettered access at 10am.


Overall, this will have very little effect on our activities during the high season (from March 15 to October 31), during which time we schedule most of our Vatican itineraries (we offer several) during the afternoon. We occasionally also schedule morning visits. For these we have been in discussion with a number of these tour operators about trying to "glean" unused spaces from their rolls. It is unclear, at this point, whether these companies will be allowed to re-sell their spaces to individuals and scholarly organizations like ours. But one thing for sure is that the Vatican has abdicated its role in the selling of reservations for the morning entrance to the Museums, turning it over, instead, to these tour companies.


Again, the effect of these changes will be very little on our organization, since we mostly visit the Museums in the late afternoon--after the crowds have dispersed."

Interesting that he mentions nothing about the price increases.

-Bill

ttt