Vatican Museums: Sistine Chapel, St Peter's Basilica Express Tour

Anna Maria (annamariabarbaro@yahoo.it) was a wonderful guide. The Vatican was very crowded due to Jubilee but she navigated us through the crowds with ease. She is very knowledgeable and has a nice manner in dealing with guards who are sometimes a little grumpy! Highly recommend!

We had a private tour with Claudia. It was so worth the investment. The Vatican is very crowded with long lines in the summer. With our tour, we were able to skip lines. Claudia spent time prior to the tours providing background about the architecture , artists, Popes and culture so that we had context. She was extremely personable and exceptionally knowledgeable. I ran through the Sistine Chapel and the Basilica when I was in my early twenties. I really wanted to take our time, appreciate and learn this time. I highly recommend this tour.

We booked two tours with them, the Early Entry Sistine Express and the Coliseum private tour with hotel pickup/dropoff with arena access. Several months before the tour, they informed us that there would be no more early access tours for the Sistine Chapel, and that they would be increasing the tour time would be extended by 30 minutes at no extra cost to compensate. However the day before the tour, someone else contacts me on their official WhatsApp account and says I have to contact Viator to "fix" my tour and get on the Sistine early morning express tour instead (which is the equivalent tour offered now, without early entry). So I call Viator (international call while in Italy) and they tell me that the Sistine Express tour is over 50% more expensive that what I had originally paid (something like US$900 vs US$600 for 3 people). I ask them about this on WhatsApp, and am now told that I will have to pay the extra ~$300. Obviously I am not very happy with this and tell them that this is quite ridiculous after promising that the tour price would still be the same, and eventually they relent and just conduct my tour at the original price, but not after I had spent over an hour on my vacation dealing with this nonsense. Screenshots of my conversation with them telling me the price would be the same, and then later telling me the price has increased are attached. Anyway, that's why the rating is not 5. The tours themselves were fantastic. Both guides for the Vatican and Coliseum were great and informative. For the Vatican we explored the museums, the Sistine, and St Peter's Basilica, and had a good amount of time on the private tour to see it all. For the Coliseum we visited the arena and the Roman Forum and they were both great tours.

Fantastic tour with an amazing tour guide Pamela, very informative and so knowledgeable giving us detailed information about every part of the Vatican and St Peters, Pamela was an absolutely amazing story teller with key information for us to understand the beauty of everything we saw, would highly recommend this tour and highly recommend Pamela! Cant thank you enough for making one of our dream tours fantastic!

We took the express tour and Elisa was an excellent tour guide - deep knowledge and passion for art and history!

Our guide, Denis, was fabulous. Charming, informative and personal. Couldn't have asked for a better guide. I submitted a previous review stating this. HOWEVER ... after further thought, this was crazy expensive and a bit misleading that this was pre-crowds as an "early bird" tour. It was technically private as it was my wife and I with Denis, but the other thousands of tourists also on private and early bird tours (including multiple pushy groups of 30) made it seem anything but early bird. Stupid crazy packed, and I mean wall to wall people by the time we got the corridor of maps. In hindsight, we should have been more specific on what we wanted to see. We missed the Raphael Gallery which was on our must-see list, and was taken outside of security to visit the store before we realized we were literally out of the secured area and would have to wade back through the line to get in to St. Peter's again. Did not spend enough time in St. Peter's, we would have preferred saying goodbye to Denis inside knowing this after the fact. Very disappointed with that aspect. We will take responsibility to not have spoken up sooner, but with the choreographed tour, we were led along until it was too realize the Raphael's were not on the tour list. I would have happily given up on the Byzantine artifacts, etc. and streamed past the crowds in the long gallery to see this. This is not on Denis, he was great, but do your research on what you want to see and DO NOT expect this tour to be anything close to "private". And state up front what you want to see. The after hours evening tour might be better?

We had booked a cruise that was leaving out of Rome - so my wife and I decided to fly in a few days early and do some touring. I worked with the *great* team from Eyes of Rome team to help customize some tours for us. For Day 1 - they customized and did a private Vatican / Colosseum Combo Tour. Our *amazing* guide Marta and our driver Massimo picked us up at our hotel and we discussed the plan for the day. We visited the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel, stoped for a very local and amazing lunch, and then toured the Colosseum. Marta was the most amazing, wonderful guide. She was so warm and friendly - and had such deep knowledge about the places we visited - but also when driving around Rome pointed out so many interesting things. On the second day - we needed to be to the boat by 3pm or so - so the team suggested a private, abbreviated walking tour. We had a new guide Michela and got to see Massimo again! Michela was also amazing. She took us to the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, Piazza Navona and the Trevi fountain. She also booked another stellar local / authentic restaurant for us for lunch. We're definitely planning on returning and doing a more involved tour of Southern Italy - and will be contacting Eyes of Rome when we do

My husband and I were very fortunate to have selected Azzurra as our guide. She met us at our hotel right on time and quickly secured a cab to Vatican City. We found her to be a genuinely kind person who made sure to adjust the tour to prioritize our interests. We loved the intimate nature of the private tour and appreciated the opportunity to ask for clarification and elaboration. Azzurra was so knowledgeable and familiar with every aspect of the art, history, and nuances of the Vatican complex that no question went unanswered. The tour surpassed all our expectations. The beauty and history of St. Peter's, the Vatican Museums, and the Sistine Chapel are beyond words, and this tour really enhanced our experience exploring them. Highly recommend!

We had a great experience on our tour in Vatican, Sisten Chapel and St. Peter Cathedral due to our guide Rosalba. She is very knowledgeable and answered all our questions. She knew how to point out the most interesting things. She helped us from the beginning to the end, with all helpful information. I would highly recommend Rosalba Cilione for individual private tours. As an art history major, she knows a lot about paintings sculpture tapestries history and the artists.

We had an amazing time seeing this wonder! Our tour guide Azzurra Della Seta was so knowledgeable and warm. It was all thanks for her that we enjoyed our tour so much!