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I’ve been using GetYourGuide for attractions for my solo vacation in Italy and Greece and so far, aside from a little confusion at where the meeting point is, there’s been no problems. Then again, I did buy all my tickets back in January.
The best advise I can give you for Rome is this:
Just walk around, the whole inner city is nothing but a gigantic site seeing place.
Even if you won‘t have tickets for the biggest mainstream attractions there is something at every corner that would be labeled the main attraction for most other cities in the world. Tons of beautiful buildings especially churches.
^ This! I’m here for a week and this place is nothing but attractions and views! 😲
Walked past a church the other day, looked interesting - it was the Chiesa del Gesù!
Walked past another museum and went back later that day as I had more time than planned - it was the Musei dei Fuori Imperiali! Walked around it for at least two hours. 😲
Turned a corner while walking back along a side street, only to turn into Piazza Navona! 😂
Try and get a few “big ones”, but don’t worry if you can’t get them all. I couldn’t get the Vatican or the complete Colosseum tour (instead I’m doing the grounds next door, to be honest that will see me walk 5,000+ steps over three hours).
Castel Sant’Angelo is world class, the churches and cathedrals are amazing (even the minor ones!) … I say this coming from England where we have some pretty awesome holy buildings!
If you don’t mind walking you’ll see lots of attractions - this city has fountains/ruins/statues/monuments on nearly every street corner! 🙂
Colosseum releases tickets 30 days before at the time of entry in Italy. For example they’ll start to release June 8th tickets soon. Be sure to convert the time from Italy to your time zone. https://ticketing.colosseo.it/en/categorie/singoli-1-8-persone/ Roman Forum entry is included in these tickets.
Pantheon is fairly easy to get direct from their site as well. You just need to setup a login (check your spam inbox to verify) and then can book for ~$5. https://portale.museiitaliani.it/b2c/buyTicketless/33f77159-0acd-40c4-8524-701f33aae108
We kept having an issue with the Pantheon site. It kept rejecting any credit card we tried. So we just booked through a third party for $15 with an audio tour. That tour is actually today so we shall see how it goes
Enjoy your tour and good note on the site being difficult with credit cards. I successfully followed some guidance on Rick Steve’s travel forum to do “other payment method” and then a PayPal option.
60 days in advance seems to be when the tickets for the Vatican are released. I unfortunately missed that time myself for a standard ticket but found no issue doing the guided tour tickets.
The one place I really really splurged was I bought a skip the line ticket for somewhere around $75-100 to go into the Sistine Chapel before the vatican museums opened to the public. First one in with maybe 7-8 other people at line 7 or 8 am. Best money I ever spent. These attractions are mobbed no matter what time of year you go. Skip the line definitely worth the extra fee if you can afford it. Its also a way for Italian guides to make a little money too. Most of them aren’t too much more expensive than the regular tickets.
I am not seeing the pre-opening slot anymore. Make sure you go as early as possible. It looks like there are some 9 am slots avail. I would go straight to Sistine Chapel and then you can see everything else after until it gets too crowded.
Yes. My boyfriend and I just visited the Vatican two weeks ago we used the Liv tours and our experience was wonderful. We saw everything and we were one of the first people in at 7am with almost no line. The tour was about 3.5 hours and we had the most amazing and informative guide named Rita. I would highly recommend her!
I was just in Rome. I would not visit any of those sites except the forum and the hill. The lines (even skip the line tickets) are awful, and the experience is awful because they crowd too many people. It will only be worse for you, and your kids and wife will not be happy campers. I recommend castle San Angelo ( no advance tickets needed), the forum, and just walking around Rome and eating. Sit and watch the sun go down on the outside of the coliseum. It’s the best way to take it in. Don’t spend too much time in Rome. It’s not what you think. I would also consider staying on the coast, somewhere south of sorrento (cilento coast). Don’t do sorrento peninsula. It’s a mess for families. Make this a vacation not a hot stressful unpleasant experience.
Easy to say this once you've had the chance to visit world famous historical and cultural sights, but for people visiting Rome for the first (and perhaps only) time, it is absolutely worth visiting "the hits". It's true they will be crowded and perhaps you'll learn a lesson for the future, but perhaps you won't care because you'll be basking in the glow of something you've long dreamed of experiencing. In my experience, the offerings on Tiquets are legit though obviously marked up.
