Skip the lines and explore the Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter’s Basilica on a small-group guided tour. Discover ancient Roman and Greek masterpieces, the Tapestry Hall, Hall of Maps, Sobieski Hall, and Raphael Rooms. Admire Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam and Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, then enjoy priority entry to St. Peter’s Basilica with its Pietà and Bernini’s masterpieces. Visit the Papal Tombs and the Tomb of St. Peter, and end your experience with Dome access by elevator for breathtaking views of Rome.
Prices change with the date; the lowest is shown.
Out at sunset: the 2:00 PM departure is under way when the sun sets, around 5:01 PM in the coming weeks.
In demand: 57 of the next 144 departures are already sold out.
From the operator’s live schedule on Viator, checked Oct 22.
EARLY ACCESS VATICAN MUSEUMS with skip line pass. A small group guided visit of the highlights of Vatican Museum including Ancient Rome and Greece galleries, Tapestry Hall, Hall of Maps, Sobieski Hall and Raphael Rooms
SISTINE CHAPEL Highlights of Vatican tour with Last Judgement and the Creation frescoes by Michelangelo, the place where secret conclave (election of popes) takes place
ST. PETERS BASILICA with priority pass. The most magnificent Christian church with Pieta by Michelangelo and works of Bernini
PAPAL TOMBS and the Tomb of St Peters in the Crypt of St. Peter's Basilica
DOME ACCESS BY ELEVATOR with priority pass. Michelangelo's magnificent Dome with views from the roof and optional climb to the top
Reviews collected by Viator and Tripadvisor
Excurgo comparison of 8,096 Viator tours, recalculated daily.
All sales are final. No refund is available for cancellations.
SKIP LINE Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel & St. Peter's with Dome lasts about 4 hours. The itinerary has 5 stops.
Prices start at $74 per person for this Rome experience, booked through Viator with the price shown before checkout. There is 1 booking option, so the final price depends on the option you choose.
According to the operator’s current schedule, it runs on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, with 7 departures a day between 7:30 AM and 4:00 PM.
Children aged 7–18 pay from $63, adults from $74. Infants go free.
It can: 57 of the next 144 departures are already sold out, so booking ahead is a good idea.
All sales are final. No refund is available for cancellations.
The meeting point is outside entrance to hotel Palazzo Cardinal Cesi. Hotel pickup is not part of this experience.
The experience is available in EN.
It is a small-group experience with a maximum of 20 participants.
Confirmation is sent by the operator within 24 hours of booking.
Travellers rate it 3.7 out of 5 across 12 reviews on Viator and Tripadvisor; it is run by vaticancitytoursandtickets.
Reviews collected by Viator and Tripadvisor
Our first guide, Agnes, was amazing! So knowledgeable and funny and gave us a thorough tour of St. Peter’s. We had a second guide for the Vatican museum. This part was a larger group and it felt very rushed and crowded and was hard to hear our guide.
Actually a very nice tour, but in our opinion, it did not match the description. The tickets for entry to the Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica, and the elevator to the dome of St. Peter's Basilica (60€ per person) had to be paid separately in cash before the tour, in addition to the payment made in advance (75€ per person). All tickets were skip-the-line tickets. There was a good tour about the history of the Vatican in the square in front of St. Peter's Basilica. Unfortunately, there was no tour inside St. Peter's Basilica itself. Afterwards, we continued to the Vatican Museums, where one participates in a guided tour of the museum. This was also very informative and well designed. At the end, one visits the Sistine Chapel, where there is also no tour, as one is not supposed to speak inside. However, we could also see that there were guided tours in St. Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel with other groups.
