Rome: Colosseum Arena, Roman Forum & Palatine Hill Tour

Angelo was one of the best tour guides I've ever had. Incredibly knowledgeable, friendly, helpful, and kept the group moving at a good pace. You can tell he's passionate about what he's showing you. The tour itself is incredible, jumping back centuries or Millenia in time. Huge plus to skip the lines!

It was very informative but probably spent too long on colosseum and didn’t get any time or stories about Roman forum and not long at Palatine Hill

Amazing tour, unbelievable views. Maria was great! Would recommend if wanting to do the full colosseum tour.

I enjoyed the tour mostly only because it's ROME!! The guide(male, thinks he's a comedian) would walk way ahead quickly and never waited for the group of close to 20+ to catch up. Quite often the earned radio would be static because he was too far away from the tail of the group. Not once did he do a head count and I often felt panic when I lost sight of him. He stated he refuses to have a flag and if he was a taller man he wouldn't need one!! Luckily sites were great but I would have had a different guide.

My ticket was cancelled for a Friday due to issues at the Colosseum. Viator rebooked me for Sunday after I connected with them via online chat. They then called me repeatedly via WhatsApp afterwards to ask if I would switch to Monday. I agreed. At this point, I had been awake for 24+ hours traveling to get to Rome. I knew I wasn't in my best thinking mind so I got back on the chat service and asked them to update my voucher with the correct time and date of the tour. They said "no problem" and sent me an updated ticket. I checked to make sure it had the right date (Monday) and it did. I had no reason to believe the time was not also updated appropriately. Fast forward to Monday when I show up at the listed date and time and they tell me that my tour was at 9am even though my ticket, the email I received, the reminders that I got all stated at that the tour was at 10:30am. I also have an email from them that states "ignore the previous voucher and use this information instead". They refused me entry to the Colosseum and I was unable to rebook because I was flying out that afternoon. I called Viator to figure out a refund and they said they would "look into it." I dont know what there is to look into when all of my booking materials (apps, emails, vouchers) stated the incorrect time. However they assured me they would get back to me in a few days. Well they did but only to tell me they would not be issuing a refund to me. I sent them more documentation showing that THEY SENT ME THE WRONG INFO and they denied it again. This tour cost me $133 and I did not even get to go on it. This is a negligible amount for Viator and yet they won't refund it to me DESPITE THEM MAKING THE ERROR. I have never been more disappointed with a commercial company in my adult life. I didn't get to see the Colosseum (one of things I was looking forward to the most) and I have to pay for a service I didn't get to use BECAUSE THEY MESSED UP MY MATERIALS. I will never use this company again and I will urge everyone I know to not use them as well. This is absolutely abhorrent customer service. Don't trust the documents they issue to you!

We loved this tour in spite of the torrential rain and thunder and lightning storm. Stefano gave us an extremely interesting and informative tour. The Colluseum is an astounding UNESCO site. A breathtaking achievement using methods still used today.

It is a must seen impressive history sight that tourists might not miss . The tour company which provided us this visit acted poor ! They didn’t let us know we needed passport or ID . Although tried to find a backup plan to prevent possible cancellation at security sight, it was stressful before starting our journey. You need to have appropriate ID cause the security is hught to get in there …

The tour of Ancient Rome was excellent. The Colosseum is magnificent and even more than I expected in person. Our guide, Marco, was a very good narrator, extremely knowledgeable and answered all questions very well. This is a must do tour. The only advice to the new comers is that you need to be in reasonable physical condition. There are many steps and several hills. If you can take it.... the tour is well worth the effort.

The abilituy to see so much was great, however, the guide had such a heavy accent and such that he was difficult to understand. Seeing these sites was amazing but it lost a lot with the difficulty to understand the guide quickly and easily.

Pretty good tour. Guide was kind and knowledgeable. Nature of this experience means you speed run it a little bit, so if you really like history or want to linger you might be better simply buying a ticket and touring on your own

Our guide Andrea was excellent ! He was very knowledgeable and friendly . It was a great experience!

Great tour - guide was very knowledgeable. The party was quite large but the audio guide meant you didn't miss anything. It was conducted at a good pace.

Nice tour. The guide was very informative. It was hot, so we took plenty of water, sun visors and hand-fans that helped with the heat.

Great tour! Very knowledgeable, friendly guide. Covered a lot of ground in 3 hours. Be ready to walk! but worth it!

Choose only if you are ardant fan of architecture. Else without ticket view is enough. The view from outside is marvelous

It was only a 2 hour tour not a 3 hour. The lady we didn’t speak good English. All around it was nice seeing things never seen before but not worth the money.

