Colosseum, Roman Forum & Palatine Hill Tour

This tour was part of my birthday present from my mother, which included coming to Rome. It was my first time ever coming to Rome and I was extremely excited for the experience, and the Colosseum along with Palatine Hill tour that we booked was something I was really looking forward to. My mother and I like to do things like this as early in the morning as we possibly can so that we can beat the crowds and hot weather, so we booked this tour for 9 am. About a week before the tour, we received an email notifying us that due to a "ticket error" the tour was rescheduled for 11 am. Not a huge deal, things happen, and it gave us some time to do some exploring in the area between there and our hotel. We arrived at the meeting point as instructed at 10:45 and gave our name to the staff there. He found us on a paper and told us that the tour was again pushed back to 12:30 pm, because the Colosseum restricts the amount of people that can go in and that there was nothing we could do. A little confused, we decided to walk around and do some shopping and exploring. We walked about 20 minutes until we received a flurry of calls and text messages from an unknown WhatsApp phone number. We answered finally and were told that the person that told us to come back at 12:30 made a mistake, and that we should come back now so that the tour could leave immediately. This was really annoying because by this time the crowds had picked up, and we had to rush back to the meeting point as fast as we could, all while being stressed out that the tour was going to leave without us. The first part of the tour was Palatine Hill, which we later found out was actually the reverse of the norm (Colosseum was supposed to be first). The tour guide was talking and moving through the area very fast, and we seemed to be skipping a lot of interesting looking things that I wanted to see. After a little while I asked if we would have more time to explore this area, and was told that we had to rush through Palatine Hill so that we did not miss our 12:30 entrance time to the Colosseum. Very disappointing, especially since we paid for a full tour of both places. Once we got out of Palatine Hill and into the Colosseum, the tour slowed down and it got much better. The tour guide was knowledgeable and friendly as well as eager to answer any questions or curiosities we had. The views and buildings were stunning and I was extremely happy to have been able to see these monuments and important historical sights. My advice would be to skip the guided tours, buy the tickets on the official monument websites because we realized that other than a special line for Tour Groups....these companies have no real relationship with the state managed monument organizations. Do your own research and take your time. If the tour would have gone at the original time, in the original order, we would have been able to stay in Palatine Hill and explore but because we left the area to go into the Colosseum, our tickets were not valid for re-entry. Such a disappointment, I can't wait to go back and see all of the things that I missed. The two stars were for our guide, who really didn't have control over the things that went wrong, and she was friendly and knowledgeable.

Marco did a great job hiding us and providing excellent context to the sites. The only issue I would say was the quality of the headsets used for the tour which made it difficult to hear them. If they used the ones that were used for the Saint Peters tour I think it would have been a much better experience for all.

Excellent tour guide. Valuable having an architects viewpoint of the buildings we were privileged to see.

Great guide who made everyone in group feel valued. I had a problem as did not have photo ID. They were great at helping me sort problem - and very patient. Tour was excellent and relaxed.

It was very hot this day, so that probably did not help. What was really the deciding factor on this rating was the guide. While he was very personable, he decided that he would lay 20 (or 50 or more questions) each time he wanted to share facts. It was a little cute at first, but it got very old after two or three times. Further, he had to be reminded that we needed bathroom and water breaks--to his credit when reminded he did his best to direct us. I suspect it is very difficult to keep a group together when walking all over the forum--and with all the other tours there we were constantly moving amongst other groups. Too many people, too hot and too many questions--we prefer the knowledge to just be spoken to us.