The ticket and audio guide reviewed: 3.8, the lowest score in this catalogue, and the audio guide is a guide to Padua
The score is the lowest here, and the written reviews do not explain it
3.8 against 4.7 for the guided visit is a gap of 0.9, and 3.8 is the bottom of the thirteen. Then you open the reviews and find six five stars and four fours, averaging 4.6 between them, which is most of a point clear of the listing they are attached to. Whatever the rest of the 165 were unhappy about, they did not write it down.
That is worth saying plainly on a page whose job is to be useful. The reviews below are neither a defence of the score nor a refutation of it. They are the small, self-selected end of a sample of 165, and what they do tell you is what the people who bothered to write were thinking about.
Christina expected a description of the frescoes. The listing agrees with her.
“The chapel was great! I expected the audio guide to include a description of the frescoes, which it didn't.”
This is not a misunderstanding on her part and it is not a complaint anybody could wave away. The listing calls the product a “Digital audio guide for Padua city”, and the seven tracks on its own page are a city tour: the university, Piazza delle Erbe, the chapel among them. It is a guide to Padua with a chapel track in it rather than a commentary on Giotto’s walls. Christina bought the second thing and received the first, and both halves of that sentence come off the listing rather than out of my opinion.
Read it the other way too, because it is the same fact and the opposite verdict. Christine — a different reviewer on the same listing, one letter apart, which is the sort of thing that makes attributing quotes carefully worth the trouble — liked exactly that breadth: “The audio guide sent in advance and the tickets provided by the organizer are very well done and don't just cover the chapel but encompass all of Padua's iconic monuments.” If you want Padua, this is a reasonable way to get it. If you want the frescoes explained while you are standing under them, it is not, and no amount of money makes it so. What is on those walls, in the order you will meet it, is on the frescoes.
Martina’s booking did not reach the ticket office
“Unfortunately, for the first time, the booking with Get Your Guide didn't work out. My name was not registered at the Scrovegni Chapel ticket office. The barcode on the ticket was not valid at all.”
She still gave five stars, which tells you a great deal about the frescoes and nothing whatever about the booking. Hers is the only review in the entire written record of this site that describes a reservation failing at the door, and it sits on the one listing whose whole product is that somebody else made the reservation for you. The operator does not sell for the same day, so there is no counter to fall back on when a barcode fails at nine in the morning. What to do about that, including the operator’s own contact centre and its hours, is on booking.
Reviewers describe a film. The operator’s pages do not.
Five of the ten written reviews here mention watching something before going in. Christine calls it a film, Vittorio and Marzio call it a video, and two more describe it in passing. I have not found it on any of the operator’s visitor pages, so on this site it belongs to the reviewers and not to the operator. I am not going to give it a length either: the accounts do not agree with one another and none of them is the operator.
What the operator does publish is the shape of the visit. Be at the air-conditioned waiting room five minutes before the time printed on your ticket. A maximum of twenty-five people are admitted per visit. The doors open once on entrance and once on exit, to stabilise the interior microclimate. Visits last about fifteen minutes. This listing states a duration of thirty minutes, and the difference between the two numbers is the waiting room and, by reviewers’ account, whatever is shown in it (how long the visit lasts).
Two people could not find the way in
“A bit difficult finding the entrance, however, when you are greeted and sent to the chapel, very organized with exact timing of arrival, very important.”
“Good, but the meeting point directly in front of the chapel, and not at the square, could be described more clearly.”
Andrea dropped a star for it. Peter did not. Both are describing Piazza Eremitani, which is a large square with one door that matters, and both are describing it on a product where nobody meets you. If you are buying the ticket rather than a guide, read getting there the night before.
What the extra money buys, and where that comparison lives
It is a fair question with a precise answer, and the answer is not on this page. The operator sells this chapel itself, at its own published price, and the arithmetic between that counter and this listing is set out in full — as a table, with the unit in every cell — on tickets. One reviewer here has strong views about it and he is quoted there, in his own words, beside the figures. Keeping it on one page is a decision about where a ticket-shopper lands, not a decision to bury it.
What I will say here is what you get for whatever that difference turns out to be: a booking somebody else made, sent to you the day before, and an audio guide the listing itself describes as being for Padua city. The first is a real service on a chapel that will not sell you anything on the day. The second is not a commentary on the frescoes, and Christina is the proof.
What works
- The only listing here that gets you into the chapel without paying for somebody to talk, which is a real option and available nowhere else on this site
- Somebody else makes the reservation on a chapel that never sells for the same day, and the tickets arrive the day before
- The same admission covers the Eremitani Museum and Palazzo Zuckermann every day except Mondays, and two reviewers say the museum is worth the time
- Ten written reviews and none of them below four stars
- The audio guide covers the city as well as the chapel, which one reviewer counts as a bonus rather than a fault
Worth knowing
- 3.8 is the lowest score of the thirteen listings on this site, and the written reviews do not account for it
- The audio guide is described on the listing as being for Padua city, and a reviewer who expected the frescoes explained did not get that
- One reviewer’s booking was not registered at the ticket office and her barcode did not work
- Two reviewers had trouble finding the entrance, and nobody meets you
- The listed duration is thirty minutes; the operator says the visit inside lasts about fifteen
Who should buy this one
Somebody who has read about the frescoes already, wants the room rather than the commentary, and would like the reservation handled. Somebody who wants Padua in their ear for the rest of the day, which is what this audio guide actually is. If instead you want the walls explained while you are under them, every guided listing here does that and the guided visit has the deepest record behind it. If what you want is the cheapest way in, that conversation belongs on tickets, where the operator’s own tariff is printed in full.
Most-reviewedGuided Tour of Giotto's Scrovegni Chapel
Capped at tenPadua: Small-group walking tour with the Scrovegni Chapel
After darkPadua: Evening Tour with Admission to the Scrovegni Chapel
Frequently asked questions
Why is the Scrovegni Chapel ticket and audio guide rated only 3.8?
3.8 is the lowest of the thirteen listings on this site, 0.9 below the guided visit's 4.7. The written reviews do not explain it: all ten are four or five stars and they average 4.6 between them. Whatever produced the score was left as a rating without words. What the written reviews do explain is the audio guide, the entrance, and one booking that was not registered at the ticket office.
Does the audio guide describe the frescoes?
The listing calls it a “Digital audio guide for Padua city” and describes seven tracks covering the university, Piazza delle Erbe and the chapel. A reviewer, Christina, wrote: “The chapel was great! I expected the audio guide to include a description of the frescoes, which it didn't.” Her expectation and the listing's own wording point the same way. If you want the walls explained on the spot, that is what the guided listings are for.
Is the Scrovegni Chapel ticket cheaper direct from the operator?
The operator sells this chapel itself and publishes its own tariff. Comparing that with what a resold listing costs is kept on one page of this site rather than scattered through it: see tickets, where the figures appear as a table with the unit in every cell, alongside a reviewer's own view of the difference.
What happens if the booking is not registered at the chapel?
One reviewer here describes exactly that: her name was not registered at the ticket office and the barcode on her ticket was not valid at all. Because the operator states that same-day reservations cannot be made, there is no counter to fall back on. Carry the confirmation and the operator's own contact details; the booking page has the contact centre's hours and what “sold out” actually means at this address.