Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel Sunday Tour

she's the best ill let her know about this amazing review!!

Hello! Thanks a lot for your lovely review of our St. Peter’s Basilica tour. It’s great to hear you had such a good time. I’ll share your feedback with the guide, she’ll be delighted to hear it. Really appreciate you coming with us and taking the time to leave a review.

On this particular Free Sunday, Rome was heavily impacted by the Giro d’Italia cycling race. A large part of the city’s police force was deployed for the event, which unfortunately meant much less crowd control around the Vatican entrance than usual. As a result, the queue became unusually disorganised, with people pushing in and less enforcement of the normal order, which significantly slowed entry and made the situation far more chaotic than a typical Free Sunday. We’re really sorry this is how your experience went. Standing in line for hours and still missing entry is incredibly frustrating, especially on a trip you’ve been looking forward to. Just to clarify how Free Sunday works: entry to the Vatican Museums is free for everyone, and there is no skip-the-line access for any tour or guide. All visitors must use the same public queue, and entry is strictly closed by the Vatican around 12:30 PM, regardless of how long people have been waiting. We also hear your point about timing. Normally we start at 10:00 AM, but after this experience we’ve already changed our Free Sunday departures to 9:00 AM so we can join the queue earlier, avoid peak congestion, and give ourselves the best possible chance of getting everyone inside. We appreciate your feedback and are genuinely sorry it didn’t work out on the day.

On this particular Free Sunday, Rome was also dealing with exceptionally high disruption due to the Giro d’Italia cycling race. A significant number of police resources were deployed across the city for the event, and this unfortunately affected crowd control around the Vatican entrance. As a result, the queue became unusually disorganised, with some people pushing in ahead of others and less enforcement of the normal order. This combination of factors led to much slower progress than is typically experienced on Free Sundays. We understand how frustrating it is to wait for an extended period and still miss entry, especially on a once-in-a-lifetime trip. On Free Sunday, entry to the Vatican Museums is free for all visitors and there is no skip-the-line access for any group or individual. All visitors must use the regular public queue, and entry is strictly subject to the Vatican’s closing time (typically 12:30 PM), after which admissions stop regardless of waiting time. Following this experience, we have adjusted our Free Sunday schedule to an earlier 9:00 AM meeting time to maximize the chances of entering before closing and to reduce the risk of being affected by peak congestion. We appreciate your feedback and will continue working to improve the experience under these unique circumstances.

Appreciate the love! Hope to see you again one day.

Thank you so much for the review — it truly helps our small business!

Appreciate it, thanks for the lovely review. FREE SUNDAY is utter chaos but I do my best to make it enjoyable 🫡

Thank you so much for the super nice review—I really appreciate it. Yeah, we got very lucky. Very lucky. Now that there’s a new pope elected, maybe things will open back up. But the last two weeks have been pretty difficult. We were actually the last tour to go through there. A very, very historic moment.

Thank you Nicole I appreciate it!