Vatican Key Masters Tour Review: Is It Worth It? (2026)

Quick verdict: Yes, the Vatican Key Masters Tour is worth it, with one big caveat. Walking into a silent, empty Vatican before dawn and unlocking the Sistine Chapel yourself is the most special thing we’ve done in Rome, and we’ve been visiting since the 1990s. The caveat is the price. Take Walks uses dynamic pricing, so the cost swings hard with the season, from around $674 for a quiet November morning to $1,355 for a date in May. That’s firmly once-in-a-lifetime money, and the tour is most worth it if you’ve already seen the Vatican in its normal daytime crush and know exactly what you’re escaping. If it’s your first ever visit you might not feel the contrast quite as keenly (more on that below). If it sounds like your kind of morning, you can book the Key Masters Tour with Take Walks here.

The Vatican Museums are one of the most popular attractions in Rome, and also one of the most crowded. They pulled in close to 6.8 million visitors in 2024, and on a busy day the galleries can feel less like a museum and more like a very slow, very beautiful rush hour. It’s also home to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, which alone is reason enough to put up with the crowds, even if a thousand other visitors shuffling past isn’t the ideal way to take in a Renaissance masterpiece.

The good news is that there is a way to skip the crowds and have the place almost entirely to yourself. Which is what we did, thanks to Take Walks, who invited us to experience their VIP Vatican Key Masters Tour.

We’ve been taking tours with Take Walks (formerly Walks of Italy) in the Vatican since 2015, and this was, without question, the most special experience we’ve had. In this review, we’ll cover exactly what the tour is, what it isn’t, how it compares to other Vatican tour options, what has changed since our visit, and whether we think it’s worth the considerable price tag.

This isn’t a general guide to visiting the Vatican. We have a detailed guide to visiting the Vatican for that. This post focuses specifically on this exclusive early morning VIP tour and whether it’s the right choice for you.

 

What is the Vatican Key Masters Tour?

The VIP Vatican Key Masters Tour is one of the most exclusive ways to visit the Vatican Museums. The tour has you accompanying the official Vatican Museum’s Key Master (known as the clavigero) as they walk through the Vatican first thing in the morning, before anyone else is allowed inside. As you walk, you actually help them unlock the doors and turn the lights on.

The tour visits many of the highlights of the Vatican, usually including the Gallery of Maps, the Gallery of the Candelabra, the Gallery of the Tapestries, and the Raphael Rooms. It finishes with a visit to the Sistine Chapel, which you will unlock and experience with almost no-one else around.

Following the two-hour tour, you then have breakfast in the Vatican Museums in the Pinecone Courtyard, after which you are free to explore the Vatican Museums at your leisure for as long as you like.

The tour is run a few times a week on dates set by the Vatican, with each group having a maximum of 20 people along with an expert guide. It’s important to know (and this is something we’ll cover in more detail later) that there are now sometimes two groups in the Vatican simultaneously, meaning up to 40 people during your tour. This appears to be a Vatican-level decision rather than specific to any one tour operator. Each group has their own guide and follows a slightly different route, but you may cross paths with the second group at various points.

 

How to Book the Vatican Key Masters Tour

We took the Vatican Key Masters Tour with Take Walks, which you can book directly online here. This is the tour we are reviewing in this post and, as far as we know, the most regularly scheduled version of the experience.

Pricing is dynamic, so it varies a lot with the date and season, with quiet low-season mornings the cheapest and peak months like May the most expensive. As a rough guide, we’ve seen it range from around $674 to $1,355 per person. It’s a significant investment whichever date you pick, and we’ll cover later whether we think it’s worth it.

There are other operators who offer a Key Masters experience. The tour itself is very similar regardless of which operator you book with, because it’s the same Key Master, the same route through the Vatican, and the same format. The main practical difference is that the Vatican allocates specific dates to specific operators, so your choice of operator will often come down to which one is running on a date that matches your trip. Pricing is also similar across operators.

The operators we are aware of that reliably offer this tour include:

• Take Walks (dynamic pricing, roughly $674 to $1,355 per person depending on the date, groups of up to 20). This is the operator we used and are reviewing in this post.
• LivTours semi-private (around €699 per person, groups of up to 20)
• LivTours fully private (around €9,449 for two people, just your group)

There is also a Key Masters tour listed on Viator, but we have struggled to find any actual availability on it. It’s worth checking, but don’t count on it. Take Walks and LivTours appear to be the two operators reliably offering tours.

