Tours About — Local services in Rome

This was not a good experience or worth the money. To be fair, we arriived at 10:30 for a 10:30 tour rather than the requested 20 minutes early due to an extraordinarily long taxi wait. However when we did arrive there was no communication as to the process, what time we would be going, etc. A simple "the 10:30 tour has already left you will need to wait for the 11 am Tour" would have been very helpful. it happened to be raining hard and we were all standing outside on the sidewalk in the rain, in our case for 40 minutes before they finally grouped us up to walk over.

Then when we finally got to the vatican, they checked people's masks - at this point it had started to pour so we all had to stand in the rain while a few people bought the required masks from a nearby vendor. This should have been clearly communicated when people checked in rather than waiting and making us all stand in the rain. Incidentally the line was quite short and so we waited 40 minutes to skip a ~10 minute line. They did have a sign in the building, but it was so crowded in there, and they were just telling people to "go take a seat". This would have been a great opportunity to look at the masks people were wearing at checkin and tell them the needed a FFP2. They could have sold them or handed them out for free with their 100% markup over the standard entrance fee.

Then when they finally took us inside the guy lost us, so we went upstairs to the entrance gate, they said our tickets were not valid and we had to go back to the meet up place downstairs to get the tickets. Again, a lack of communication. If we had been told, "wait inside, we'll give your tickets inside" we would have known where to go and what to do. In the end we were so disgusted, rather than try to find them downstairs, we opted to pay for new tickets (with no line) so we could get in.

A very poor experience. I wouldn't recommend...

First of all, the customer service was horrible. The Indian guy in the fast line check in table was so rude to me. He screamed at me and told me he was not there to answer questions, also he told me he’d cancel my tickets because of my questions and that I got angry of him treating me freaking bad. All happened because when they send you the confirmation email, they tell you to arrive at their office 25 minutes before the entrance to get the tickets. It looked strange for me once my tickets were to enter the Vatican museum at 19h, however, on the address they send, on google maps it was showing it’d be closed at 16:30. So I came earlier, at 14h to understand the functioning and because I was scared of all the bad reviews I read on Google Maps. Once I got there, I asked about the tickets, he didn’t even looked at me and told me I should come back at 18:30. I told him, ok, but asked why and told him about the google maps closing time. He asked me sure rude “Madam’, don’t you read your tickets?!”. It was so rude, out of the blue. Then, I wanted to understand why he couldn’t give me the tickets, and he didn’t want to tell me. So I insisted, and he finally told me he was not there to answer questions and that the reason is that they bring us to the museum. This is a HUGE scam once, even though, the tickets online show sold out everywhere, you can just go to the museum (I confirmed with the cashier) and buy it for half the price they sell it (I paid 33 euros to this company and the price in the museum is 17 euros). Seriously, don’t do it. You don’t need to make a reservation before. Also, all the information online shows that you need the ticket before, but you don’t. They put so much money on ads.

Just get in the line and save your money...

Our guide Maria Antonietta was incredibly rude. Since the beginning of the tour she was upset to the point that other people in the group were wispering “why is she upset”. We tried to ignore her and have a good attitude. Before entering the Vatican museum she made the following comment: “ take care of your things because Latin people come here to steal”. This is not only incredibly inappropriate but also have in mind this is a tour tailored to people that speak Spanish…

Inside of the Vatican she kept complaining about other tourist, being grumpy and even told another person of the group “don’t take so many pictures”. Really ?

Finally we made it to the Sistine Chapel and she told us that not questions or talking to guides was permitted. We followed instructions and watched the art for a few minutes. Right before leaving, I noticed another group that had a guide that was talking to customers using the microphone. I only asked her if that was a special tour. Not to be surprised, she replied in a defensive and rude manner. I simply said. “It’s ok, I understand”. She became extremely upset and walk away saying: “you are not coming with me”.

Indeed, she went to talk to the guards and told them to not let us pass. She left us stranded inside the Sistine chapel and left with the rest of the group.

I book this tour through a third party and now directly reviewing the company reviews I realized they only have 2.7 starts. Wonder why…. Maria Antonietta needs another job that is not...