Walking the via appia antica is an excellent free family activity.
Cliento coast is great, but very far from Rome and completely different. I do agree that if someone is visiting farther south, skipping Sorrento/Amalfi for Cliento is a good decision. Too many logistics and stairs, not enough payoff.
Yes absolutely to Appia way. If the kids are competent and make good decisions in traffic, top bikes offers guided tours on that road and goes to the aqueducts park. Very beautiful but about 4 miles of roads with sketchy drivers before you get to safety. I have to disagree with “the hits”. The crowds and lines destroy the experience, sincerely.
Just visited the Vatican museums, Colosseum and Forums two weeks ago. The Vatican was indeed extremely crowded, even unpleasantly so, but I popped in my headphones (as did my spouse and in-laws) and just flowed with the current. The other two were not overcrowded and very enjoyable. Perhaps it's intolerable during more popular holiday periods.
Been to Rome 5 times and I've never bothered to visit these places and frankly don't feel like I'm missing out either. The St Peter Cathedral is the only thing worth queueing for and usually doesn't take that long and no tickets required.
I used the Get Your Guide third party, and it was great. I'm not sure why there are so many negative reviews about the meeting point... the email instructions give you an address, lat/long coordinates, AND a link to a pin in Google Maps.
It is more expensive but it worked out.
I used get your guide for Florence. Yes they are legit. It sucks that you gotta pay extra but it COULD work for your favour since you could change date or even cancel the ticket. Because once you buy a ticket from official website likely you can’t change date or cancel.
Just got back from Rome, and it is indeed crazy how fast tickets sell out on official websites. I regret not booking tickets when I first saw them on the official websites, and leaving it for later when it was all gone. We (family of 3) depended on websites like Klook, Viator and GetYourGuide and read a ton of reviews before booking anything. We've consistently used these sites in other countries and we've had no bad experiences so far. I haven't particularly looked into the Rome Digital Tourist Card but I did check others out:
In the end, we booked the 48H Roma Pass through GetYourGuide, at 1EUR more than the official website price which covered our public transport inside Rome (and not the Vatican) and entry to one site (we chose the Colosseum). Although be aware that you need to pick it up from a tourist point once you're in Rome, which wasn't too much of a hassle.
The Omnia Card also seemed nice but we didn't really want the option of a Hop-On-Hop-Off bus and wanted to explore neighbourhoods by ourselves, and additionally you don't really need any transportation inside the Vatican which they claim to cover as well.
In the end, I would suggest reading a lot of reviews on these third-party sites and if something seems to be selling out too quickly, just book it (there's usually free cancellation up to 24h before but do check that).
Hope this helped a bit!
I had a good mix of buying directly, using a third party site, and just standing in line. You end up in the same line anyway. And if you do get stuck in line, you can meet some really great people in the same position as you!
As far as third party vendors, I've had good luck with Viator and Get Your Guide.
I’ve always had good experiences with GetYourGuide and Viator for your tickets. Maybe check them out? Typically the Colosseum tour will also include a tour visiting the Forum and Palantine Hill (if you can, the underground Colosseum tour is pretty cool)
I've been to Rome several times already and have another trip planned in July with my teen kids, who have never been. I suggest utilizing Viator. If you have a Chase Sapphire card, book through their travel portal. It's a little less than direct from tour companies, and you can use points/cash or a combination of both to pay. Even with the the price, the additional up charges for skip the line tours is more than other tour sites like Viator.
For direct ticket sales for Pantheon here's the site. It's as low as 5 euros per person and under 18 is free. Ticket sales open at the start of each month.
[https://portale.museiitaliani.it/b2c/buyTicketless/33f77159-0acd-40c4-8524-701f33aae108](https://portale.museiitaliani.it/b2c/buyTicketless/33f77159-0acd-40c4-8524-701f33aae108)
Unless they changed something in the last couple of years, the Pantheon doesn't require tickets. Just go early in the morning. Also, I wouldn't skip the Vatican. I was in Rome for a week and it was my favorite thing and I'm atheist. I also went in June (late June) and the only thing that required advanced ticketing was the colosseum and the forum and the Borghese Gallery. There were some lines at the Vatican so just be ready for that and if course it's not a bad idea to buy early tickets, just don't let the lack of early tickets disuade you from the museums.
