Tour Date: Thursday, April 26, 2018
Tour Time: 10:30 am to 1:00 pm (2.5 hours)
Booking: We booked Guidaly's minimum, 3 hour tour for two persons.
This was my wife's first time to visit the Vatican. We had a very busy day planned and a very small window of time available (2.5 hours) to tour the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's Basilica.
I've been to both before on private tours so I asked the Guidaly tour planner (Andrea), and our guide (Maddalena), to take us only to the Sistine Chapel in the Museum, and then directly to the Pieta in the Basilica. That's realistic, given our time constraint and the size and complexity of these massive structures and crowds.
What we got was much, much more. We were able to tour three major Vatican plaza areas, six large museum rooms, the hallway of maps, candlesticks, and tapestries, plus five major Basilica areas - all in detail - in addition to all the time my wife desired inside the Sistine Chapel and viewing the Pieta. We started and finished on-time and on-schedule, and experienced far far more than we could have on our own (and much more than guides I've had from a different service).
Maddalena accomplished a mission impossible. How? She apparently has a GPS-like mental app running in her head, constantly re-calculating and updating the optimal route through the maze of Vatican halls, staircases and niches. That, and her ability to intuitively predict which direction the other guides would move their group, enabled us to flow expeditiously from place to place. She also tactfully maneuvered us into the best possible viewing positions. To be frank, this may have been more possible because there were only two of us.
Bottom Line: I will use Guidaly again - with full confidence. Andrea (the Guidaly tour planner) is an ultimate professional, who quickly and thoroughly responded to my every inquiry. Maddalena (our private guide) is exceptionally knowledgeable, personable, and capable - and her English is impeccable. (The fact that she rides a scooter to work adds to the charm). read more