We had such an enjoyable experience with Irene A. and learned so much history that would have been missed if we were not on a tour. Such a great time

This was a good tour and our guide Esther was pretty good, sharing lots of history and showing us pictures to help us see what sights would have looked like. I booked after having trouble securing tickets directly for the Colosseum. It was a hot day and the Colosseum was super crowded so it was hard to keep track of the group or take time to soak it in - this is not the tour’s fault it just goes with the popularity of the Colosseum. We decided to leave the group after entering the forum because one of our group has knee troubles and wasn’t going to be able to make it up Palantine Hill, the tour guide was very kind about it and we were able to continue at our own pace which worked out well.

Fantastic tour guide! Very knowledgeable and great with the kids. A highlight of our Rome vacation!!

The tour was great despite the fact that coloseum was crowded. Glad that arrived early at the meeting point as it was a bit difficult to find it.

All in all, a very positive experience. Our tour guide Stefano was very knowledgeable and helpful and the hearing devices were very helpful. The tour was the right length. Don’t forget to bring id or passport to enter the Forum, Colosseum, etc.

Lots of walking, friendly and knowledgeable guide, hit all the big sites. We went off season and practically had the places to ourselves

The tour is very ambitious in the sense that it turns out that there is a lot to cover. There is practically constant moving around and a ton of information to digest. The guide was friendly but a bit stressed to keep correct timing and his stress was eventually transferred to us. With all due respect, I think that his accent was very hard to follow. This is by no means a criticism to his knowledge and other skills but as a non Italian speaker I expect that certain language skills are to be taken for granted when selecting a guide for an English speaking tour. The tour is not recommended for people who are not at a great physical condition. And a final note for the Colosseum as a sight: it is clearly breathtaking but also overcrowded. The Forum and the Palatine hill on the other hand were significantly less stressful.

When the guide leaves you at the end of the tour, be sure to take time to go further up to the top of the Palatine and explore the whole archaeological site - there's so much more to see!

It was a nice tour, although it was bit of soaring hot due to climate. The tour guide was excellent.

Great tour. Highly recommend. Didn’t have to wait in lines. Our guide provided lots of interesting information.

Patricia, our guide, was informative, organized, and patient. Glad we didn’t choose to view these sites without a tour.

The site itself was amazing to see. This critique is more for our tour guide (I think his name was Paolo?). He was very informative, however, his accent could be a little hard to understand at times and he wasn’t very personable or friendly. The tour was scheduled for 3 hours and went over for approx 45 mins and he maybe only cracked one joke the entire tour. I’m grateful to have learned a bit of history about the Colosseum and Forum, but if you are going to hold up the group for almost an extra hour, it would be more enjoyable to have a guide who is engaging. I think others from my tour group would agree; a few from the group left early either because of boredom or because they had other engagements and this one went over time. Maybe our guide was having a bad day, but I genuinely hope he makes adjustments for future group tours.

Very informative tour but also very long (lasted more than an hour past expected end time). Guide was extremely knowledgeable but a little difficult to understand. Overall, a good tour.

Amazing even in spite of the crowds… very well organized. Good communication and customer service. Would definitely recommend!

Expect a lot of walking that will include steep grades, multiple surfaces and wuite a few steep stairs. Be prepared for a day of exercise but it will be worth it. You will see one of the most beautiful views in the city from Palentine Hill, will learn so much history and you'll be amazed when standing on the floor of the Coliseum. Be sure to have you ID and make sure you book your tickets with your legal name on your documents. You will have to show this numerous times throughout the tour and you will be denied entry if they don't match. Also, bring a watery bottle which you can refill along the way.

Nancy was a great tour guide! She was Very knowledgeable and friendly. Definitely add on the Forum and Palatine hill part of the tour.

This was an amazing tour. The sites are stunning. Ian, our guide, was very informative. His dry sense of humor was very entertaining. I would highly recommend this tour for an in-depth look at the incredible history before your eyes.

A lot of walking up and down stairs. Pavement was uneven. The guide’s accent was so thick that it was difficult to understand. To his credit he possessed a great knowledge of the site.

I would recommend this company and tour 100%! One of the only ones that honored the exact time on our skip the line tickets! The crowds are unreal so I can’t imagine having tried going through the Colosseum on our own. The guide was extremely knowledgeable, which actually made the first part in the Colosseum longer than I would have liked. Our schedule did not allow us to continue on the forum or Palentine Hill, but I think it would have been amazing as well.

Didn’t get the experience so can’t comment. Turned up at the meeting point and got given tickets. The tour guide said to check that the names matched your ID. If not, entry to the sites would be denied. Of course, one of the names on the ticket was wrong. The tour operator immediately denied responsibility, claimed it was all our fault and that there was nothing they could do. They couldn’t change the name on the ticket nor would they give a refund. Under pressure, they eventually contacted Viator who were completely useless and denied any responsibility, said they couldn’t do anything and also refused a refund. They also claimed it was entirely our fault - without any proof. In fact, Viator entered the wrong surname but refused to accept any responsibility. This has obviously happened many times before - that’s why they told us to check. Why don’t they send us the tickets by email a few days ahead so we can check the names instead of waiting until we get there? Avoid these guys at all costs. They are just scammers.