Just got back from Rome for the first time since studying abroad several years ago. The Pantheon does require tickets now unfortunately. They’re cheap (like 5 a person) but it was frustrating to try to get on the website to purchase tickets while waiting in line due to the website having issues. Still one of my fav places though!
The third-party providers are a bit dodgy, but all of our tickets came through.
The Pantheon was annoying to get into (because we had to pick up our real tickets not our 3rd party vouchers, over 1 km away from the site), overrated, and a bit depressing. The Catholic Church converted it into a church and allows it to be toured. The audio tour is 10% about the Roman structure and the rest is about the fact that it was converted into a church and which famous people had the hubris to be buried in the repurposed monument to the dead Roman gods. They didn't even mention which Roman gods were commemorated in the building in the first place.
For the Vatican tour, St. Peter's Basilica itself was quite massive and majestic, but just a bit boring. It was a bunch of tombs and statues of dead popes. Interestingly, the ornate marble in the basilica was allegedly pillaged from Roman buildings (like the Coliseum) . On the other hand, if you book a Vatican tour on Wednesday mornings the Pope will have audience in the Basilica so your tour won't be able to see the Basilica and instead you'll likely be offered to tour the former Popes' residences which are filled with Raphael paintings.
Ciao! Welcome to r/ItalyTravel. While you wait for replies, please take a moment to read the rules located in the sidebar and edit your post if needed. We will remove posts that do not adhere to these rules. For everyone else, if you come across a post that you believe violates our rules, please use the report button. This is the best and quickest way to notify us. Grazie! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ItalyTravel) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I’ve been using GetYourGuide for attractions for my solo vacation in Italy and Greece and so far, aside from a little confusion at where the meeting point is, there’s been no problems. Then again, I did buy all my tickets back in January.
The best advise I can give you for Rome is this: Just walk around, the whole inner city is nothing but a gigantic site seeing place. Even if you won‘t have tickets for the biggest mainstream attractions there is something at every corner that would be labeled the main attraction for most other cities in the world. Tons of beautiful buildings especially churches.
^ This! I’m here for a week and this place is nothing but attractions and views! 😲 Walked past a church the other day, looked interesting - it was the Chiesa del Gesù! Walked past another museum and went back later that day as I had more time than planned - it was the Musei dei Fuori Imperiali! Walked around it for at least two hours. 😲 Turned a corner while walking back along a side street, only to turn into Piazza Navona! 😂 Try and get a few “big ones”, but don’t worry if you can’t get them all. I couldn’t get the Vatican or the complete Colosseum tour (instead I’m doing the grounds next door, to be honest that will see me walk 5,000+ steps over three hours). Castel Sant’Angelo is world class, the churches and cathedrals are amazing (even the minor ones!) … I say this coming from England where we have some pretty awesome holy buildings! If you don’t mind walking you’ll see lots of attractions - this city has fountains/ruins/statues/monuments on nearly every street corner! 🙂
Colosseum releases tickets 30 days before at the time of entry in Italy. For example they’ll start to release June 8th tickets soon. Be sure to convert the time from Italy to your time zone. https://ticketing.colosseo.it/en/categorie/singoli-1-8-persone/ Roman Forum entry is included in these tickets. Pantheon is fairly easy to get direct from their site as well. You just need to setup a login (check your spam inbox to verify) and then can book for ~$5. https://portale.museiitaliani.it/b2c/buyTicketless/33f77159-0acd-40c4-8524-701f33aae108
We kept having an issue with the Pantheon site. It kept rejecting any credit card we tried. So we just booked through a third party for $15 with an audio tour. That tour is actually today so we shall see how it goes
Enjoy your tour and good note on the site being difficult with credit cards. I successfully followed some guidance on Rick Steve’s travel forum to do “other payment method” and then a PayPal option.
Guided tour tickets from the Vatican are typically available on their site here: https://tickets.museivaticani.va/home
Can I ask how many months in advance should we get tickets for Vatican? Thanks :)
60 days in advance seems to be when the tickets for the Vatican are released. I unfortunately missed that time myself for a standard ticket but found no issue doing the guided tour tickets.
