Home to the world’s largest private portfolio of artwork, the Vatican is a must-see for visitors to Rome, and the best way to explore it is with a guide. Learn about the highlights of Vatican City with an expert guide, visiting the Vatican Museums & Sistine Chapel. Explore intriguing sites like Raphael’s Rooms and then visit the Sistine Chapel to see incredible frescoes by Michelangelo. Choose the start time that better suites your needs.

Half-day Vatican Museums guided tour with fast-track access
Learn about the incredible Renaissance artwork inside Raphael’s Rooms
Visit the Sistine Chapel and marvel at Michelangelo’s 'The Creation of Adam'

Why Travelers Choose This Tour

This experience offers upgrades for early morning or after-hours tours of the Vatican.

What's Included

Headsets to hear your guide better (Tours over 10 persons)
Free Wi-Fi & Recharging station at the meeting point
Welcoming staff at comfortable office
Fast track entrance tickets

Gratuities/Tips
Hotel pickup and drop-off

Meeting And Pickup

Meeting point

Enjoy Rome
Via Vespasiano, 46b, 00192 Roma RM, Italy
Near Metro A: Ottaviano station. Please be at the meeting point (Via Vespasiano 46b) atleast 25 minutes before the departure time, inside the office.

End point

Vatican Museums
00120, Vatican City

What To Expect

Meet your local guide at the tour office to enter the Vatican Museums. Then, with your skip-the-line ticket, step inside to start your Vatican and Sistine Chapel tour. Follow your guide, listening to tales of saintliness and scandal, and learn about the Vatican’s place as one of the holiest sites in Christendom.

Italian art flourished in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, and the Vatican popes put together one of the world’s largest collections of private art with frescos, paintings, sculptures, and treasure. See the highlights as you walk through galleries such as Raphael’s Rooms, and hear stories behind works such as the 'School of Athens'—a piece that features images of Michelangelo and Raphael himself.

Pass through halls such as the Gallery of the Masks and Gallery of the Maps. Then, make your way into the Sistine Chapel. A sacred spot and the private papal chapel, the Sistine Chapel is also renowned for its Michelangelo frescoes—'The Last Judgement' and 'The Creation of Adam.'

Vatican Museums

2 hours • Admission Ticket Included

Sistine Chapel

20 minutes • Admission Ticket Included

Additional Info

Confirmation will be received at time of booking
All visitors must pass through metal detectors at the security check point. Please expect to wait 20-30 minutes to clear security
Luggage storage NOT available
We are sorry to inform you that this tour is NOT wheelchair accessible. Vatican Museums provide wheelchairs free of charge in the main lobby. You can easily pick one up after you enter, before starting your own independent visit. If you are looking for a guided tour with wheelchair access, we recommend booking our private tours so a guide can lead you through the alternate routes
All students should have their student identity card in order to get the discount for the admission fee.
Not wheelchair accessible
Near public transportation

Pets are NOT allowed
St. Peter's Basilica is closed during the following times: Wednesdays: 8:00 AM-12:00 PM, December 24 and 31 During these times, the tour will visit other parts of the museums
Most travelers can participate
St. Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel close without notice on rare occasions; if this happens, your guide will take you to tour the Vatican Museums and/or the Sistine Chapel/St Peter's Basilica/Raphael Rooms instead
Individuals with Disabilities MUST NOTE it on their booking.
This tour/activity will have a maximum of 25 travelers

Cancellation Policy

You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the experience for a full refund.

For a full refund, you must cancel at least 24 hours before the experience’s start time.
If you cancel less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time, the amount you paid will not be refunded.

Any changes made less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time will not be accepted.
Cut-off times are based on the experience’s local time.

Traveler Photos

Traveler Tips

Wear comfortable shoes and be prepared to walk pretty much non stop.

Skip the line is the only way to go, but still had an hour to 1.5 hour wait.

Must use tour or you'll spend your vacation standing in line.

Reviews

4.0

8,079 reviews

Total review count and overall rating based on Viator and Tripadvisor reviews

Reviews by Viator travelers.

Showing 1-10 of 8,079 reviews

Great visitor experience

Garry_T, Mar 2023

Easy to find meeting point which paved the way for an excellent tour with a very knowledgeable guide. Very busy, which was to be expected, and we maybe should have booked earlier in the day (tour was 12:30). Absolute must for anyone visiting this wonderful city.

Probably a great tour, but terrible guide.

Linsey_R, Mar 2023

Only 2 stars because the tour probably wasn’t terrible, but our tour guide sure was. I believe her name was Hilary and she literally sprinted through the entire Vatican museum not explaining any of the artifacts. Because of her bobbing and weaving through the very crowded museum and trying to keep up, my husband and I got separated for 20 minutes on top of being separated from our guide to the point we lost audio in our headsets. All she bothered to explain was the Sistine chapel, the air show that was in town that had nothing to do with the tour. At the end of the Sistine chapel we lost her one final time and totally gave up and just toured St.Peters Basilica on our own time. Worst tour guide we had in all of our tours of Rome.

On paper the tour we...

Jamie_W, Mar 2023

On paper the tour we booked looked great and included a visit to the Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel and St Peter’s Basilica. Unfortunately the tour was let down by the tour guide we had. The lady was as mad as a bag of cats and mumbled her way through the tour. My wife and I came away having learnt very little about where we visited. The tour guide told some stories about some of the art etc but very little about the history of the places we visited etc. Overall we were extremely disappointed. If you are an early riser, you would be better to get to the Church and Museums at 7:30/8am and avoid the queues. Whilst the tour did include some queue jumping, if you arrive early and get yourself an audio guide, you’ll be better off. The €10 ticket to climb to the top of the church dome is well worth it for the views! Again go early to avoid queuing.

Guiseppe is a great guide...

