Colosseum Arena Floor Roman Forum and Palatine Hill Tour

The local tour operators like 'Show me Italy' buy up all of the official tickets then slap additional fees on top of them, meaning you have no choice to but to buy from them at the higher price. The tour operator adds absolutely no extra value, other than wasting your time by saying we have to meet them down the road, line up up for for ages until we could speak to them, only to then say we have to go line up at the Colosseum and we're on our own, which made us late to getting in. Take note that if you do not have an in-person Guided tour, then just go straight to the Colosseum, don't waste your time meeting them first as its pointless. Anyway, we got to see the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and the Roman forum which is what we came for and it was all very interesting, so we can tick that off the bucket list now.

Great self guided tour, amazing landmark to visit. Very hot in this weather but fascinating to learn about the history.

Barbara was amazing! Thanks a lot to her for very informative and entertaining tour!

Getting the tickets, meeting our group and just the whole booking experience was great. Super easy and efficient. Our guide, Maria was exceptional. She was knowledgable, funny, engaging and made the entire walk through the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill come to life. Later that evening, our family sat at dinner and quizzed ourselves on all of the facts we learned that morning. Maria is a gift of a guide and we even took her suggestion for a gelateria called Palma which has 150 flavors (take that Baskin Robbins!). The tour stated that we would have a guided tour of the Colosseum's Arena Floor which never happened. Once we got to the gates of the Colosseum, we were left on our own to explore. The floor area was closed to the public that day and it was a raging 100 degrees. We only stayed there for 30 minutes and left to get lunch. If we were able to get down onto the floor, we thought it might be cooler. We will never know. However, we got some fun photos and it was a orning to remember. Overall a very fun and enlightening experience. However, without Maria - it would have just been another ancient site. With her, we now appreciate the history, understand the depth of what we experienced and have a lot more respect for the ancient civilizations of the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire and the genius engineers who built it.

A tour is a must if you plan to fully experience these sights without the stress of navigating the lines. The guides are all very knowledgable and we booked the 12 people English only one, which was perfect. Having a smaller group made it easier to find areas in the shade to sit and stay together while our guide gave us the history and stories behind what we were seeing. Mario was our guide and he was very experienced, funny, accommodating, and offered to take our photos throughout the tour.

Just note, they will send you tickets a day before which is nice so we don’t need to meet up. However the audio guide hardly worked and was glitched all the time there. We gave up. The time on the ticket for us was 2:15 min after the time we booked. The operator said we needed to go to the other sites first.. which we didn’t want to do. We were pretty organized and really needed the early arrival time. They were not flexible so it put a damper on the whole thing

Our tour guide was obviously very knowledgeable about the places we toured, but we felt disconnected for most of the tour. He was hard to understand in the mic, and he talked at us instead of with us. A few days before the tour I received a message that the venue changed rules for guides in the Colosseum and we would be going in alone. Once in the Colosseum we saw numerous guides with groups, so not sure what happened. With a guide, I feel like we would have gotten more out of the tour. Going in the Colosseum we had a hard time figuring out where to go and what to see. In addition, I received no responses back from this company when using the messaging Viator uses in its bookings. The meeting spot was hard to find. There was construction and a single with an arrow pointing up a hill, but from the road it looked like it was a closed street. We walked past it, and almost missed our tour. The guy in the red shirt should have been standing down by the sign on the sidewalk so people knew where to go. We were told we would get a 20% refund for the inconvenience, but I haven’t received it yet. It’s a lot of money for 2 people to tour and not have a good experience.

Our first Colloseum tour booked through Viator was cancelled, which put us in a panic but we trusted the customer service representative helping us to find a new comparable option. The day of the tour we had to walk a decent distance away from the Colloseum entrance to find the tour “guide” who was not easily identifiable among all the other groups. The “guide” only gave us the tickets electronically as well as a link to the audio (no headphones). We did not realize our tickets would need to be scanned multiple times throughout the tour and they would not load again after the Colloseum for the Roman Floor and Palatibe Hill (after waiting a significant time in the heat). The “guide” would not respond to my messages so we were unable to finish 2/3 of our tour we paid for. Also, Viator’s reply to my complaint and refund request was clearly automated (received the same response twice) stating that after “thorough” review the operator would not honor the refund request. We will never use Viator again.

My name was misspelled on my ticket, and they refused to reissue it or provide a refund because of their time-based ticket policy. I asked them to resend the ticket with the correct name, but Viator outsources ticketing to a third party, which made the process even more frustrating. In the end, I had to purchase a separate general admission ticket just to get in. Customer support was unfriendly and unhelpful. They didn’t answer my calls until my fifth attempt, and no one responded through the app’s chat feature. As a result, I had to wait in line a second time. Overall, it was a very disappointing customer service experience.

Booked this audio tour with Show me Italy. Turns out you have to clearly indicate what time you want to visit Colosseum. We had booked 10.45 am but could not go there until 1 pm. They referred to tripadvisor for this planning, is not with Show me Italy. Audiotour in Forum is worthless: very unclear, you have no idea what ‘song’ you are standing at and you had to download again and then start again at the front with “we introduce ourselves ..”. Really crap!