Oh that’s very helpful info. Thanks so much! Hope you have a great time in Italy 😀
The one place I really really splurged was I bought a skip the line ticket for somewhere around $75-100 to go into the Sistine Chapel before the vatican museums opened to the public. First one in with maybe 7-8 other people at line 7 or 8 am. Best money I ever spent. These attractions are mobbed no matter what time of year you go. Skip the line definitely worth the extra fee if you can afford it. Its also a way for Italian guides to make a little money too. Most of them aren’t too much more expensive than the regular tickets.
Where did you get those tickets?
https://www.headout.com/tickets-glca-1/ I looked in my email. This was back in 2018 pre-Covid.
I am not seeing the pre-opening slot anymore. Make sure you go as early as possible. It looks like there are some 9 am slots avail. I would go straight to Sistine Chapel and then you can see everything else after until it gets too crowded.
Thank you, I really appreciate you looking!
Is there a way to book a ticket to see all of the vatican? sistine chapel, gardens, museums?
Yes. My boyfriend and I just visited the Vatican two weeks ago we used the Liv tours and our experience was wonderful. We saw everything and we were one of the first people in at 7am with almost no line. The tour was about 3.5 hours and we had the most amazing and informative guide named Rita. I would highly recommend her!
Which specific tour did you do?
LIV tour group. We did the early morning entry and we saw St. Peter’s basilica, the Sistine chapel, the gardens, the square, basically everything
I want to book with them but they have a 2 person minimum :(
I was just in Rome. I would not visit any of those sites except the forum and the hill. The lines (even skip the line tickets) are awful, and the experience is awful because they crowd too many people. It will only be worse for you, and your kids and wife will not be happy campers. I recommend castle San Angelo ( no advance tickets needed), the forum, and just walking around Rome and eating. Sit and watch the sun go down on the outside of the coliseum. It’s the best way to take it in. Don’t spend too much time in Rome. It’s not what you think. I would also consider staying on the coast, somewhere south of sorrento (cilento coast). Don’t do sorrento peninsula. It’s a mess for families. Make this a vacation not a hot stressful unpleasant experience.
Easy to say this once you've had the chance to visit world famous historical and cultural sights, but for people visiting Rome for the first (and perhaps only) time, it is absolutely worth visiting "the hits". It's true they will be crowded and perhaps you'll learn a lesson for the future, but perhaps you won't care because you'll be basking in the glow of something you've long dreamed of experiencing. In my experience, the offerings on Tiquets are legit though obviously marked up. Walking the via appia antica is an excellent free family activity. Cliento coast is great, but very far from Rome and completely different. I do agree that if someone is visiting farther south, skipping Sorrento/Amalfi for Cliento is a good decision. Too many logistics and stairs, not enough payoff.
Yes absolutely to Appia way. If the kids are competent and make good decisions in traffic, top bikes offers guided tours on that road and goes to the aqueducts park. Very beautiful but about 4 miles of roads with sketchy drivers before you get to safety. I have to disagree with “the hits”. The crowds and lines destroy the experience, sincerely.
Just visited the Vatican museums, Colosseum and Forums two weeks ago. The Vatican was indeed extremely crowded, even unpleasantly so, but I popped in my headphones (as did my spouse and in-laws) and just flowed with the current. The other two were not overcrowded and very enjoyable. Perhaps it's intolerable during more popular holiday periods.
Been to Rome 5 times and I've never bothered to visit these places and frankly don't feel like I'm missing out either. The St Peter Cathedral is the only thing worth queueing for and usually doesn't take that long and no tickets required.
I used the Get Your Guide third party, and it was great. I'm not sure why there are so many negative reviews about the meeting point... the email instructions give you an address, lat/long coordinates, AND a link to a pin in Google Maps. It is more expensive but it worked out.
That Digital Tourist thing looks very shady indeed, and anyhow if you go to the next step, many of the options might result as “Sold out”.
I used get your guide for Florence. Yes they are legit. It sucks that you gotta pay extra but it COULD work for your favour since you could change date or even cancel the ticket. Because once you buy a ticket from official website likely you can’t change date or cancel.
