Colosseum, Palatine Hill & Roman Forum with Exclusive Arena Floor Guided Tour

Our booking was canceled the day before the visit without any notice and with zero explanation. Yet two days prior, we had been in touch with the manager, who initially asked if we could reschedule the visit for the following day. When I replied that we couldn't, she assured me she would get back to me and then never responded again. It's a real shame because everyone was disappointed, and it was impossible to go on the visit with so little time left to find an alternative. The least they could have done was let us know directly, give us an explanation, or even offer a replacement solution.

We had booked a tour in German, but the lady leading it spoke English that was partly hard to understand, which was made worse by the poor quality of the earpieces. The "underground" section in the Colosseum wasn't included at all, there was zero time to look at things, and the guide just kept walking ahead without waiting for the participants.

Favorite spot: the Forum, which lets you explore Rome's history, all thanks to our guide's wealth of knowledge. A fun fact: the origin of the expression "all roads lead to Rome" actually comes from the fact that all roads in the Roman Empire started from Rome. As for the Colosseum, we learned that the rituals and proceedings of bullfighting in the 21st century in France and Spain are direct descendants of the "shows" held in the Roman Empire at the Colosseum. All of this was thanks to our guide, whom I would like to thank.

It was not a bad experience but I would like to leave my feedback from a tourist perspective. When we visit sites like Colosseum we usually do it like once in a life time thing. So, it is very much expected that along with your guided tour we are also given enough time within the site to see and explore. What I fould with your guided tour and probably it must be same with others too, is that your guide didn't see Colosseum with from a tourist perspective. For him, it is a daily visit or even maybe multiple visits in a day. It is at his backyard. My tour was Colosseum, Palatine Hill and Roman forum. Likely he spend 45 mins at each site giving equal importance to all 3 sites, but like I said in the beginning, when a tourist comes, they come with once in a life time opportunity and so for them, please understand that knowing the history is good but getting enough time to see and absorb is equally important. We only went on 1 spot at arena floor and 1 spot at level 1. Didn't had time to even take one full circle of the Colosseum from inside or outside. Before we realize, we were out of the Colosseum. He kept saying that you can come again later, but the whole purpose of this guided tour was to skip the line and get entry. Totally disappointed with the tour. Palatine Hill and roman forum could have 15 mins each and Colosseum alone should have like 2 hours, but instead, rush rush rush and Colosseum done in 45 mins. That includes the lineup, security check and all that listening to the history. I am seeing more Colosseum in the Instagram reels than what guide showed us.

Monica is a fabulous guide, uproariously funny and yet extremely knowledgeable at the same time. She made the 3 hr long walking tour simply fly by. Her knowledge of the subject matter is exceptional and made for the most illuminating experience and made us feel like we were back in time and standing side by side with the gladiators! Couldn't recommend this highly enough

I bought two tickets for a guided tour of the Colosseum including the arena (underground) 5 months before the scheduled date, and I didn't get access to the arena because there were too many bookings... Access is very limited and tickets are oversold (by all the companies selling tickets...). I don't know how the Colosseum decides which excess tours to cancel, but I really believe that if they had canceled the last ones sold, I would have gotten my tour given my purchase date.... Otherwise, the guide and the tour were good for what I was able to see.

We had 3 tours in Rome during this visit, and this was the worst by far. The meeting point was unclear and although we were less than 7metres from them we could not find them. They rang me and the support team rang me and both were rude and unhelpful. The tour guide made the colosseum very boring. Most people left our tour early and the group made comments about how awful he was. The following day on another tour (the catacombs) we realised we had missed out on lots of information about the colosseum and forum. It was a huge disappointment.