WORLD’S SMALLEST COUNTRY WITH THE WORLDS BIGGEST TOURIST
SCAM
SAVE 100’s of EUROS!
With over 9 Million visitors each year, the
Vatican City is one of the most popular tourist destinations across the world ,
and at the same time, it is also a fertile ground for crooks posing as ticketing agents to rip off the
tourists in the name of a -SKIP THE LINE TICKET. Continue reading this ,if you
really want to save atleast 100 odd Euros on your trip to the Vatican Museum.
It was 26th April 2024, our last day in Rome, after a couple of eventful days (including 20,000steps/day and a pickpocketing incident) Vatican City was on the cards. Tired from our previous day we started late and boarded the metro LINE B from Tiburtina Station ( the place we were staying at) . After switching over to LINE A at Rome Termini, we got down at Cipro Station and reached the MUSEI VATICANI, which was a 12 min walk; it was about 9 30 AM by the time we reached and the entrance was already crowded with thousands of visitors queued up to get in.
The 2 Lines at the Vatican City Museum Entrance
Previously we had tried booking, the Vatican entrance tickets online, but it turns out that the entrance tickets to Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel are usually sold out month in advance. So yeah, standing in a queue was the only option. We saw two lines one was overcrowded and the other one was relatively less crowded, getting into this smaller line was an obvious choice , but we soon learnt that this was a SKIP THE LINE queue with entrance tickets booked in advance (online), whereas the other line was the CURRENT RESERVATION/BOOKING LINE. It was 10 AM and the current (on the spot entry line) had already soared by a few thousand more by this time.
Skip the Line Scam Unfolds.
This was , a Déjà vu, moment, our friends (who had visited earlier) had warned us in advance that , SKIP THE LINE , was a better option unless of course you are willing to stand in a CURRENT RESERVATION LINE for about 2-3 hours. Around about the same time , a neatly dressed gentleman approached us, claiming he had a SKIP THE LINE ticket for 11 30 AM for a cost of 60 Euros/person. 60 Euros is roughly Rs 5500/person (yeah you do all these kind of math when you are not earning in Euros/USD or Pounds;) . For the 4 of us it would mean shelling out 22500 Rs for an entrance to Vatican. Quiet a steep amount , if you think of it from Indian upbringing perspective. In the next 5-10 mins we were approached by atleast 8-10 other Ticketing Agents claiming to have a SKIP THE LINE TICKET, and their offers ranged from 55-75 Euros / Person. And mind you this was just for the entrance , a guided tour of Vatican was ranging from 110- 130 Euros/Person. Eventually we negotiated with this one agent who had settled for an asking price of 50 Euros/Person. Yeah, me and my cousin’s husband Bipin really felt proud of our haggling skills, we had saved atleast 20 Euros between the 4 of us, or at least that is what we thought at that moment ! The real fun was about to begin, because my cousin Dipika thought that , even 55 Euros was a steep price.
The Ticketing Agent/Agency
I kind of agree with Dipika after visiting the Vatican (pun intended) but for the time being the 3 of us i.e. me, Bipin and Aparna (my wife) convinced Dipika to go for the 50 Euro deal, after all we had travelled, more than 6000 Kms from home ! Yeah this is the exact thought, that allows us to give in and you end up paying higher prices most of the time, I guess.
Dipika, agreed to play along, and we headed to the booking office, but I guess her gut feeling kept poking at her, all this time. At this booking office some 100 mts from the entrance gate, the agent asked us for copy of our ID cards which we promptly gave and he casually also added, that the SKIP THE LINE TICKET booking was now going to be for 12 30 PM slot. This was enough for Dipika’s instincts to trigger a red herring, and eventually she convinced us to dig a little deeper. We immediately split in two groups. Bipin and Aparna stayed back at the agent office, while I and my cousin Dipika stepped out and went right back to the SKIP THE LINE entrance.
The Official Vatican Museum Booking site
In the days leading up to our Italy trip, almost every day, we had looked out for Vatican Tickets but they continued to be sold out. But while looking out for these tickets, I had stumbled upon a less flashy site , https://tickets.museivaticani.va/home/fromtag/4/1723746600000/Biglietti-Musei
which was offering entrance to Vatican for 20 Euros /person, and this is exactly what had triggered the collective imagination of our group. While reaching back to this SKIP THE LINE queue, Dipika had already opened, that less flashy looking site for Vatican Tickets on her mobile phone , and the tickets availability was open for 12 30 PM slot; before we knew we were already interacting with the officer at the SKIP THE LINE queue in our broken Italian , and his broken English. By the time we could show this to the officer the 12 30 PM slot had been sold out, yikes!
