This was so beautiful! I mean wow! The Vatican is absolutely beautiful, it is a museum as well as church. And the Sistine Chapel is great. But it is St. Peter's that is the best part in our opinion. If you only have a day in Rome do this tour then the bus tour to get a quick glance at the rest.

Rome is now one of my favorite places in the world, thanks to this amazing tour and tour guide. Our guide, whose praises are just deserved in the reviews by many others, was totally brilliant, witty, and funny. We skipped the entry queue, which was very long, and received a briefing and headsets to hear the guide. The only downside was that there was not enough time available to stop off everywhere, which isn't possible in a day anyway. However, we covered all the major works of art by Raphael, Michelangelo, and other sculptures in the Vatican. Then we were free to explore St. Peter's. Do not book any tour that will skip the Sistine Chapel - it is a must see, once in a lifetime, piece of work! Totally recommended and one hundred percent satisfied!

We went early in the morning and skipped a very long line. I highly recommend this tour for those people who stay in Rome for few days, because this way time is not wasted in very long queues, as there is so much to see when in Rome. The Sistine Chapel is phenomenal! Our tour guide was really informative.

First class tour even though the Sistine Chapel was closed for conclave. The tour of the Rafael apartments was superb as was the museum which at 8 am was empty. The queue for St Peters when we emerged from the museums was so long it was not worth wasting so much time to gain entry. Our tour guide was excellent and incredibly knowledgable. It was just a pity we could not bypass the queues and get into St Peters. We decided to go there next day morning at 7.30 am when we more or less had the place to ourselves and the climb up that basilica cupola to the top made the visit worthwhile for the views of Rome. All in all a good experience.

This was an amazing tour, only downside was that they decided to close the Sistine Chapel at 1pm on day of tour, we were going into Vatican Muesums at 2:30 so it was disappointing, however, Dark Rome tours gave us option to cancel and get full refund or do tour and go into rooms that are not generally open to public, we decided as we were there, we would do tour and it was well worth it, Irena was our tour guide, very nice lady and very informative. I love art and all that goes with it so really got lost in the numerous paintings we were shown and got lots of information about any of the paintings we did see with Irena. We got to see the door that you would go in if you were able to see Sistine chapel so at least that!! I would not recommend this tour if you are not an Art lover as it really is all about the Art and artifacts within the Vatican Muesum. St Peter's was also not included on the tour but thankfully we went to see St Peters in the morning before this tour and it is free to go into and is definetly a must to see when in Rome.

My daughter and I had a 2.30pm tour but unfortunately the Sistine Chapel and St Peters were closed at the last minute and we were informed upon arrival at the start of tour, the tour operators gave us the choice of a discount but still able to see the vatican musuem, re-booking for another day or to cancel altogether, we chose the discount option as this was our last day in Rome. Dara our host for the afternoon was absolutely brilliant and very knowledgable. He turned a very disappointing start to the afternoon a satisfying end

We went on Easter Saturday and we would not have got in had we simply queued. Our guide said she had never seen it so busy and she did very well under trying conditions. This is "must see" stuff when visiting Rome and you would certainly miss out on lots of interesting and entertaining information if you went round on your own. The highlights were the Rafael Rooms and of course the Sistine Chapel. Unfortunately St Peters was closed by the time we got there but we had been warned of that possibility at the start of the tour. I would definitely recommend this tour to anyone visiting Rome although it is not really suitable for younger children.

I suppose that everyone who goes to Rome wants to see the Sistine Chapel and Michelangelo's frescos. The tour was well organised and not too big there were fourteen of us and we were fitted with excellent headsets which allowed us to hear our guide all of the time, but gave us the opportunity to wander away from the guide. The tour lasted for approximately three and a half hours and involves a lot of walking and climbing steps so it is not for the faint hearted as it is very tiring at the end. The room with the tapestries was for me the highlight of the tour and although it was great to get into the Sistine Chapel where the new Pope is always elected I found it very a dark and somber place. My only disappointment is that we did the afternoon tour of the museum and when we got to St Peter's we were only accompanied into the basilica by the guide for 5 minutes and then she was gone. If we had wanted to see all the sites in the basilica including the crypt etc we would not have had time before it closed and we had to go back the next day to do all this. I would recommend a morning tour if you want to fully explore St Peter's Basilica at the end of your musuem tour. Overall I would recommend this tour as it was well organised. Many thanks to our very informative guide.

The guide was very knowledgeable and gave a lot of information. It was good to skip the very long line that was already waiting when we arrived. The day was very hot and comfortable shoes are a must have, unfortunately for me I didn't have them and spent the rest of the afternoon applying blister plasters, another must have for any city break trip. I had been so excited about seeing the Sistine Chapel and it was beautiful but a little too busy to get the time and space to really take in all the individual paintings. The vatican is so vast that one needs more that just one visit. We had been told not to go in August because it would be too hot and it was very hot, but sadly that is when our wedding anniversary is so there you go! The good thing about August is that a lot of the local people are on holiday so it is much quieter and crossing the road was not the spectator sport it could have been. On the whole a very good trip to Rome and I would definitely recommend doing this tour.

