Please forgive my ignorance or if I'm being repetitive but I'm not quite clear on how far in advance you can reserve for the official guided tour of the Vatican Museums - the one you have to reserve by faxing over your request. On the site it says "For guided tours of individuals, an advanced booking is needed from one month to one week to the date of the visit." I assume this means that I cannot fax over my request any earlier than one month prior to when i want to do the tour. I'll be there the first week of July so I assume this means I can't fax over my request right now but have to wait until the first week in June to fax it over. Am I reading this correctly? I can't find a phone number on the site to actually ask this question of the Vatican Museum itself. thanks!

Yes, you wait and fax them one month prior to the first date you'd like to get in. And then they fax back to you within three days of the date they set for your entry.

To be more specific, you will not know exactly when you are going in until three days before it is to happen with this process.

Thanks. So I want to go to the museum on Tuesday July 3, which means I have to wait until June 3 or thereabouts to send my fax and then I won't get a confirmation until about Friday June 29 or Saturday June 30? My fax machine is at work and I probably won't be there by the time the fax comes through - I'm flying on Sunday July 1 and will arrive the morning of July 2 - I guess I should have them fax the confirmation to my hotel and just alert my hotel to expect it? They certainly don't make it easy for you do they?

Yes, they'll need your hotel's fax. And yes, it's not easy! Being people who prefer apartments to hotels and also like to have everything tied up in advance is why we elected to simply arrange a tour through Icontours.com We knew exactly which day and time we were going and it was a great experience(and reasonably-priced, too) having our scholar guide just the three of us. I'd do it agian; informative and eliminated many hassles and worries.

We did not know to give them the hotel fax and they sent it to my office and I never got the confirmation in time to be able to go. So make sure that you have a fax number for them in Italy.

Good Luck

Cupid, Icontours does like good - I checked out their site - but did you have to stand in line with them? I'll be there in July - so it'll be crowded. Didi, if I decide to do with the Vatican tour I'm definitely going to give them the hotel fax!

NOBODY can skip the line to go through security, and since our scholar met us at our apartment we all rode over together and yes, stood in line together. It was maybe 30 minutes and did NOT count as part of tour time (unlike some tours). Truthfully, it passed very quickly as she used that time to find out what things most interested us, our level of previous knowledge, and give us background information about the Vatican structure and it's history and answer our questions. She also kept an eye out for pickpockets and it was cute how often people who knew her from past tours would enthusiastically greet her and tell her how disappointed they were that she was engaged and they could not book her services, how much they'd enjoyed her guidance in the past, etc. Before our time with Morgan was over, we were of that mind, too!

Icon was very straight-up answering my questions, so if you're worried about what to expect in July, email them.

Once past security there was no line for tickets, as she took us to the Guides Only window and the museums and St. Peter's themseves were not crowded (Sistine excepted) as we were entering just after 1pm.