I hate to write a negative review but we were highly disappointed with our tour today. We were a group of 7 (one pregnant) and a toddler. To be fair, our toddler was over exhausted and emotional. To start, our tour guide was visibility annoyed with our toddler. We opted for an English tour guide but we had trouble understanding him as there seemed to be a language barrier. The forum tour felt extremely rushed- I asked the guide a question and he responded that he already discussed that and seemed mad that I asked. We can’t speak to the colosseum tour as we lost the group for that portion of the tour. 2 of our group had stayed back with the toddler to avoid stairs and were told we could meet the group at the arch of Titus to enter the colosseum. We missed the group at the arch but know they were close as we could hear them on the radio. Thankfully, after begging security at the entrance and explaining our situation we were allowed into the colosseum to walk at our own pace. We ended up running into our tour group at the end of their tour- the guide seemed extremely relieved to have his radios back. Maybe we had high expectations because we had an INCREDIBLE tour guide from a different company yesterday who was extremely kind and accommodating to our toddler and situation… It was incredibly disappointing to hear sound bites from other tour guides in the forum and colosseum and wish we were on their tour. We would have gotten more value out of just getting tickets and reading the signs at our own pace.

This was the only tour/excursion I booked through Viator that wasn’t with City Wonders and it was a night and day difference between the two companies. I do highly recommend seeing these sights with a tour guide, especially the Colosseum to bypass the lines. But unfortunately this tour and the guide were not well organized. The extra materials used to offer visuals to explain the history were unorganized and disheveled looking, it was unprofessional for the cost of the tour. The most disappointing part was that I chose the English speaking tour and was not able to understand about 75% of what the guide was saying, so I left the 3 hour tour feeling like I hadn’t learned anything. I understand that the guides are multilingual and English is not their primary language, however, after having 3 other tours where the guides were non-native English speakers, I do think it falls on the tour company to ensure their guides are properly trained and able to offer a tour in that language.

5 star rating applies to the historical sites which I had read about all my life. It was very hard to understand the guide in many instances which was probably not his fault as the audio on the receiver was terrible. The Coliseum portion was very good, walking past the Arch of Constantine and Titus was top notch as well. However standing at the top of the stairs leading to both the Forum and Palatine Hill listening to the guide drone on and on without actually getting into both sites was not good. I understand that our ticket allowed us to skip the line for both but then expecting us to navigate the sites on our own was not good….all that talking could have been done with the guide moving thru both sites and then allowing us to tour on our own after. It would have made for a better experience

Very detailed orientated which I personally found a little too much. It extended the experience too long for me

Couldn’t understand our tour guide unfortunately. Heavy accent. Lots missed in communication. Others not properly prepare delayed our tour by 30 min.

Tour guide’s English was hard to follow. We ended up leaving after the colosseum and doing our own tour of the Roman forum and palatine hill. We paid extra for arena entrance and to be honest it was underwhelming. I’d done the regular tour a few years before and it wasn’t worth the extra money.

A very hot day, 10am start was probably a peak time and there were crowds. But our guide was very good at getting us around and explaining the various parts of the Colesseum with interesting stories. We had audio packs and ear piece so it was easy to hear him, even if separated by crowds. He stayed with us up Palentine Hill and through Roman Forum, with good commentary and great opportunities for views and photos. Note: it is hot and there is a lot of walking, including uphill, so some level of fitness required. Take water, a hat or sun umbrella if forecast is for sunny weather. Bonus, there are taps with fresh water at different points to fill water bottle. Overall, a must see if in Rome and tour was great

very incorrect. We had paid for access to the Arena, they canceled the reservation less than 24 hours. The actual ticket for entry to the Colosseum is 18 euros. We were with children aged 5 and 9 for whom the entrance is free. In total for 4 people we paid 136 euros. they only refunded us 20 euros. Robbers.!!!!

George was a fantastic guide, very knowledgeable and humorous. The tour itself was long, the Colosseum part could have been shorter, it was too hot to be standing on the arena floor for so long

What specifically that IS included in the order. It was not clear to us if we had a guide or and that we had to download a app so we did not bring headset. And with the price we paid, we assumed that we had a guide. There was very little information on meeting point, and no signs with the Viator name. It would have been easier if we got all information on mail, both the tickets and link to app. The pop guide was good.

Amir was the absolute most talented guide we have ever had. Thank you for an amazing day and it was so educational

Our guide was informative and entertaining. Providing an insight into what live in ancient Rome would have been like.

This is a very nice tour. Our guide spoke English well, but fast. I would suggest that one should go in the morning, we went on a 8:45 tour and by the time we finished it was very hot. Bring water bottles as you can refill them at water fountains along the way.