All prices above are approximate and change based on season and demand. Always check the latest pricing before booking.

Our recommendation: check availability across operators for your travel dates and book whichever has a slot that works. If you have flexibility on dates, you’ll have more options. The TakeWalks tour is conducted in English by their own expert guide. Some other operators use the Key Master himself (who speaks Italian) with an English interpreter, which is a different experience, so check what’s included before booking.

Important booking note: all visitors to the Vatican Museums now need to provide their full name and a government-issued ID (passport) at the time of booking, and you will need to show this ID at the entrance. Names on bookings must match the ID exactly, and changes aren’t usually permitted. Book early, as the Key Masters Tour runs on a limited number of dates and sells out well in advance.

 

What Do You See on the Vatican Key Masters Tour?

The itinerary on the Vatican Key Masters Tour can vary slightly depending on the route the Key Master takes that morning. However, generally the following locations are visited:

• Raphael Rooms (Stanze di Raffaello)
• Belvedere Courtyard (Pinecone)
• Octagonal Courtyard (Apollo Belvedere and Laocoön)
• Gallery of the Candelabra
• Gallery of Maps
• Gallery of the Tapestries
• Sistine Chapel

Additional locations may also be visited depending on timing. When we visited, we also climbed the original 1505 Bramante Staircase and watched the sun rise over Rome from the top, but this is not always included.

 

Our Experience Taking the VIP Vatican Key Masters Tour

Here’s what our experience was like doing the VIP Vatican Key Masters Tour with Take Walks.

The tour starts very early. Our alarms were set for 4:30am, and we met our guide outside the main Vatican entrance at 5:45am. Entrance to the Vatican is at 6:00am sharp.

Our guide, Julia, introduced herself as our group arrived and gathered. She had over a decade of guiding experience in the Vatican Museums as well as a degree in art history, so we knew we were in good hands. She also had an excellent sense of humour, which helped given the early start.

Someone was also there to take down our names and confirm details for security reasons. You need to have pre-booked the tour to join; it’s not something you can just turn up for.

At 6am, the doors were opened and we were allowed inside. This is not a tour you can be late to. Whilst some tours might wait around a few minutes if you miss the start time, the Key Masters have a job to do and they don’t wait. The tour starts promptly and then the entrance door is closed. One person in our group didn’t wake up to his smartphone alarm and missed the tour entirely. If you are not used to getting up early, I’d recommend having a couple of alarm methods (phone alarm plus hotel wake-up call, for instance).

We entered the Vatican and went upstairs in a nifty old elevator. Here we met two of the clavigeri, or Key Masters, including the head Key Master Gianni Crea.

The specific Key Masters who will be on your tour will vary. There are 10 Key Masters working in the Vatican, five of whom open up the museum in the morning and five who close it at night. Between them they are responsible for opening and locking 300 rooms every day the museums are open. They have a collection of almost 3,000 keys to manage.

Our tour was primarily with two of the Key Masters, including Gianni. Following introductions, we got to see and hold some of the massive key rings that we would be taking with us. Then, we were off.

Our group was just nine people, which meant we each got to open multiple doors. As we walked, the Key Master would hold up a key and choose a participant. We opened somewhere between 20 and 30 doors between us, so everyone had plenty of turns. There were also window shutters to open and lights to turn on in various areas.

We had the opportunity to ask our guide questions as we walked, and she pointed out various highlights along the way. We also had occasional pauses on the route for more in-depth explanations. Photography was permitted everywhere except in the Sistine Chapel.

We also got some special treats. In the Belvedere Courtyard we were allowed on the terrace of the Pinecone statue, which is normally off limits. We were also allowed behind one of the most famous ancient statues in the Octagonal Courtyard, Laocoön and His Sons, to see a unique angle that isn’t normally visible. Our guide took some time here to tell us about the history of the statue and its famous missing arm, which was only rediscovered in 1903.

Another highlight was the detour we took to climb the original 1505 Bramante Staircase. This area is not normally open to the public and is not always included on the tour depending on the timings and route. We were very appreciative of this experience, and got to see the sun rising over Rome from the top.

