Tour privato & Salta la coda - Musei Vaticani e Cappella Sistina

We are happy to take this tour. The tour guide was so helpful and informative. It was long line we did skip really works good. Worth it for us.

I had tried to book a tour of the Vatican as a person with a mobility disability. I was told the only way to do this was to book a private tour due to the elevators needed to be taken and special route. It basically cost about 3 times more than other tours and I was charged for the admission at the time despite getting free admission to the Vatican as a person with a high percentage disability. When we got to the ticket office, it was not accessible, yet they knew I had booked this tour. I spoke to them about the charge for admission and they did refund me the amount for myself and my husband (as it is the pwd and escort that are admitted free) and told me that we had the guide all afternoon. The lady (whose name I forgot), who was our guide, was delightful and took us through all the barriers of the Vatican and we had a tour of the floor that ends up as the exit from the Sistine Chapel as that is where the access to the Chapel exists for people with disabilities. They are quite organized on the narrow hallway in terms of traffic control with people and their wheelchairs along with the masses of tours that are exiting the Chapel. So we went into the Chapel from the exit and then back to the floor we had already seen as that is the only way a pwd can access the Sistine Chapel. I did notice as we were walking along though that there were other signs for elevators and I wondered why we were not seeing those parts of the museum. The guide then left us and told us that we could stay in the museum until it closed at 6:30pm. So we toured the gardens and went back up to where the security were at the entrance to the hallway we had toured and I asked them if we could see the Egyptian exhibit. They said of course and led us to another elevator where we toured another floor of the museum. That really got me to thinking - we had a private tour - it was our first time to the Vatican museum - yet it was not explained to us what we could or could not see (other than the Sistine Chapel). The guide seemed upset I was not taking pictures of the Sistine Chapel exhibit outside however I had told her several times I already had them as the Sistine Chapel visit has just been to the city where we live and we had an audio tour of all the large sections of the room that were on display. So about 80% of what she told us we had learned about 6 weeks ago. I did learn a couple of things though - which I did tell her - such as the black marks on the ceiling. In the world where I live, being a person with a physical disability is is especially important to LISTEN when people tell you things, it would have saved time if the guide had HEARD that we were not interested in a tour of the pictures of the Chapel as we had just experienced them. We could have then done more on the tour if she had given us that option. In conclusion, we probably could have done this tour better on our own than with a guide.