Presence of Mind and Some Handy Excuses(Think Washroom)
By this time my wife had started calling me , the booking agent was asking for payment, and we had to take a call, I and Dipika, decided to give this one more shot, and asked Bipin and Aparna , to buy some more time. Now , Bipin being Bipin, he came up with an interesting excuse to the ticketing agent , that Dipika was looking for a washroom and I was helping her to find a washroom (Use of Washrooms are not for free in Italy and hence it was quite a legitimate excuse) Aparna meanwhile smartly chipped in , that all the money was with Dipika and me so they can’t pay anyway, till the point we returned !
Google Translate Comes in Handy
Back at the SKIP THE LINE queue, with the officer, and some help from Google Translate , we were finally able to learn, that we could also buy on our own these so called SKIP THE LINE tickets by visiting the official Vatican site , for just 20 Euros / person. Yes Vatican tickets are sold out months in advance but , they also have this huge quota of current tickets , specially kept for visitors who make last minute plans to show up at the Vatican. These quota of current tickets are opened for sale both offline and online, on the same day in the morning. Apparently , these ticketing agents outside the Vatican were selling us the same current tickets, by booking it online for double , or even three times the original price. The joy on Dipika’s face was apparent , sticking to her gut instinct had paid off, we immediately called up Bipin and Aparna, to leave the agents office, they joined us shortly and we managed to book our Vatican Museum slot for a total of 100 Euros for the 4 of us , including the online charges, convenience charges etc. We had saved atleast a 100 Euros between the 4 of us at 5 PM slot. Whether we enjoyed exploring the Vatican City Museum or not , well that is another story altogether?
Skip the line – A Misrepresentation
Now you might be asking what is this SKIP THE LINE ticket then? Basically, SKIP THE LINE is a term coined by these online travel sites. In plain terms it would mean , that you buy the ticket, jump the queue and get entry into the Vatican Museum, but that is not the case, no matter what the other sites might promise. The online tickets at Vatican City Museum are sold according to pre designated slots at an interval of half an hour each throughout the day, to manage the huge influx of crowds arriving at Vatican. It simply means, that if you bought the ticket for 5 PM slot then , come by 4: 50 PM and you will be given a straight forward entry, it basically implies, that you don’t have to stand in a line because you already have a pre designated slot, and so arrive a few minutes before the actual time and SKIP THE LINE to enter Vatican. I highly recommend you to SKIP THE LINE, but do it the smarter way , the way we managed to figure out …….because you will end up saving quite a few Euros which you can put to better use in Rome.
Scamming the Scammers
You might be wondering , what happened to the Ticketing Agent , who had lured us in to buy the SKIP THE LINE tickets at double the cost?
Well, when Aparna and Bipin received our call, to join us , they simply started walking away, leaving the agent high and dry. The zest of having saved 100 Euros in one stroke , had got a spring in their stride too, the Ticketing Agent saw this and figured out that we had wasted his 45 odd minutes and a chance to make close to 100 Euros in quick time . He kept cursing at Aparna and Bipin , but all they could do was laugh hilariously. I and Dipika, were not there to witness this scene, but we were there with them in spirit , and laughing , after all we had scammed the scammers, we thought in our heads. Later, we even celebrated this adventure by treating us to some delicious desserts right across the Vatican wall.
Our Learnings
In a nutshell SKIP THE LINE AT VATICAN is a big misnomer, and you will be eventually left with three choices.
- Book the tickets months in advance from the official site ( Which is mostly not possible?)
- Be prepared to be ripped off by Ticketing Agents and pay 2-3 times the price
- Simply do what we did on the spot and save those Euros, to spend on something better.
https://tickets.museivaticani.va/home/fromtag/4/1723746600000/Biglietti-Musei
How was our visit to the Vatican Museum? Was the visit to Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel worth the money ? Well that is a different story all together, and we also have some tips, to make your visit to Vatican more experiential , without having a proper tour guide. And by the way, did I mention, that the entry to St Peter’s Basilica is actually free of cost?