Vatican tours
 

I am leaning towards Context for our vatican tour. My only concern is how our 19 yr old and 15 year old would find this tour. Would it be too long and in depth for teens. Anyone experienced it with teens?

I am not familiar with Context, but have toured the Vatican twice - each time with a teenager. The first time, I hired a private tour guide. The second time, we toured with a Vatican docent. I would recommend the latter - less expensive, more knowledgeable, and more efficient getting through the Vatican. Also, if you are with a group, there is not as much focus on the teens so not as noticeable when their attention fades. The guided tours do get a little long for teens because you wind your way through the entire tour before reaching the Sistine Chapel. Once you reach the Sistine Chapel, you can drop out of the tour and take the back stairs to St. Peter's which inspires awe in even the most jaded teenager. Save this for the end, it sparks their interest again.

I just booked the Roma Antica tour through Context because this is the primary area of interest for our family, and I thought our teen would be able to handle, and in fact, enjoy, a 4 hour tour. However, while we appreciate art, I am leaning towards Icon or Angel Tours for the Vatican. We will also be doing the Scavi Tour there. It all depends on your kids and their interests.

When you book a Context Rome tour, they ask for the age of participants and there is a section for 'addt'l comments' - I think to address the type of issue you are trying to avoid. I took the Vatican Tour w/ them in Sept, and found it to be very interesting. Our guide (Nick) mentioned that he loved having younger people on the tour - and he adjusts 'depth' as needed. However, the length would be the same.

We did a Vatican tour with Context Rome last March with our kids (age 9 and 12 at the time). Our guide was excellent and did a great job of engaging the kids. We did book a private tour, which, with four of us was not that much more than the regular tour. The private tour allowed us to go at our own pace, stop and eat when the kids got hungry, etc. It was well worth it.

Thanks heaps for all the advice. I am almost certain now that I will go with Context. One more question has anyone climbed the dome at St Peters???

Yes, many years ago, when I was younger and more energetic. Be aware that the higher you go, the more the stairs slant, so that you are almost in a diagonal position on the upper parts.

Another fan of Context Rome. We did their Vatican tour (it was 4 hours) and really enjoyed it. The guide was great, and she happened to be engaged to one of the Swiss Guard, so she really knew a lot about the history of the Vatican, Swiss Guard, etc. They do an excellent job, you'll enjoy it.

The climb to the top of the dome is easy. You can take the elevators to the roof (7 euro; if you walk it's 4 euro). That's over half-way to the top. The stairs up the dome are one-way, pretty wide, with handle bars, and well-lit. Much much easier climb than the Duomo in Florence or St. Paul's in London.

is there a website for Context tours?
how far can you book in advance?

www.contextrome.com

We booked our tour about 3 months in advance.

We didn't climb the dome (I have a SEVERE aversion to waiting in lines - it's sort of like a phobia with me).

But, we did Context Rome in June with a 15 and a 17 year old and they liked the tour quite a bit. There was a mom and another teenager with us too.

Have a great time. It will be history class brought alive.

By the way, if you can talk your teens into reading 'The Agony and The Ecstasy,' by Irving Stone before you go it will really make that tour come alive. (I know it's hard because kids have heavy reading for school, but it is a fairly enthralling book.)

Has anybody done a tour with EnjoyRome? I'm leaning to them since it's a lot cheaper than context. Any advice?

I think it depends on your tour guide. We were supposed to have a really good guide on our Vatican Context tour that had been recommended on this site, but when we showed up they had switched our guide to someone new. It was the worst tour we took in Italy. There were six people our tour including the two of us, and three of the six fell asleep at some point during the tour, including my husband, I'm sad to say. However, we HAD just arrived in Italy and the guide WAS quite boring. Context is overwhelmingly recommended on this site, so I'm sure this was the exception and not the rule. If you book with Context, make sure you get a recommended guide and hopefully you'll have a better experience than we did.

Can anyone give the name of a good guide with Context.

Ayquehago, I have taken both Enjoy Rome and Scale Reale tours. IMO, the guides for Scale Reale were superior to those of Enjoy Rome. They are really worth the extra money, esp in places like the Forum and the Vatican Museums. They are well-read, well-informed and generally have (or are in Rome obtaining) a post-graduate degree in their subject. The Enjoy Rome guides tend to be college graduates in Rome for a year or two not pursung a study, but were perhpas art majors or Italian majors.

Also, I had an experience with one of our Enjoy Rome nightwalks a few years ago where the guide changed the itinerary during the walk from the printed itinerary on their website. We were supposed to go to Campo Fiori at the end of the night walk, but our guide decided during the tour that she didn't want to go there and went to Piazza Navona instead. As we had already been to the Piazza earlier in the day by ourselves, this was a waste of time to us. More importantly, we had made dinner reservations in the Campo Fiore area specifically because the tour was supposed to end there. It was very inconvenient to have to run from Piazza Navona to make our dinner reservations, and we ended up having to leave the tour early. The guide did not apologize or offer any explanation.

suzyqtrvlr, I am sorry to hear about your experience, I hope that you wrote to Context Rome to complain. They do offer such a good service and should be made aware when there are problems.
kindly, I don't believe you can request specific guides when booking Context Rome tours; and judging by suzyqtrvlr's expereince, even if you do, they may be changed at the last minute anyway. Perhaps suzyqtrvlr can provide the name of the guide she did NOT like and you can at least make sure that that guide is not scheduled for your tour.

kindy:
I'd recommend Elizabeth Lev.