Certainly worth it to skip the lines!!! It's a fabulous exposure to the Vatican collections which are exhaustive! We did the 230pm tour after doing a walking tour of Rome in the morning. It was too much in one day. We found that by 4pm we visited the Sistine Chapel and got lost exiting the chapel and meeting the guide to tour St. Peter's. Since we've seen St. Peter's several times, we weren't disappointed, actually glad to have a rest.
I'd recommend you either do this trip in the morning or have an easy morning before this tour, there is ALOT of wonderful art to observe and enjoy. Be rested so you can really appreciate it!

This is a great way to see the Vatican museums, Sistine Chapel, and St Peter's. The tour is advertised as a three hour trip starting at 9:15 in the morning, but we did not get away until 9:35, having been told that the tour was four to four and a half hours long. As we had booked the ancient Rome walking tour starting at 2:00 p.m., we had to leave this tour before we got to the Sistine Chapel and did not see St Peter's basilica and square at all. This was very disappointing. I would suggest that you do not let people book these two tours for the same day

This is the only way to go! Buy your tickets at home and you only wait in the museum security line for an hour in the hot sun. Had we not bought the tickets in advance, we would have had a two or three hour wait. The museum was quite warm, in Rome the temperature was 105 degrees Fahrenheit this day! The guide's commentary in the museum about the Sistine Chapel proved to be too lengthy. It might be better to offer a Sistine Chapel brochure to those that would like to read up on it and take in some fresh air outside until the Chapel tour resumes with the guide.

It was a busy, very hot day in Rome and at the Vatican. The day before and the day after our scheduled tour, the Vatican museums were closed due to holidays, so we probably had more than twice as many tourists as usual at the Vatican. We also had 28 people in our group. With the crowds and our larger group, moving thru the Vatican was very slow, and we didn't get to see as much as I had expected. Skipping the line was great, as the normal line was already 2 hrs long at 9am. Our guide was OK, she is a native English speaker and knew a lot, but got stumped by some questions from the group. We spent about 45 minutes of the tour outside the museums listening about he Sistine Chapel ceiling and looking at a picture of it. Better if it had been 15 minutes and spent the other 30 seeing other things in the museum. We did get 20+ minutes in the Sistine, which was perfect, and the guide spent 10 minutes in the Chapel talking about the Last Judgement wall. The tour of St Peter's was OK, but if you want to go up the Dome and the line is short, skip the St Peter's part and get in line for the dome instead. By the time we finished St Peter's, the Dome line was over an hour long just to get tickets, let alone going through it. We've done the official Vatican audio tour before, which is a great way to go, if you have time and really want to see much more of the Vatican and St Peters. You can also pre-reserve tickets through the Vatican and skip the line with advanced planning.

Well, since finally getting home safe, and on Xmas Eve to be precise, we watched the film Angels and Demons again. Having SEEN these places for real, the film had a new impact on us. "we know THAT" we yelled like kids in the Saturday pictures..." we KNOW that"
Yes we know it now.
What did we see? well the guide ripped us through the best bit, to get to the Sistine Chapel which is over-rated in my personal view. Much more interesting, awe-inspiring and beautiful, let alone SKILLFULLY DONE, is the Tapestry Gallery, which leads towards the Sistine Chapel. If you got the chance to go without a tour guide on a strictly scripted and very limited language ability descriptive, do so.
Go see the Tapestry Gallery for yourself, at your own pace. The Sistine Chapel has these men who run around "shusshing! everyone. You are not permitted to photograph, or speak whilst in there (??) They take your money, encourage people to be tourists in the Papal See/Vatican City, yet don't allow you to talk in the so-called premier attraction. For me, it was just a large room, divided in two by a sort of wooden structrure, with Frescos on all surfaces. Albeit, by someone famous, but the Tapestry Gallery was by far, more awesome and memorable in my eyes. I'm not Catholic, but I surely appreciated the craftsmanship of those tapestries and the fresco paintings in that gallery. The guide agreed they LOOKED like carved images, but in fact, they are painted in 3D...that, for me, was the highlight of the entire week in Rome!!

Its a very rushed tour.. we had two languages on our tour so perhaps with one it would be more relaxed but in general you were rushing to get up to where the guide was.. you'd miss half of what she'd say and then she would speak in spanish. The group was far too large.. we had 47 people.
and I would have felt as though maybe it was worth it if I'd come out and there was a huge line to get into the vatican but in reality there is only a huge mass of people earlier with all the tour groups "skipping the lines". There would be no line if you went at noon.
It is nice that they pick you up at your hotel. the bus drive over is also used as a little tour of rome as well. Also on the return trip (after you are rushed out to the bus)- you get no chance at the gift shop if you like souvenirs- instead you are driven to a shop that just sells rosary beads. Which we spend the same amount of time as in the sistine chapel. Instead the should include a bathroom break before going into the chapel and cut out the rosary bead store. Everyone had to go to the bathroom when we were in the highlight of the tour. This was not well organized time wise.
However If you are short on time and want to see the Sistine Chapel and still have the rest of the day to enjoy something else in Rome than this tour does do the trick.