VIP Small-Group Vatican Early Morning Guided Tour

The tour was to start at 8. Some guy with a strong accent calls me at 7:15 in the morning and told him we would be at meeting point a 8 when our vouchers said to be there. We got to voucher redemption point before 8 and tour guide had already left. We spent over 600.00 to be treated horribly. Would not recommend this company to anyone.

Title says it all. Mediocre tour that felt rushed, only stayed in the Vatican for a short period.

Barbara did a great job pointing out things. She kept us on time so that we were able to see alot of things. She was fun and entertaining!

Awesome and enjoyable experience at the Vatican with our guide Gigi. He answered all our questions and was very informative. We thought with our tour that our guide would come with us into St. Peter to explain a little bit about the Bacilica? We did enjoy the Bacilica with our group on our own.

Not as advertised!! Nothing VIP or early morning about it. Museum doesn't open until 8am, but we're asked to arrive at 645am. To wait around until 730 to start the walk. Still had to wait in line to get into Museum. The tour guide was vey informative and personable. She did well keeping the group together. But be warned, you'll be one of dozens of other groups touring the same time. You won't get any relief from the crowds or extra time to look at the art. Overpriced in my view given the ticket is only 20 euro for the Museum.

I've had this tour before with a different tour guide and that is the reason a highly recommend it. However, for this time around the experience was very different and unpleasing, which for my girlfriend who was first time visiting was very offputting. Our Tour guide this time around was solely focused on the art aspect and many times rude to both tour members as other visitors, not part of our tour group. On many occassions made people move or interrupted their experience to move her way to the front of an exhibition and forcing tour group members to participate on scene type recreation of scenarios, making everyone on tour uncomfortable. Also, the tour was scheduled to begin at 7:45am, however the tour guide left the meeting point at 7am for which several tour members were left behind which was rather unfair as for all intendes purposes we were early and they were not late.

I really wish I could rate this tour higher, but the lady we had spent more time talking about what we should look for rather than actually viewing it. We started our tour around 7:30am and spent an hour discussing what we should look for inside the cathedral once we got inside (which was actually going to be at the very end of the tour) and didn't get in line for the museums until 8:30am. Then, once getting through security, we spent a half hour from 9:00am to 9:30am discussing the wonders of the Sistine Chapel, still outside the museums. Once we got inside the museums, we had to rush breathlessly through the museums to finally make it to the Sistine Chapel at 10:35am...5 minutes after our tour was supposed to be over. Since 8 out of our small group purposefully selected the early tour before having to leave for the airport, including ourselves, we had less than 10 minutes inside the Sistine Chapel and absolutely no time to go inside St. Peter's, which was one of the reasons for buying this tour. We were supposed to be able to go inside a side entrance of the basilica and see what we had discussed 3 hours earlier, but that wasn't going to happen. Unless you have 4 hours to spare, do not take this 3-hour tour. I would have rated this tour only 2 stars, but the tour guide was extremely informative and had a lot of interesting information so added an extra star for her storytelling. I would have loved to have her in a classroom setting for 3 hours BEFORE the tour, but unfortunately, her pacing was extremely poor and we lost out on the opportunity to spend much time in the museums, the Sistine Chapel, and never got into St. Peter's. Very disappointed, actually, as we probably won't be back in Rome as a family again and would have loved to see St. Peter's at least once in our lifetime. One other word of caution to anyone who thinks they are going to avoid the mass of crowds by going on one of these early tours. The crowds may be at 90% rather than 110% during the middle of the day, but still expect to have to wind your way through a horde of humanity.

The tour’s selling points were that you entered the Vatican prior to opening, this was false. We didn’t get to the Batican until after 8 am then waited in a short line to get in. Also, it states small group, no more than 12 people but we were in a group of 20. Very deceiving advertising.

Our guide Barbara was so enthusiastic about Sistine chapel and Michelangelo I learned so much from her. She was great. But the problem was the company which they described this tour as early morning tour before the crowds that starts at 7 am. Vatican Museum open at 8 am so I thought our tour guide will take us inside the museum right after 7 am before 8 am crowd comes in, but that was not the case. The tour guide explained about St. Peter’s basilica and the pope at the St Peter square for 45 minutes then started walking toward the Vatican Museum and our ticket was for 8 am entry to the museum, not early morning tour that avoids crowds. Their description on Viator website is so misleading to say the least. I was so upset. There is a tour that goes inside the museum an hour earlier than opening hour, so if you want that tour, you should look for it somewhere else.

Very informative and well worth the cost. Having a guide to navigate through the maze of pre-entry requirements, and providing valuable insights during the tour is most beneficial. The Vatican is always full of wandering tourists. Our guide was especially helpful in pointing out features not ordinarily identified.