From here we continued on through iconic rooms. One of the top highlights of the tour was watching the lights come on in the Gallery of Maps, one of my favourite rooms in the whole museum. It went from silent darkness to brilliant light in a second, and you could hear our whole group gasp.

Then we entered the Raphael Rooms. Julia turned out to be a huge Raphael fan, and we had around 15 minutes here while she gave us a quick overview of the art in these rooms. When you visit with 25,000 other people, you don’t get to linger in peace here. We did.

Finally, our tour ended with us going down a somewhat nondescript corridor to a rather plain-looking set of wooden doors. One of our group was chosen to open the door itself, (after a short quiz to decide who got to open it, pay attention on the tour if you want this to be you!), and then we were inside a darkened Sistine Chapel.

We stood alone in the quiet darkness, before the Key Master flipped the light switches and Michelangelo’s masterpiece was revealed to us. No matter how many times you see this work, it still leaves you speechless. We had around 20 minutes here with our guide, who spent time going over the main highlights of what we were seeing.

And then, just like that, the Key Master part of the tour was over. We exited the Sistine Chapel and headed through the Vatican Museums, stopping briefly at a museum gift shop which opens early. We also said goodbye to our Key Masters at this point.

Our guide took us outside to the Pinecone Courtyard and gave us some info about the courtyard. Julia then left us around 8am to have our included breakfast at the courtyard restaurant. We had been inside the Vatican Museums for almost exactly two hours.

The breakfast was served family style to each table of the group. It included cold meats and cheeses, streaky bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs, and fried potatoes, as well as a selection of pastries and breads. There was also a pancake station where you could get freshly made pancakes, and a choice of coffee, tea, or juice.

The food was OK rather than spectacular, but it tries to cater to a mix of American and European tastes, and there was plenty of it. We were well fed by the time we were done. We were also glad it was included, as it was far too early for us to have eaten before the tour.

We spent about 45 minutes at breakfast, finishing around 8:45. The tables are only available for a set period, so you can’t linger too long. By this point quite a few other tour groups were starting to enter the museums, and it was already getting busy.

After breakfast, we had the option to continue exploring the museums. As part of the tour, you have full entrance to the Vatican Museums and can spend as long as you wish inside. Just be sure not to exit the Museums before you are finished, as you will need a new ticket to re-enter.

Having visited many times before, we decided to head to the gift shop so Jess could write and post a postcard to her grandmother from the Vatican post office. After that, we exited via the lovely modern double helix staircase designed by Giuseppe Momo.

The tour does not include a visit to St. Peter’s Basilica, which is located a short walk from the museums and is free to visit. The queues can get long, so I’d recommend getting in line as soon as you are finished with the museums if you want to visit. You will need to meet the dress code (shoulders and knees covered for both men and women) and can pay to climb the famous dome. See our guide to visiting the Vatican for full details on visiting St. Peter’s Basilica.

 

What Has Changed Since Our Visit

We took the Key Masters Tour several years ago, and a few things have changed that you should know about before booking.

The biggest change is the group size. When we did the tour, our group was nine people. We opened 20 to 30 doors between us, so everyone had plenty of turns. It was an incredibly intimate experience.

The Vatican now sometimes allows two groups in the museums simultaneously during the Key Masters experience, meaning there can be up to 40 people during your tour. Each group has its own guide and a maximum of 20 people, but you will cross paths with the other group at various points. Some recent reviews note that with more people, not everyone gets a turn to open a door.

This is a shame, and it’s a change that’s not always made clear on booking pages. To be fair, 40 people in a museum that normally holds 25,000 is still extraordinarily exclusive. The Sistine Chapel alone normally has over a thousand people in it at any given time. But it’s not quite the same experience as having the entire Vatican to yourself with a group of under 10, which is what we had. If group size matters to you, we’d recommend asking the operator directly how many groups will be in the Vatican on your specific tour date.

The price has also increased significantly. When we took the tour, it was around $500 per person. Take Walks has since shifted to dynamic pricing, so depending on the date you’re now looking at anywhere from roughly $674 to $1,355 per person for the group tour. Whichever end of that range you land on, it puts the tour into serious “once in a lifetime” territory for most travellers.

