Rome - COLOSSEUM & VATICAN

Adam720

Hello

Off to Rome in the middle of March and wanted to pre-book tickets for both COLOSSEUM & VATICAN. What i'm unsure about is what type of ticket to get for each? Are the guided tours worth it?

Specifically on the Colosseum their are so many options on their on-line booking site I've got no idea which one to book? I'd prefer to go round on my own as I want to go at my own pace but not sure if I'll miss much.

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Any advice would be great!

daveyjp

Roma pass will get you in the Coloseum and Forum. You will avoid the queues and can take as long as you like.

Vatican gets 15-20,000 visitors a day.

DIY means a very long wait in line for tickets. Tour guide means a line skip, but you have to keep in your group, even so it takes about 3 hours to do barely any of the 7 miles of galleries and Sistine Chapel.

This excludes St Peter's which is included in the tour, but you do it yourself.

AlexMac

As an aside; the 1st time we went to the Colosseum, we paid for an audioguide machine and somehow found a much shorter Q at the booth for these.

But even better- the next time, we were 2 pensioners and two teens; and all 4 of us qualified for free or discount admission under Italy's generous concessions policy;
https://www.coopculture.it/en/colosseo-e-shop.cfm (eg under 18's free)
but you have to ask-other families were getting charged even for young kids!

JGB1955

We went last week. We had pre-booked tickets for both the Colosseum and Vatican. The line (even for our pre-booked tickets) took over an hour to get in. I've been there before but my daughter (first timer) felt it was fine. It was obvious that the tour guides were getting privileged entry but,,,,, do you really want to spend and hour walking behind someone who can barely speak your own language? Regarding the Vatican - definitely get pre booked tickets (all the others had sold out by 10:45 a.m.). You can always 'listen in' to the tour guides that you encounter. Again, a second trip for me, first for my daughter. She was as underwhlemed with the Vatican as I had been 10 years ago. If you go to the Museum at Night (which we did on our last visit) you might find you're not creeping along in a phalanx of tourists, with no escape.

martindow

A friend visited the Vatican very early in the morning with some sort of tour. This allowed them to go in an hour or two before the general entry and it was apparently very quiet. They went straight to the Sistine chapel and then could spend time in the galleries and out for breakfast. I suspect this isn't cheap but might be an idea if you can get up early on holiday!

dontone

martindow wrote: »

A friend visited the Vatican very early in the morning with some sort of tour. This allowed them to go in an hour or two before the general entry and it was apparently very quiet. They went straight to the Sistine chapel and then could spend time in the galleries and out for breakfast. I suspect this isn't cheap but might be an idea if you can get up early on holiday!

We did this last year.
We booked through Vatican Tours (found it on Trip Advisor) and what happened was that we had to go to a cafe across from the Vatican Entrance at 8.30am, and a lady came up to us, and took us past the queue, straight up to the entrance hall, and left us there to go through security. Saved us a lot of faffing about queuing, and it was very quiet. Perfect for mooching about for at least an hour before the hordes descended.

The Colosseum we booked through CoopCulture. You can print tickets off, but I missed the link for it and had to collect at the ticket office.
Be careful with this, as the T/O isn't easy to spot, and when asking when we got there, we were taken to one of these tour guides who was trying to get 20 euros each to take us round the place, and tried to make out that it was him we went through to get our tickets. Luckily, he was stood in a place where we noticed the T/O, so we left him to it. It seems to be full of them, and lucky lucky men.
Be aware that if your time says 10am, they mean 10am. (try and get there as early as possible though) No getting in 2-3 minutes early. They are strict. And it does take a while to get through security. Wear decent shoes too. The paths are uneven.
HTH.