Our guide was Loukas Karentzos. He was very nice and knowledgeable, but had not mastered the art of storytelling. I did follow-up with Context and they were very receptive to my criticism.

suzq and others - I have been reading this thread with much interest and amusement. Last May we had booked 2 tours with Context, again because of the wonderful reviews and recommendations on this web-sight, and had the following experiences:

(a) re: Ancient Rome (Forum and Colosseum) : our tour with Sarah Yeomans was terrific. She was both most informative and very animated - the 4 hours literally flew by.

Apparently she is now again back with Context after her return to California, and I cannot recommend her highly enough!

(b) re: Vatican : our tour was to be given by Frank Dabbell, but when we arrived at our appointed site, there was.....Loukas Karentzos.

As Suzq says, he was indeed both nice and knowledgable, but (and amazingly enough as I do not believe that we were on the same tour as Suzq) my wife fell asleep on at least 3 occasions.

Unfortunately Loukas appeared to be more concerned with with the English language and his proper use of words, than with conveying, in any interesting manner, the excitement of what we were seeing.

I remember staying back in the outer court-yard for a few moments after Luc gave his introductory talk on what we were about to see, and observed how the other tour guides gave intense and exciting dissertations on what the Sistine Chapel meant both to Italy and the world, and wondering (even as I was waking my wife up from her first slumber) whether it was too late to forego my 120 E and somehow latch on to another tour.

But, alas, I did not, and Luc continued to absolutely bore myself, my wife and 4 others for the next 4 hours.

PLEASE NOTE, however, that although I fully intended to "grin and bear it" and merely chaulk it up to experience, and not make any issue whatsoever, I did sometime afterward receive an e-mail from Paul, the head of context, who was, merely in due course, asking for any comments or feed-back from our tours.

I decided to tell him of our experiences, and his response could not have been more professional, courteous, and gratifying. If nothing else, his reactions alone demonstrated what a fine organization Context really is.

In conclusion, I would concur with the other favourable reviews in regards to Context as an organization. Obviosly there will be certain guides who, for whatever reasons, do not "match up" or meet reasonable expectations. However, in having the pleasure both of touring with Sarah, and communicating with Paul, I have to believe that in choosing Context, one is likely to have a positive, and even at 60E per person, a most worthwhile touring experience.

on the vatican website, it states you can reserve on site via fax, has any of you had experiance with this? It does seem significantly less expensive than context, etc. Does anyone know if you can book and receive confirmation via email? I get faxes to my office at work, but unfortunatly, others seem to feel at will to rifle through my faxes, so I am concerned about actually receiving a coveted fax.

I have to admit, those "falling-asleep" stories are pretty funny. But, when standing up and walking around at the Vatican, how is it possible to fall asleep, no matter how boring the guide? Or maybe the sleeper is resting on his/her spouse's shoulder?

Willtravel - 2 times as we listened to his droning during the initial introduction in the courtyard ( I nudged her softly awake the first time out of embarassment, but let her continue slumbering the second time when, luckily for her, she was able to drift off again just before we got up to start the tour itself).

Her third entree into the Lucless Land came as we were being somewhat informed about something or other in some corner of St. Peters itself...and this time, yes, her head was indeed on my shoulder.

WillTravel - unfortunately we were stuck in the courtyard for an hour and a half in front of a diagram of the Sistine Chapel listening to him talk. Once that was over, we went into an interior courtyard and listened an additional 30 minutes. It was two hours before we actually started walking through the museum, so we had to rush through it and the Sistine Chapel in less than an hour to make it out of there before the "back door" to St. Peter's closed.

never - I really think we were on the same tour!

suzq - We were there in May, 2005, and Luc had a trainee with him...talk about a wasted investment in the future...ring any bells?

I have climbed to the top of the Vatican's dome twice - once in my mid 20s and again in my mid 40s. I have to admit, it seemed very easy in my 20s and less so (but still worth it) in my 40s. If you are doing this mid-summer, it is warm in the dome but the view is amazing and it is an interesting climb.

never - Yes, I thought that was probably you! It was Friday the 13th - maybe that was the problem!

< on the vatican website, it states you can reserve on site via fax, has any of you had experiance with this? It does seem significantly less expensive than context, etc. Does anyone know if you can book and receive confirmation via email? I get faxes to my office at work, but unfortunatly, others seem to feel at will to rifle through my faxes, so I am concerned about actually receiving a coveted fax. >

daisy58,

For various reasons, I wasn't comfortable booking the official Vatican tour by fax, so I used goporta.com to make the reservation. For us, the extra fee (€ 6.00 per each)was worth it.

Mark

suzq - what would be the odds? In any event, and just for the sake of memory, did you or a friend have a very bad cold?

never - no, the girl with the cold was traveling alone, as was the other woman (blonde?) on our tour. I was the red-head and I had my DH with me.

Hi, kindy,

In October, our Context guide for the Vatican was Cecilia Martini, and she was great, very friendly, interesting, and knowledgeable. That said, though, when we originally booked the tour it was under a different guide's name, so I agree that you probably can't choose your guide with 100% certainty. Best of luck!

I'm trying to pick a tour company for the Vatican and thinking about Context, Eternal City Tours and Eternity Rome tours. Any input for me? Thanks, Lisa

oops, not Eternity Rome, but Through Eternity. Lisa

Hi again. I am trying to decide on using Icon Tours for the Vatican or Context Tours. There is a big difference in price. Anyone have experience with either? Icon does its tours in the afternoon and Context, I think, in the morning. Do you really think Context is worth the extra money (about 70 euros)?