The tour also now requires that all participants provide their full name and a government-issued ID (passport) at booking, and this ID must be presented at entry. This is a relatively new requirement across all Vatican Museum visits, including this tour.

Finally, the Vatican periodically undertakes restoration work inside the Sistine Chapel. Most recently, Michelangelo’s Last Judgment was covered by scaffolding from February to March 2026 for conservation work. That work was completed at the end of March 2026, so the Last Judgment is back on full view, and the chapel itself stayed open throughout. It’s still worth checking whether any restoration is scheduled during your own visit dates, as the Vatican carries this work out periodically.

 

What’s Good About the Vatican Key Masters Tour

By far the best thing about this tour is experiencing the Vatican with almost no other people. Watching the lights come on in the Gallery of Maps, standing in the Sistine Chapel in near silence, and having time to actually look at what you’re seeing without being jostled by thousands of other visitors is a remarkable experience.

For context, I first visited the Vatican as a teenager when I was 15, way back in the 1990s. It was crowded back then. We’ve also been taking tours in the Vatican since 2015, including in the middle of the day when it’s extremely busy (and hot in the summer!).

Seeing locations like the Gallery of Maps with no-one else in sight was an experience we’d happily pay full price for. If you’ve visited the Vatican during normal hours and know how chaotic it gets, you’ll appreciate just how special this is.

It also feels quite amazing to actually open up the doors of the museum rooms, some of which are hundreds of years old. The Vatican Museums have been open for more than 500 years, and some of the doors and keys feel like they might be that old as you try to coax them open under the watchful gaze of the Key Master.

The Take Walks guide who accompanies you is a certified Vatican Museums expert. Our guide Julia was brilliant, and helped us understand and appreciate what we were seeing even in the relatively short amount of time we had in each room.

If you are visiting Rome in summer, you also get to beat the heat. Rome in summer can hit 40°C, and most parts of the Vatican Museum are not air-conditioned. Starting your visit at 6am means you experience the museum before it gets uncomfortable.

The included breakfast was also a nice touch, giving us a chance to refuel before carrying on with sightseeing. And following the tour, you are free to wander the museum at your leisure for as long as you like, so if this is your first time in the Vatican you can go back and explore areas you missed.

 

What’s Not So Good About the Vatican Key Masters Tour

The first thing to be aware of is the price. At well over $1,000 per person for the group tour at peak times, and far more for a private tour, this is one of the most expensive ways to see the Vatican. We think the experience is worth it if it’s within your budget, but it’s a premium experience and not for everyone.

The second thing, which is important to understand before booking, is that this is not a traditional tour. There is not a lot of time spent on individual artworks or rooms. The Key Masters have a job to do, and you have to keep pace with them. Your guide will point out highlights as you go, and there are pauses at key locations (we had around 15 minutes in the Raphael Rooms and 20 minutes in the Sistine Chapel), but the primary experience is the ceremony of opening up the Vatican, not a deep dive into the art.

If you’d prefer an empty Vatican with more focus on the art and less on the door-opening ceremony, consider the Alone in the Sistine Chapel Tour, also from Take Walks. We took a similar early-access tour with Take Walks back in 2015 and it was a more traditional guided experience with plenty of time at the highlights, just without the crowds.

As mentioned above, the move to potentially two groups (up to 40 people) does dilute the exclusivity somewhat. If the idea of sharing the Vatican with 39 other people rather than 8 or 9 bothers you, it’s worth knowing this is possible. We’d recommend checking directly with whichever operator you book through about how many groups will be in the Vatican during your specific tour date.

Finally, if you have never visited the Vatican Museums before, you might not fully appreciate how special this experience is. Jess and I have been lucky enough to visit the Vatican multiple times, including in the middle of the day when it is very busy. Seeing the Gallery of Maps empty felt incredible to us because we knew what it was like packed with thousands of people. If you’ve never visited before, you won’t have that contrast, and the magic of the empty rooms might just seem normal. Something to keep in mind.

 

Which Vatican VIP Tour Should You Book?

There are several ways to experience the Vatican with fewer crowds, and they’re not all the same. The first decision is which type of tour you want. The second, if you choose the Key Masters experience, is simply which operator has availability on your dates.

