Private Tour: Ancient Rome Half-Day Walking Tour with Arena entrance

Great tour of wonderful sights, but guide too verbose on mundane things and tour was far more strenuous than description suggested. Still would do it again if we had the chance, but would be better prepared,

We arrived in Rome but we're unable to find any way to get to the meeting point in Rome from the cruise port in time.

Our your guide, Sonya, was great! She was very knowledgeable and very interactive with our small group of couples. She did a great job at explaining the history and answering our questions. I definitely recommend this tour

You walk down to the Colosseo, and you're greeted by a myriad of organized tours holding up extended umbrellas and signs high up in the air. Not these guys, these guys had two 5'3'' girls lazily walking around with clipboards. How am I supposed to find that? To make matters worse, the reservation voucher said the meeting point was "Piazza dell' Arco di Constantino" which of course doesn't exist but we were still able to deduct that it was somewhere around the Arco di Constantino. Still couldn't find them. When i called the phone number the rep i spoke was rude but I managed to get something useful out of her and after speaking with the info staff on location I was able to find the meeting point. We walked around for 30 minutes looking for them and we had now gotten there about 5 minutes past the start time and the tour had already left. The girl with the clipboard OFFERED (and i emphasize offered) to help, but she made no effort to actually help, and about 15 minutes later she wandered off with another tour and did not return. She had no intention to actually do anything. There was about a 20 minute wait for the security line. She could have very easily had us meet with the tour while they were waiting there. The only person that actually made an effort was the gentleman i believe his name was Sergio, and he put us on the next tour leaving. Great we're getting in now! However it turns out that they miscounted the number of people and they did not get enough tickets, so we got bumped off of this tour as well. Finally, Sergio then put us on a different tour from a different company, which was great, except for the fact that it was just a tour of the Colosseo and nothing else. At the end of the day we paid to gain easy access to the Colosseo with arena access and to explore the Palatine Hill and Forum with a guide. What we got was an incredibly frustrating 2 hours of walking around the outside of the Colosseo, followed by a short tour of only the Colosseo with no arena access. Its worth noting that the guide for this tour was excellent. We ended up buying tickets to the Forum and Palatine separately and went on our own using Rick Steves Audio guide. My advice? Go to the Forum and buy combo tickets for both the Colosseo and Forum as there is hardly ever a line, bring headphones, download the Rick Steves Audio Europe app, and do your own walking tour. Don't just skip the line, skip this tour entirely.

Jan was incredibly informative, spoke excellent english and really seemed to enjoy giving the tour - despite the 98* weather and smoldering sun! The only thing we regretted was not staying for hte whole tour, we had just arrived in Rome that morning and between the heat and being tired from travel we just didn't have the energy to stay until the end.

I request a refund! I was at the meeting place well before the beginning of the tour, and I was assured by other tour guides who looked at my print out that indeed I was at the right spot too! Then I was told you all had left! Luckily a man helped me to catch up with a tour guide on the tail end and I had to pay euros instead of prepaying, but at least I I got to go, but it was not this same tout, it was much shorter! I paid through PagPal. Valerie Franco

Tour was in the rain sadly, but our guide still did a great job not only keeping us dry but keeping us interested. Great way to see all the attractions, and learn the history as well!

Very educational tour. We had a relatively small group, our guide as very knowledgeable. Also very considerate of the group with appropriate breaks. I would strongly recommend the tour!

Fantastic tour. Our guide was absolutely brilliant to be with He pointed out all the relevant sites and had great knowledge on everything he was showing/talking about.

Joseph was very knowledgeable, a lots of information packed in 3.5 hours. Don’t miss the best gelato at Trevi Fountain.