Vatican Gardens Bus Tour With Audioguide & Vatican Museums And Sistine Chapel

This tour is such a waste of time. The process for meeting your tour group and getting to the bus is a mess, you have to stop and wait several times before your guide charges off through the crowd again pushing you through other tour groups to get where you are going. Then the bus itself. The covers on the windows take up half of the available space, so you're left with only a small viewpoint. The bus only pulls up to things on the left side, so if you're seated on the right you're not going to see much or get any photos. The gardens themselves are very unimpressive, there really isn't much to see. Save yourself the time and just get tickets to the Vatican Museums. They're the only part worth seeing. You do not need this tour.

The meeting location is across the street from The Vatican Museum entrance. I would advise locating it ahead of time to reduce confusion & stress. We almost missed our tour due to running late & trying to find the it. After checking in an employee takes the group across the street through the security at the museum entrance & to the outside garden shuttle where you are given an audio device. This person then leaves you with the Vatican employee & shuttle driver. The only talking done is brief instructions on the audio guide. The drive through the garden area is really pretty & the audio guide provides descriptions & history. There aren’t a lot of flowers but the landscapes are beautiful. It would be hard to walk this large area. Afterwards you return to the same spot the garden tour started & go inside to start the museum tour on your own. I highly recommend paying for the audio guide. You will enjoy your visit so much more. I was glad to do the tour on my own instead of a guided tour. The museum is arranged in a designated path with a few options to skip areas or cut your visit short & head straight to the Sistine Chapel. It is physically challenging, has lots of stairs, & can take hours. I recommend taking a break in the cafeteria or snack shop which are located next to each other, prices are reasonable. There is also a courtyard with an eating area. After the Sistine Chapel you will go through about 5 gift shop areas which seem to have the same merchandise. If you are claustrophobic you might have problems in the Sistine Chapel. It is packed tight with guards constantly telling you to move on & no photos allowed. There are sitting areas along the sides if you are lucky enough to grab one. This was definitely an exhausting afternoon but so glad I got to see it.

We had just finished our tour of the Vatican earlier that morning but also wanted to see the gardens. Everything went very well, from the moment we lined up at the meeting place and till the end. Staff was very organized. The tour itself was nice. We sat on the left side of the bus which allowed us the best view for most of the stops. The drive does stop, backs up and tries to make sure that both sides get a chance to see everything. It was not rushed at all. This work out for us because we didn't have time to walk the grounds, but still go to see the landscape. After the tour we then were allowed to go back to revisit the Vatican which we just chose to look at the bookstore longer and even mail out a postcard from Vatican City (a must). Well worth it!

Could not take photos because of the steel bar across the windows. Brief tour with no opportunity to get panoramic photos

An avid gardener, I was a bit disappointed in the audio feed. Could have contain a lot more info. Not really worthwhile