If the ceremony of opening the Vatican is what appeals to you, and you want to physically unlock the doors and turn on the lights, then the Key Masters Tour is the one to book. The experience is very similar regardless of operator because it’s the same Key Master and the same Vatican. The Vatican allocates specific dates to different operators, so check availability with both Take Walks and LivTours and book whichever matches your dates. Pricing depends on the operator and your travel date. Take Walks uses dynamic pricing, so expect anywhere from around $674 to $1,355 per person, while LivTours currently prices its semi-private version at a flat €699. If you want the Vatican entirely to yourself and budget is no object, LivTours offer a fully private version from around €9,449 for two people.

If you want an empty Vatican but care more about the art than the door-opening ceremony, the Alone in the Sistine Chapel Tour from Take Walks is a strong option. It runs either early in the morning (after the Key Master tour) or after closing in the evening, so you get the empty Vatican experience with a more traditional guided tour format. Pricing varies but it’s generally less expensive than the Key Masters Tour.

If you want fewer crowds but don’t need the Vatican entirely to yourself, the Pristine Sistine Tour from Take Walks is a great mid-range option. It includes early entry about an hour before general opening, a traditional guided tour of the highlights, and usually includes St. Peter’s Basilica. It’s a fraction of the Key Masters price and still gives you a much quieter experience than a standard visit.

And if you don’t need any of the VIP experiences, the Complete Vatican Tour is a solid guided tour at a much lower price point. We’d recommend taking some kind of guided tour when visiting the Vatican, as it’s an overwhelming place without one.

You can also book standard entry tickets directly on the official Vatican Museums website, with the option for an audioguide. If you don’t want a guided tour, we’d suggest at least booking an audioguide or downloading the free Rick Steves Vatican audio tour (free via his app or website) to help guide your visit.

However you choose to visit the Vatican, book in advance. This applies to guided tours and standard tickets alike.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

Is the Vatican Key Masters Tour worth it?

We think so, with caveats. The experience of walking through the Vatican with almost no-one else around and unlocking the doors yourself is unlike anything else you can do in Rome. Watching the lights come on in the Gallery of Maps and standing in a near-empty Sistine Chapel were once-in-a-lifetime moments for us.

The caveats are the price (dynamic, and well into four figures per person at peak times) and the fact that there may now be up to 40 people across two groups. If you’ve visited the Vatican during normal hours and know how crowded it gets, the contrast alone makes this tour worth considering. If it’s your first time in the Vatican, you might not appreciate the difference as much.

 

How much does the Vatican Key Masters Tour cost?

Pricing varies by operator, date, and demand, and Take Walks now uses dynamic pricing. For the Take Walks group tour we’ve seen prices range from around $674 for a low-season morning to $1,355 for a date in May. LivTours, the other operator reliably running the tour, prices its semi-private version at around €699 per person, and a fully private version (just your group) at around €9,449 for two people. Prices have climbed considerably over the past few years, so always check the latest figure directly with the operator before booking.

 

How long does the Vatican Key Masters Tour last?

The tour itself lasts around two hours, from 6am to about 8am. After the tour you have breakfast in the Pinecone Courtyard (about 45 minutes), and then you are free to explore the Vatican Museums on your own for as long as you like. We were done with breakfast by around 8:45am. Plan for a 4:30am wake-up if you want time to get ready and travel to the meeting point, which is at the main Vatican Museums entrance at 5:45am.

 

Can you take photos on the Vatican Key Masters Tour?

Photography is permitted throughout the tour except inside the Sistine Chapel, where it is strictly forbidden. This is the same rule that applies during normal visiting hours. The guards do enforce this, and we saw people removed from the Sistine Chapel for taking photos on a previous visit. The rest of the Vatican Museums, including the Raphael Rooms and Gallery of Maps, are fair game for photography (no flash).

 

Are children allowed on the Vatican Key Masters Tour?

Yes. The TakeWalks website allows you to book children (ages 2 to 14) at a slight discount, and infants under 2 are free. The tour involves about two hours of walking with no option to leave early, so your children will need to be able to keep up. The very early start (5:45am meeting time) is probably the biggest challenge for younger children. Strollers are not permitted in the Vatican Museums.

 

What’s the difference between the Key Masters Tour and the Pristine Sistine Tour?

The Key Masters Tour is about the ceremony of opening the Vatican. You accompany the Key Master and physically unlock the doors and turn on the lights. The focus is on the experience of being in an empty Vatican rather than spending extended time at individual artworks. It runs before the museum opens and includes breakfast.

