Vacation museum, Sistine Chapel & St. Peter’s Basilica - Today we did a tour through Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel & St. Peter’s Basilica. It was amazing!!! But what it amazing was our tour guide Amy!!! Amy told us everything that we needed to know. She made it a fun and very interesting tour (which our kids even enjoyed!). I came here 20 years ago, and thought I knew everything but today I found out a whole lot more. Thank you so much Amy!!

Worth every cent (Euro) a must for those who want the best treatment, skipping the queues and enjoying good commentary - I never write reviews but I’d have to say that this was a truly excellent experience. The skip the line tour is an absolute must, because it was absolutely packed, but we were ahead of everyone. Our guide (Olga) was super friendly, well paced and knowledgeable. Her understanding of the history of Italy, the Vatican, the religion and the geography was superb and always light hearted and pleasant. We are in our mid sixties and found the journey around the sights fabulous. Loved it!

Skip the long line! - Getting to skip the long line was great!!! The audio guide app, Pop Guide, was hard to navigate and we ended up just reading the plaques instead of using the guide.

Clarifying what this IS and what it ISNT - I purchased the skip the line Vatican and Sistine Chapel ticket with audio guide. This only gets you a ticket to the Vatican MUSEUM and Sistine Chapel. That ticket put us in the 30 min long tour guide entry (think 20+ groups of 20+ people) line into the museum, even though we had no tour guide. There are 2 other lines that we couldn’t access that were way shorter. However, the 30 minute line is way better then the 1.5 hour line to buy tickets at the museum, so it did save us a little time, but it’s a bit disingenuous to call it “skip the line”. The audio guide they refer to is actually an app that you download to your phone. We didn’t use it. Lastly, this DOES NOT get you a “skip the line access” to the Vatican Basilica - ie, the actual church - that is a separate 2-3 hour long line without any shade. The Basilica is free and open to everyone but the line is for security checks and there is no ability to “skip the line” for that. We literally couldn’t stomach 2-3 hours in line in the sun, so we didn’t get to do the Vatican itself. The museum and Sistine Chapel were amazing and well worth it, but count me as the idiot who didn’t know how this all works.

Audio guide app needs improvement - The audio guided tour was confusing. The app should have indicated a suggested/designated path to follow and not just each area (especially when the signage in the museum isn’t that great either). The tour folks were nice at orientation. Museums and Sistine chapel are glorious. Could spend the whole day.

Poor customer service - The company clearly oversold tickets and then was very unaccommodating. We purchased tickets months in advance. They canceled my sister’s breakfast at the Vatican tour 3 weeks before the trip and offered to downgrade her to the regular tour or cancel. This would have been no issue. However they wouldn’t allow me to downgrade with her since we purchased tickets separately and I was not one of the people they chose to cancel. We ended up choosing to skip the tour altogether. We are tourist from another country we weren’t going to go on the tours alone. So unfortunately they scammed me out money as they wouldn’t offer a refund option either.

Vatican trip ruined by no-show guide and incompetent City Wonders staff. - Like many others here, our guide did not show up for the guided tour we booked several months ago. We had 7 people, which was a total of US $1052! The City Wonders staff was completely clueless as to what to do. With about 15 mins before our entry tickets expired, I demanded we be escorted into the museum so we could at least go through on our own. An aimless wander through this massive museum is not ideal. No explanation of the artwork or Sistine Chapel. Also, we got dumped out back into Rome, not the Basilica like you get with a guide. So, after 5 hours in the museum we had to walk around the Vatican wall and then wait in the hot security line for St. Peter’s Basilica. City Wonders never responded to Viator (booking agent) so we could get a refund. I disputed the charge with my credit card company as an undelivered service and they got me refunded fully. However, our once-in-lifetime trip to the Vatican was ruined by City Wonders, who has no backup plan for no-show guides. They had plenty of clueless and incompetent administrators there, but not one extra standby guide. DO NOT GAMBLE YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH THEM. Get Your Guide has been a much better provider for us in Italy so far.

Avoid trouble! Buy your tickets directly from the Vatican Museum website (half price) or search for another carrier - During the visit to the Vatican the guide “run” through the Vatican Museum and dropped us in the Sistine Chapel, saying that we could go back to the Museum after the chapel. It's not possible with the kind of income we had. We tried to contact them and the response came eight hours later. Result, we lost the day with a horrible visit. As others have already said here, they seem to me more interested in selling quantity than quality. My suggestion: buy the ticket directly from the Vatican Museum website, pay half the price, including the audio guide and make the visit in your time.

DO NOT BOOK- SCAMMERS!!!!!!!! - WORST EXPERIENCE EVER. I booked this tour A YEAR in advance because of how important it was to my family and I. We get to the meeting point at 8:45 (scheduled time of 9). They procede to inform us that our tour guide did not show up. After we walked around for an hour trying to find a different tour (that won’t scam us again), we found a great company that ended up giving us a tour at 1:30 (we walked around for 3 and a half hours because of city wonders screwed us over but we made the best of it). We ended up seeing another family being told their tour was cancelled due to no tour guide (this was hours later). It seems like they lie and tell you that your tour guide didn’t show up, when in reality they overbook and cannot accommodate the amount of people/tickets they sell. Not only do they not help you get on another tour, but they tell you to go into the Vatican alone!!! (This is impossible with the vatican because it is so large and we are not italian speakers). Overall- No refund in sight, almost ruined our short trip to rome, and i couldn’t advise you more to STAY AWAY!!!!!

Pathetic - ripped off ! - Like many others were left with no guide on the day! We re were offered a "partial refund" if we used our entry ticket and went on our own. So now they are offerering a miserable 25% refund !! So by us still paying 75% and not having to pay the guide that didnt show up they'd be making a bigger profit!......Great way to make extra money guys. They failed to provide a service so needs to be refunded (less the cost of the entry ticket) Not happy at all and cannot reccomend this company at all.