Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel; 2008 Longer Hours; Post Your '08 Experiences Here
 

The Museums & Chapel are now open at 0830, ticket office closes at 1600, museum closes at 1800.

This is year round except on the free days (usually the last Sunday of the month) and the closed Sundays and holidays.

Certainly an improvement on the much shorter 2007 hrs and before that the short off-season hrs.

In the past I have gone early ~0715 for the 0845 opening a couple of times in the off-season and only had a handful of people ahead of me.
Also have gone @ 1300 off-season and walked right in.

But those are past experiences, I thought I'd start a thread where people can post their 2008 experiences that can give others an idea of what to expect.

I think posting your dates & day of the week, times, *how long you waited in line and *how crowded (*esp in the Chapel* & what time) would be most helpful.

Also any other info; tours, audioguides, restorations, closing time info (does the Chapel close earlier? How do they herd you out?) restaurants nearby, etc.

And bookmark this thread before you go so you can find it easily when you return.

Below are some web sites that might be helpful.
Tickets are now 14e BTW.
Regards, Walter

VATICAN MUSEUM HOURS
http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/z-In...fo_Orario.html OR http://tinyurl.com/23x3mr

VATICAN WEBSITE www.vatican.va/phome_en.htm OR http://tinyurl.com/3stfa

VATICAN OFFICIAL TOUR TICKETS
http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/z-In...zi_Visite.html OR http://tinyurl.com/g2gyd

RESERVED MUSEUM TICKETS (private company-12.50e overcost, total 26.50e per ticket; entrances @ 9:30 &10:30) www.rome-museum.com/vatican2ind.php OR http://tinyurl.com/323tpv

ST. PETER'S BASILICA NECROPOLIS SCAVI TOUR http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34888402 OR http://tinyurl.com/ydmw88
Regards, Walter

Good idea, Walter! After our not so pleasant experience a while back, it will be good to have a survey of experiences to reference.

ttt

thanks for refreshing Walter - bkmk

I was just there last week (the week before Easter).

We visited on a Tuesday with 10:30 AM reservations for the museum sponsored tour. I reserved via email in advance.
The email address is not on their website for some reason, but it does work: [email protected]
Tell them the date you want, how many people and the language of the tour.

At 9:45 AM the line was almost back to St. Peter's square. We were able to bypass the line with our reservation.
The tour was 29.50, paid once inside the museum.
The entire museum was incredibly crowded, including the Chapel, but again, it was Holy Week.
When we exited around 1:45 PM there was no line at all.

just tried the email link for Vatican tours listed above and my email bounced back???

Ooops!
This is the right one...
[email protected]
There was an "e" where there should have been in "i".

Thanks to all for shareing their experiences. Kristina, I enjoyed your post and am hoping to hear more. three of us are going to Rome in July, we're about to book an apartment, so this is all interesting to me.
Is the Sistine Chapel part of the Vatican museums? Sorry if this sounds obvious, but I don't know

We were there the second week of January and arrived a little after noon. We walked right up to the booth to purchase tickets and were inside within 2 or 3 minutes. We had a leisurely afternoon of it enjoying the different galleries, most of which were nearly empty. We were glad we had not opted for a tour because we were able to stop and look at what called to us and we spent much more time there than the typical tour. We did have several good guidebooks with us though which were extremely necessary because we couldn't find a brochure anywhere with a map of the place.

We ended up in the Sistine Chapel (yes, it's part of the Vatican Museum) where there were perhaps 40 people total. We were in there when the guards started driving (yes, that is the appropriate term)the visitors out 1/2 hour prior to closing.

PL - how is the word "overcost" used in the pricing section?

Soliera-If you want to read more, you can check out my current trip report. Just click on my name and look for the report called "Four friends, Eight Days, Easter Week in Rome".

Robespierre wrote:
PL - how is the word "overcost" used in the pricing section?

I meant 'over the cost of the admission ticket' @ 14e plus 12.50e to the private company for their booking, so 26.50e total.

But if you are playing 'grammar police', I must plead 'Guilty' and I always admit to it :).

My Julius Caesar assassination walk and my Roman Forum walking tour (1/2 done) are terribly written but very accurate.
And I doubt you can find one source *anywhere* where all that info is in one place.
And my disclaimer on both is, I suck as a writer:).
Regards, Walter

Well, maybe. And I do admit to editing grammar and punctuation when I reproduced them, but that was only because all the red underlining from Spellcheck was driving me crazy! ;)

However, yes, the information cannot be beat.

julies, you were very fortunate, undoubtedly because you went later in the day. We had very much a less enjoyable time in the Vatican Museums.

ttt

We were just there last Saturday. We booked with Angel Tours (recommended on this site) at 9:30. Our tour group of 10 people left a few minutes late but we only waited maybe 5 minutes to get into the Vatican Museums. Our guide was wonderful and very knowledgeable.

Although we didn't see all of the museum we found a very easy flow of people through there. The Chapel was very crowded but wonderful.

St. Peter's was amazing and our guide took us through and then we had the opportunity to stay as long as we wanted or climb to the top after our tour.

The entire tour was about 3 1/2 hours and it would have been nice to have the headsets but with such a small group it wasn't a problem.

AMYWISS: How (where) do you climb to the top of St. Peter's? I will be there in June again and remember feeling like an ant the first time I visited.

I was there this past New Years, and apparently Rome was as full of tourists as it is in July. We arrived a half hour before the museum opening and the line was 2 hours long! Needless to say the museum was packed inside but except for a couple of rooms we didn't feel rushed or unable to view anything. The Sistine was packed as well, but you know, you look up and since people still don't fly (yet) the crowd didn't bother me. All told the wait was long but the museum worth it. I would not have waited that long in the heat of summer or in pouring rain however. We visited St. Peters in the evening and got through security in 5 minutes. If we had tried St. Peter's after the museum it would have been at least an hour or more through Security.
Is security new since 9/11? I was in Rome in 2000 and remember walking right through the front door of the cathedral.