The Pristine Sistine Tour is a more traditional guided tour with early entry, about an hour before general opening. Your guide spends more time at key artworks explaining what you’re seeing, and the tour usually includes St. Peter’s Basilica. You share the Vatican with fewer people than during normal hours, but you’re not the only group inside. It’s also significantly less expensive.

If you want the unique, once-in-a-lifetime ceremonial experience, choose the Key Masters Tour. If you want a great guided tour of the Vatican with fewer crowds and more time to learn about the art, the Pristine Sistine is the better option and much better value.

 

How do you book the Vatican Key Masters Tour?

You can book the TakeWalks version directly on their website here. The tour runs on a limited number of dates set by the Vatican and cannot be added on demand. Dates for 2026 tend to sell out well in advance, so book as soon as your Rome travel dates are confirmed. You will need to provide the full names and dates of birth for all participants at the time of booking, matching their government-issued ID exactly.

 

Is a Vatican VIP tour worth it?

For most people, yes. The Vatican Museums get extremely crowded, and any of the VIP or early-access tours that get you inside before or around opening time change the experience for the better. The real question is which one. The Key Masters Tour sits at the premium, ceremonial end of the scale, while early-morning options like the Pristine Sistine tour cost a fraction as much and still get you ahead of the worst crowds. A VIP or early-access tour is worth it if quiet time in the Sistine Chapel matters to you, and which one to pick comes down to budget. We break that down in the section on which Vatican VIP tour to book above.

 

What is the best early access Vatican tour?

For most visitors the Pristine Sistine is the better-value pick: it still beats the crowds, usually includes St. Peter’s Basilica, and costs a fraction of the Key Masters price. If unlocking the doors yourself is the draw, the Key Masters Tour is hard to beat, though it’s the most expensive option. For a more traditional guided tour that still beats the crowds, the Pristine Sistine early-entry tour is the better-value pick and usually includes St. Peter’s Basilica. If you simply want to be among the first inside, a standard early-entry ticket is the cheapest route of all. We weigh up the trade-offs in full in the section on which Vatican VIP tour to book above.

 

Can you see the Sistine Chapel without the crowds?

Yes, but only with an early-access or VIP tour. During normal opening hours the Sistine Chapel routinely holds well over a thousand people at once. Early-morning and before-hours tours get you in while it’s still quiet, and the Key Masters Tour goes furthest of all, putting you inside a near-empty chapel as the lights are switched on. Once general admission begins there’s no quiet window, so booking some form of early access is the only reliable way to experience the chapel in calm.

 

Further Reading

We’ve visited Rome many times and have put together a range of guides to help you plan your trip. Here are some we think you’ll find useful.

• Our detailed guide to visiting the Vatican covers everything you need to know for planning your visit, including tickets, tours, what to see, and practical tips.
• We have guides for spending 1 day in Rome, 2 days in Rome, and 3 days in Rome, as well as a guide to things to do in Rome in general.
• Our guide to visiting the Colosseum has everything you need to know to plan your visit to this remarkable attraction, including the latest ticket options and how to avoid the crowds.
• You can’t visit Rome without trying gelato. See all our favourite places to find the best gelato in Rome.
• We love coffee in Rome. See some of the best cafes to drink coffee in Rome.
• We’ve taken a number of walking tours in Rome. See our guide to our favourite walking tours of Rome, as well as our recommended food tours of Rome.
• We have a detailed guide to visiting the Borghese Gallery in Rome, one of our favourite art museums in the city.
• Beyond Rome, we have a guide to Florence, suggested things to do in Milan, tips for a day in Venice, and a guide to visiting Pompeii.
• We also have a detailed 10-day Italy itinerary to help you plan a trip across the country.
• If you’re visiting Rome in summer, read our tips for visiting a European city in summer.
• If you’re looking for a guidebook, we recommend the latest edition of Rick Steves Rome guide.

And that’s it for our review of the Vatican Key Masters Tour. If you have any questions or feedback, let us know in the comments below!

So you know: We were provided complimentary tickets for the VIP Vatican Key Masters Tour by City Experiences. Our opinions remain our own, and we always adhere to our code of ethics when creating content.