The best tours of Rome and the Vatican

We made our way towards the Vatican museum ticket office and luckily bumped into a very nice Spanish guy who suggested this company. Maya tours were absolutely brilliant. Our tour guide was Lebanese and was very knowledgable and funny. He made sure all the 20 people in our tour got the best out of the visit and his explanation of the history behind how the Vatican came to be and Michael Angelo’s Sistine chapel made us appreciate what we were looking at so much more than if we had just bought a ticket. The tour lasted about two and a half hours. Definately recommend this company.

Our family of eight visited the Vatican during late December. The lines were hours long and we decided to join a Maya Tour. It was worth the cost in every way: we skipped the horrific lines and learned a great deal from our guide Deborah. The headsets allowed us to hear Deborah while looking somewhat independently during the tour. The tour group was huge — at least fifty, but Deborah was knowledgable and kept the tour interesting and snappy to young and old alike for several hours. Comments directed at a family accused of being gypsy pickpockets were a shock and the accuracy of the accusations is unknown. You might say this set the tone for theft and taking whatever one pleased as we learned about the history of the Vatican. Watch your pockets, indeed!

We started under a “meteorological bomb” aka lots of rain, but our guide Diego, had so much information and was so full of energy that we stick to it and did not regret it. Booking a tour is 100% worth it as you skipped all the lines, you are given a headphones and can hear the guide perfectly , even if you fall a bit behind or look at other things while listening.
I am 100% convinced that we got much more with being with a guide _ as an historian I usually do the reading myself and/or take the audio guide, but this skipping the line make the extra $ worth.

In a few words, we had the luck to find a guide very passionate about his job. A person with tons of information about cultures, religion, history and arts. His name is Ribal Abighanem. He explained, in detail, every single piece of art or history that we’ve meet along the Vatican tour. It was really a celebration of culture!

Thanks to Gabriel our tour guide we had an amazing experience at the Vatican! Was so helpful, kind with a very good English. Thank you Mayan Tours for this opportunity!!