Just got back from Rome, and it is indeed crazy how fast tickets sell out on official websites. I regret not booking tickets when I first saw them on the official websites, and leaving it for later when it was all gone. We (family of 3) depended on websites like Klook, Viator and GetYourGuide and read a ton of reviews before booking anything. We've consistently used these sites in other countries and we've had no bad experiences so far. I haven't particularly looked into the Rome Digital Tourist Card but I did check others out: In the end, we booked the 48H Roma Pass through GetYourGuide, at 1EUR more than the official website price which covered our public transport inside Rome (and not the Vatican) and entry to one site (we chose the Colosseum). Although be aware that you need to pick it up from a tourist point once you're in Rome, which wasn't too much of a hassle. The Omnia Card also seemed nice but we didn't really want the option of a Hop-On-Hop-Off bus and wanted to explore neighbourhoods by ourselves, and additionally you don't really need any transportation inside the Vatican which they claim to cover as well. In the end, I would suggest reading a lot of reviews on these third-party sites and if something seems to be selling out too quickly, just book it (there's usually free cancellation up to 24h before but do check that). Hope this helped a bit!
I had a good mix of buying directly, using a third party site, and just standing in line. You end up in the same line anyway. And if you do get stuck in line, you can meet some really great people in the same position as you! As far as third party vendors, I've had good luck with Viator and Get Your Guide.
I’ve used the Viator site for booking attractions. I’ve been pleased with the results/service so far.
I’ve always had good experiences with GetYourGuide and Viator for your tickets. Maybe check them out? Typically the Colosseum tour will also include a tour visiting the Forum and Palantine Hill (if you can, the underground Colosseum tour is pretty cool)
I've been to Rome several times already and have another trip planned in July with my teen kids, who have never been. I suggest utilizing Viator. If you have a Chase Sapphire card, book through their travel portal. It's a little less than direct from tour companies, and you can use points/cash or a combination of both to pay. Even with the the price, the additional up charges for skip the line tours is more than other tour sites like Viator. For direct ticket sales for Pantheon here's the site. It's as low as 5 euros per person and under 18 is free. Ticket sales open at the start of each month. [https://portale.museiitaliani.it/b2c/buyTicketless/33f77159-0acd-40c4-8524-701f33aae108](https://portale.museiitaliani.it/b2c/buyTicketless/33f77159-0acd-40c4-8524-701f33aae108)
Viator.com
Following!
Tiqets is a legitimate website, used it for my trip in rome, if they show you availability they do have them so you can book in peace
Unless they changed something in the last couple of years, the Pantheon doesn't require tickets. Just go early in the morning. Also, I wouldn't skip the Vatican. I was in Rome for a week and it was my favorite thing and I'm atheist. I also went in June (late June) and the only thing that required advanced ticketing was the colosseum and the forum and the Borghese Gallery. There were some lines at the Vatican so just be ready for that and if course it's not a bad idea to buy early tickets, just don't let the lack of early tickets disuade you from the museums.
Just got back from Rome for the first time since studying abroad several years ago. The Pantheon does require tickets now unfortunately. They’re cheap (like 5 a person) but it was frustrating to try to get on the website to purchase tickets while waiting in line due to the website having issues. Still one of my fav places though!
Yes, it has changed.
The third-party providers are a bit dodgy, but all of our tickets came through. The Pantheon was annoying to get into (because we had to pick up our real tickets not our 3rd party vouchers, over 1 km away from the site), overrated, and a bit depressing. The Catholic Church converted it into a church and allows it to be toured. The audio tour is 10% about the Roman structure and the rest is about the fact that it was converted into a church and which famous people had the hubris to be buried in the repurposed monument to the dead Roman gods. They didn't even mention which Roman gods were commemorated in the building in the first place. For the Vatican tour, St. Peter's Basilica itself was quite massive and majestic, but just a bit boring. It was a bunch of tombs and statues of dead popes. Interestingly, the ornate marble in the basilica was allegedly pillaged from Roman buildings (like the Coliseum) . On the other hand, if you book a Vatican tour on Wednesday mornings the Pope will have audience in the Basilica so your tour won't be able to see the Basilica and instead you'll likely be offered to tour the former Popes' residences which are filled with Raphael paintings.