Rome: Colosseum With Arena And Ancient Rome Tour

If I could give negative stars I would! First they changed our meeting point and start time from 9:00 to 9:45 and then they rushed us through the whole tour. When asked about the change they blamed the colosseum but this doesn’t explain the lack of forum tour. We had 20 minutes to see the roman forum and we skipped over almost all of it, taking the direct route to the colosseum. Our guide was excited because we did it with time to spare, why would I be excited to get screwed out of what I paid for, so rude! There was a very rushed feeling with little to no explanations. We would have gotten more from the experience just doing it alone, reading signs, then going with this tour company! What a scam, not as promised!! We will now have to pay to go back to the forum on our own. This is stressing out our schedule. When we got into the Colosseum our guide stopped to explain very little he just walked us out onto the floor, told us a quick story and cut us loose. All the other tours went to multiple floors and explained things. We booked this tour because it looked better than the rest, big mistake! Such a rip off for us. We only had one day and we lost it. Read the reviews carefully, this is not a one off because of a family emergency. It’s happening frequently. Had this been our first Viator tour, it would have been our last.

We had a great guide and the tour was very interesting. We learned a lot. We moved at a good pace and our guide was knowledgable. We would highly recommend.

Tour time was changed and order of sites to visit was also changed preventing us from going and getting back to our cruise ship on time. Viator has no system that allows full explanation or direct contact with them for refund request.

Marcus was a wonderful guide. Very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about his work. We learned a lot. I would highly recommend this tour.

On September 26, 2024, I purchased two tickets at $136.11 each from Tripadvisor for Guided Tours of three historical sites in Rome—The Colosseum, The Forum, and Palatine Hill (Ref # 1185313771, Conf # 1570223341), scheduled to be used October 2, 2024. The total duration of the three tours was to be approximately three hours. At the designated date, time and location we met a company representative who verified paperwork and distributed listening devices (and gave us all a 2” piece of blue tape as an “identifier” of our tour group). When our tour guide arrived, we noticed that neither she nor the representative was wearing the shirts that the ad/web site indicated their employees wore for helpful customer identification purposes. Additionally, the area around the Colosseum was packed with tourists, and all the other guides (except ours) were carrying poles with flags to help the tourists keep the guide in sight and the group united. Our guide led us to the Colosseum and got us through security checkpoints. Then she stopped before beginning the actual tour and told us that we were in front of the only restrooms available to us for the next three hours and advised us to use them if three hours was too long a wait. She pointed at them and said, “Men to the left”—“Women to the right.” She stood there while we got in line (so she knew members of the group were using the toilets). In both cases there were short queues to enter—2 or 3 men in line and 4 or 5 women. We both got in line and hurried through the process. I was out in a few minutes and returned to the spot where our group stopped, and there was no guide or group there or anywhere in site. I assumed my wife would not have left without me, so I waited a couple minutes for her return. The Colosseum was packed, and we had no indication of the direction the guide had gone—and obviously no visual clue, since unlike the other guides, she had no flag, and the radio devices are fairly short range. We tried walking and searching in a few directions. At one point, we picked up some faint audio, and we heard the guide react to what must have been a comment from someone in the group that not everyone was present. So, the guide called the names on her list, and there were a half-dozen of us no longer with the group, which she realized, but seemed indifferent to. We lost audio after that, and spent our time going to different locations conducting a futile search to pick up audio again. We have been on several guided tours on our travels. All the other guides were very diligent in recognizing their responsibility for keeping the group intact. Almost all use flags or umbrellas routinely and always in crowds. Additionally, they have always counted the people in the group before leaving a spot where the guide specifically initiated the stop—such as when she stopped at the restrooms and told us to use them. Our guide was only interested in moving quickly. We wandered around the Colosseum, but never got the tour (or any information or direction), which we paid for, and sadly were deprived of one of the two most important reasons for our visit from the United States to Rome. Since we paid for three guided tours and never received the first one, the other two were taken from us as well. We entered the Forum, but wandered aimlessly for a while, and we never got to Palatine Hill. We were never informed of your office’s physical location, so we returned to the original tour meeting place and were fortunate to find one of your employees handing out listening devices to a group getting ready to begin a tour (hopefully, with a competent, responsible guide). We told him what happened and returned our two listening devices to him. We have disputed the charges for this tour and expect a full refund.