Purchase tickets to Vatican beforehand?

[Grammabev]

I have gone to the Vatican.va site but don't see anything there about reservations ahead of time, yet some posts on this site say you can fax them to request a date, approximate time, # in party, etc. and they may or may not fax you back. Is that still true or do we simply have to wait in line when we get there?

[anneinca]

Are you trying to get tickets to the Vatican Museum or St. Peter's? No tickets are required for St. Peter's or to visit the Piazza. When we were in Rome, we stood in line for the Vatican Museum. It was long and hot!!! If you can get tickets ahead of time, I would highly recommend it. I did hear that the lines tend to be short in the mornings and particularly on Wednesday morning when the Pope has his audience in St. Peter's Square. Enjoy Rome. It is amazing.

anne

[CAT48]

The fax # for the Vatican Museum is 06-6988-5100.

If calling from the US, you need to put 011-39 in front of the number. (011 is Europe code), (39 is Italy code).

[Terri R.]

Originally posted by Grammabev:
I have gone to the Vatican.va site but don't see anything there about reservations ahead of time, yet some posts on this site say you can fax them to request a date, approximate time, # in party, etc. and they may or may not fax you back. Is that still true or do we simply have to wait in line when we get there?

Reservations are for either GUIDED tours of the Vatican Museums, or you may have read about reservations for the Scavi Tour. That is the very limited tours of the Excavation under St. Peter's Basilica. Information on both of these can be found on the Vatican's website.

Also, there are now after-hours tours of the Vatican/Sistine Chapel (can't remember if the Vatican Museums are included). I know Carnival is offering it for like $399 or $499 a person (I can't remember which)...and I just read in todays Travel Section of the newspaper that you can book this after-hours tour for, I think it was $341 or something like that.