Dragana_B, Mar 2023

Guiseppe is a great guide and it was wonderful to listen to him and to follow him through the world of Vatican. His observations and his stories about Mikeleandjelos work were fantastic.

A long awaited experience...

Allison_M, Mar 2023

A long awaited experience but difficult to understand guide. Very crowded and audio not clear. Ended abruptly with no guide.

Wouldn't do a guided trip next time

Anne_M, Mar 2023

The guide spoke too quickly and was hard to understand at times. I think the next time I go to Rome. I will skip the guided tour and go myself so I can spend more time in the Vatican museums.

Rushed tour, stressful

Christopher_G, Mar 2023

From the start of the tour it was a stressful atmosphere. The lady starts off with a tour we paid a lot of money for (and a really large group- 30) barking out rules to us. Then she proceeds to rush us to the Vatican museum, which is a mess of people. She is very knowledgeable about the items in the museum but only allows us to spend 5 minutes in the Sistine Chapel. Would not recommend. You’re better off going on you’re on.

Vatican

xcbddzs9yr, Mar 2023

My wife and I really enjoyed our tour which was due a great deal to our tour guide Pascale. He was very knowledgeable, informative. A good sense of humour.and was very helpful.

Fantastic

Ursula_C, Mar 2023

There was mass with a choir on in the basilica which was beautiful. Our tour guide Sylvia was excellent at explaining everything.

Tour was ok - not great.

Jill_R, Mar 2023

Amazing place. Very crowded. Tour guide was soft spoken and English was ok but not great. Your took a lot longer than planned. Audio devices helped but spotty reception.

The Vatican was very...

Katy_G, Mar 2023

The Vatican was very crowded and even with the head sets it is very hard to hear/understand the tour guide. It is a beautiful place but less anadotes and more history would have been nice.

Great guided tour

Shawn_M, Mar 2023

This was a great tour by our guide. Pasquale was incredibly informative and fun. Our entire family enjoyed it.

Overall an okay tour

Sara_B, Mar 2023

The tour was an easy access with some interesting details while entering the Vatican. Many guests split from the tour early and explored on their own before the tour was complete. The guide was friendly and organized. The tour company wasn’t quite as organized - there were issues with the 2 people in the check in line before me where they needed to go to a different location to check in, which didn’t match their booking info that they had been given. It seemed confusing. My personal experience at check in wasn’t great either as upon arrival I was told they didn’t have a ticket for me and that they had notified me in advance to show up at a later scheduled tour. They actually messaged only 25 mins in advance so obviously at that point I was already enroute to the check in and hadn't received their notice. The later tour worked okay for me but it meant I had to wait around for another hour which wasn’t convenient, if I had later plans it could have been problematic. Their notice said there was a “booking glitch in the system” but it sounded like they needed my spot to accommodate a group and a single ticket holder is easier to bump than others. It was frustrating but not the end of the world. The guide provided some interesting commentary but if I had my time back I’d have just bought my own tickets to explore on my own as that seems the better and less expensive option for a Vatican tour.

Too rushed

Jacqueline_H, Mar 2023

It was all so rushed as the guide kept going so far ahead it was difficult to keep up. Would not bother with a guide next time and enjoy the experience at our leisure

This tour is amazing. Our...

Fernando_B, Mar 2023

This tour is amazing. Our guide Raul made our visit to the Vatican very pleasant. We laughed a lot, he’s very funny.

Very good Vatican tour

Suzanne_G, Mar 2023

The guide was very knowledgeable. The tour was very well organized. It was easy to locate the meeting place.

Excellent tour!

snooky_m, Mar 2023

Sylvia our tour guide is excellent. She is very knowledgeable. The only issue was the headset, it was not working properly.

Don't go! Don't pay! Don't waste your time!

Stephanie_N, Mar 2023

We started 1 hour late, when we got to the ticket place thr company forgot 5 tickets, so we had to wait again. When we finally started we eneded up at a picture outside for 15 to 20 mins tour guide talking and coughing and barely could hear her. When we started into the Vatican it was like we had to keep walking and could not even take a minute to look at anything because we were literally rushing through and had to only watch thr people in front of you. Then we were stopped every 15 minutes for her to count everyone. Then she took everyone to the bathroom and we had yo wait another 15 minutes gor that! We never got to see st. Peters church and never got to see any of the statues like Michael Angelo. This tour was to start at 10 and be 3 hours long. We also had another tour at 2pm. So we would have plenty of time to see many things. But we didn't! This was a trip I had saved for and had 1 day to see these tours. What a disappointment! I asked for my money back and was told no. I feel I should get a refund as I didn't get to see much of anything an never saw st. Peter's church! Just imagine just walking fast and staying with the person in front of you, like your in a car driving and you look out the window for a minute to see something but you can't stop to really see it. That was the tour!!! All and all 1 hour 30 mins walking fast, getting head counted, tour guide standing outside talking , and taking everyone to the bathroom, that was the tour. I am still wanting my refund! So does my co worker! Horrible service

Brilliant experience

Claire_C, Mar 2023

Olga our tour guide was brilliant and was so informative! The tour was very well organised , we didn’t have to queue in what looked like a queue for approximately 2 hours. Would highly recommend if visiting the Vatican - great value for money

Worth doing but be aware of being packed in like sardines.

Sheena_G, Mar 2023

I think a visit to the Vatican, Sistine Chapel & St Peter’s Basilica is a must if you come to Rome. However the crowds in the Vatican museums, despite being early March, were huge & you are being jostled continuously as you are shoulder to shoulder with other visitors. It was hard to see everything due to the crowds so I feel that much was missed & at one point I felt claustrophobic (in the hall of tapestries). The Sistine Chapel is magnificent as is St Peter’s Basilica & I would recommend this trip.

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