Agnes was an excellent guide who showed us around the Vatican City and into the St Peter’s Basilica (skipped the long queues, didn’t wait long at all). She was very knowledgeable and taught us some handy things including how to read which rich person contributed to which monument or building which we’ve now been more thoughtful of when walking around Rome. After about 45 minutes, she left us inside the Basilica to go up to the dome. This was a short elevator ride then over 550 stairs so be prepared if you want to go up to get the view of Rome. We had a rushed walk around the Basilica (but didn’t need to see absolutely everything!) before walking out and around the Vatican area to get to the entrance for the museum (all of this is unguided after the guide leaves at the dome elevator, however she did take the time to clearly explain where we’d need to go, and gave us her WhatsApp incase). We bypassed all the crowds and lines, walking straight in and met an official Vatican museum guide and took the 2 hour official tour. This was very interesting, but slightly too long. This is just the standard length of the tour. After the guided tour, we were left to see the Sistine Chapel and the remainder of the museum unguided. If you want a mix of guided and unguided opportunities, this is a perfect tour. There was some miscommunication from the tour company about timings (we booked for 7:30, were told 8am, but the guide was told 8:30am, which meant we waited for a long time in the rain). Yes, you have to pay the guide approx 60 euro for the tickets in cash on the day, that’s why this tour is cheaper than others. This didn’t bother us. The skip-the-line tickets were excellent and we happily strolled past hours of queues. If you want to see EVERYTHING, this isn’t the tour for you. You simply won’t have time to see everything in the Basilica. However, you do get unlimited time in the museum.
Initially confusion over multiple meeting points followed by a Rushed tour with poor head phone quality falling off ear all the time + did not eliminate any back ground noise which made it very difficult to follow what guide was saying Initial meet and greet guide required cash payment for Basilica tour information was not clear on emails, tour was supposed to have audio guide but no email recieved for audio tour which we paid for.
Just purchase your tickets separately rather than book the tour. We met a guide at a restaurant who walked us to the Vatican museums entrance and handed us off to museum personnel. Our tickets were supposed to get us group access to the basilica after the Sistine chapel which would have allowed us to exit the chapel to the right and allow us direct entrance to the basilica. It did not. We had to leave the Vatican museums and then circle around the city wall and then enter the basilica like everyone else who has regular tickets does. Definitely not worth the money. Just purchase a guided tour once inside the museum entrance and book your basilica entrance online if you want to skip the line for those not paying.
Very disappointed. We booked the 3 hr tour for vatican museum, St Peters thru Holy Door. We did not even make it all the way thru the museums in 3 hours, very slow tour guide. We asked if we could leave the museum to make it to The Holy Door and move on to St Peters and was told no. We had to catch a ride to our cruise ship so we had to leave and were not able to make it thru the Holy Door. Very disappointed
I loved our tour guide Fabrizio. He had a good sense of humor and didn't fill it the tour with nonsense. It's 3 hours but it feels longer. I learned a lot. I think it'd skip the museums next time only because it's crowded and after a while everything looks the same to me. Though, if you're a history/art buff then this is the tour for you. Sistine Chapel is a work of mastery. I highly recommend seeing it in person. The only complaint I had was the meeting spot changing or not being accurate according to the booking. It's on the other side of the city. Just a heads up for planning!
The tour we had was great, but the guided portion of the tour was incomplete and not as described by TripAdvisor. Even the initial guide acknowledged that they would not be able to give use the full tour and we should expect a partial refund which we have not received.
Chris, student, was very good guide. Relaxed, pleasant to deal with and lots of knowledge. This must be sufficient to want to participate in this tour. In summary: highly recommended.
Great guide - very knowledgeable - it did exactly what it said on the tin - skipped the queues Highly recommended and good value.
| Tour | Duration | Rating | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SKIP LINE Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel & St. Peter's with Dome | 4 hours | 3.7 (12) | $74 | |
 Skip-the-Line Vatican, Sistine Chapel & St. Peter's | Small Group | 3 hours | 4.9 (8,440) | $113 | View |
 Skip the line Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel and St Peters Tour | 3 hours | 4.7 (3,607) | $21 | View |
 Skip-the-line Private: Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel&St Peter's | 3 hours | 4.9 (213) | $406 | View |
 Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel Skip-the-Line Ticket with Greeter | 45 min | 4.9 (1,509) | $68 | View |
 Skip-the-Line Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel & St Peter Basilica | 2–3 hours | 4.7 (170) | $136 | View |
 Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel & St Peter’s Basilica Guided Tour | 3 hours | 4.5 (42,014) | $79 | View |