Rome: Colosseum Arena Access and Ancient Rome Guided Tour

Our guide Benjamin was enthusiastic and knowledgeable, really one of the best I have ever had. He gave insights and stories about each sight for three solid hours, really hard working - and it was accurate and pertinent to the tour (I am a bit of a history nerd). The tickets got improved access at both the Colosseum and some of the temples in the forum. It was a hot day but Benjamin moved us to whatever shade was available and generally showed he was experienced and professional.

Mircea was a fantastic guide! He's apparently a history teacher, so he really knew how to share the story and make it relatable to modern times. He made the experience fun & memorable. Staff had told us weeks before that our time had to be changed & that it wouldn't show in the app. We agreed to the change & thought we had done all we needed in order to get there on time. Well, multiple vacation days & time changes later, we were an hour off, but didn't realize it. Even though GYG (rightly) says it's the buyer's responsibility to be on time & that they won't wait for late-comers, they contacted us by email & phone when we didn't show up on time. While the tour did start without us, they moved slowly & the guy in the office (Brian?) rushed to get us to the group, saving the day.:) My only wishes are that the app would update when changes are made & that texts were automatically sent maybe a few hours before a tour starts as a customer courtesy. I would definitely use GYG again!

The tour was great! I can’t imagine trying to see some of these things without a guide explaining what you are looking at and without the proper context. It was unusually hot while we were in Rome and he made sure we had restroom stops and also plenty of water stops at the fountains to fill our bottles. He also tried to keep us in the shade as much as possible. There were only 11 in the group also so we were able to get around and into the sites a lot easier than some of the bigger groups. It is a lot of walking and Palatine Hill is a good bit of steps at the beginning. Once you get to the top of the hill the rest is pretty much downhill all the way to the Forum and Colosseum.