Colosseum booking questions

[aprilF]

I need help since Ive already screwed up.  I had wanted to do the night tour on 5/19.  I for some reason was expecting the tickets to go on sale on 3/1 on Coopculture.  They dropped last week and the night tours went fast, there is only one left for our date and we need two tickets.  So I guess thats not happening.  When I started looking at the guided tours tickets I saw they had time slots, which makes sense but it left me wondering is that the earliest you can enter the sites or just your tour time?  May we go to the Forum and Palantine Hill sites before our Colosseum tour is really what I am wondering?  Then I looked at the audioguide tour times and noticed that was actually 0.5E more than the live tour guide...is this correct or am I missing something because it seems like the audioguided tour should be less.

 

Any help will be appreciated since I obviously dont understand a lot of what is going on.  Thanks.

[CruiserBruce]

Following. I am in a similar boat for the same time frame. It appears the resellers have bought up a lot of the tickets. There is another thread just down the board on the topic:

 

 

[aprilF]

12 minutes ago, CruiserBruce said:

Following. I am in a similar boat for the same time frame. It appears the resellers have bought up a lot of the tickets. There is another thread just down the board on the topic:

 

 

Thanks for that thread recommendation.  I only checked the 19th and 27th as those are the only dates that would work for a night tour for us, with the 19th being very much preferred.  It is odd that for April and May only qty 1 remains for any of the night tours.  Why would the resellers leave a ticket, why not buy all?  I am hoping this is a glitch.  If not, its super crappy that you are forced to either support the greedy resellers or forego the experience.  Very disappointing in what is already an immensely stressful planning experience.

[marazul]

3 hours ago, aprilF said:

Thanks for that thread recommendation.  I only checked the 19th and 27th as those are the only dates that would work for a night tour for us, with the 19th being very much preferred.  It is odd that for April and May only qty 1 remains for any of the night tours.  Why would the resellers leave a ticket, why not buy all?  I am hoping this is a glitch.  If not, its super crappy that you are forced to either support the greedy resellers or forego the experience.  Very disappointing in what is already an immensely stressful planning experience.

It is not a glitch.  It is super crappy.  Resellers and tour companies use computer programs that grab the tickets the second they go on sale.   Coopculture allow sales in maximum of 6 tickets, so they grab 24 in every time slot.  Perhaps they figure that if they leave one available for the public they are doing all of us a favor.  Besides, if there is only 1 left and you need 2, you might go looking at tour companies that offer it as a private tour at three times the price of the ticket. 

 

Do note that this is only done for the English tours and that they do not bother with Italian and Spanish tours because there is not nearly the same level of demand.  If you just want to get there for the night time experience, you might want to join one of those tours.

 

BTW - the same thing goes on in the US for popular concert and sporting event tickets that are then resold on the internet.  

[aprilF]

1 minute ago, marazul said:

It is not a glitch.  It is super crappy.  Resellers and tour companies use computer programs that grab the tickets the second they go on sale.   Coopculture allow sales in maximum of 6 tickets, so they grab 24 in every time slot.  Perhaps they figure that if they leave one available for the public they are doing all of us a favor.  Besides, if there is only 1 left and you need 2, you might go looking at tour companies that offer it as a private tour at three times the price of the ticket. 

 

Do note that this is only done for the English tours and that they do not bother with Italian and Spanish tours because there is not nearly the same level of demand.  If you just want to get there for the night time experience, you might want to join one of those tours.

 

BTW - the same thing goes on in the US for popular concert and sporting event tickets that are then resold on the internet.  

Unfortunately I already looked at alternative language options and they were either completely sold out or just one ticket left.  Doubt we will pay 3X and support this way to do business.  Looks like we will be skipping the Colosseum at night.

 

[lamb616]

On 2/24/2020 at 4:25 PM, aprilF said:

Unfortunately I already looked at alternative language options and they were either completely sold out or just one ticket left.  Doubt we will pay 3X and support this way to do business.  Looks like we will be skipping the Colosseum at night.

 

 

I'm surprised. when I looked the other day and there was only 1 ticket left for all the US tours, there was plenty of tickets for every single time slot, on every single day that I checked for the Spanish and Italian tours....

 

ETA:  I didn't specifically look at the night times the other day....

however, I just looked again and now there are only 10:45 slots available for Spanish and 10:05 slots for Italian.  A decent # available in those slots.  But strange that ONLY those times are left?  This is for May & June that I looked.  Very bizarre, their whole process of selling tickets.  

Edited February 27, 2020 by lamb616
ETA

[marazul]

2 hours ago, lamb616 said:

 

I'm surprised. when I looked the other day and there was only 1 ticket left for all the US tours, there was plenty of tickets for every single time slot, on every single day that I checked for the Spanish and Italian tours....

 

ETA:  I didn't specifically look at the night times the other day....

however, I just looked again and now there are only 10:45 slots available for Spanish and 10:05 slots for Italian.  A decent # available in those slots.  But strange that ONLY those times are left?  This is for May & June that I looked.  Very bizarre, their whole process of selling tickets.  

Yes, the English tours are down to 1 because of the computer program buying by resellers as I explained if you scroll up on this page three posts above this one.   The Spanish and Italian tours are not grabbed by resellers so there is good, honest availability for them. However, there are fewer slots for the nighttime tours, obviously, because of the shorter time.  All it takes is for a couple of groups to take one of those times before they disappear.  So, book what you can get, but don't delay. 

Edited February 27, 2020 by marazul

[aprilF]

12 hours ago, lamb616 said:

 

I'm surprised. when I looked the other day and there was only 1 ticket left for all the US tours, there was plenty of tickets for every single time slot, on every single day that I checked for the Spanish and Italian tours....

 

ETA:  I didn't specifically look at the night times the other day....

however, I just looked again and now there are only 10:45 slots available for Spanish and 10:05 slots for Italian.  A decent # available in those slots.  But strange that ONLY those times are left?  This is for May & June that I looked.  Very bizarre, their whole process of selling tickets.  

When I looked for alternative language night tours for May there was absolutely nothing, all dates were red.  What browser are you using in case that is making some difference?  I am on Firefox.  Or, can these tix go back into inventory after being sold out? 

[lamb616]

2 minutes ago, aprilF said:

When I looked for alternative language night tours for May there was absolutely nothing, all dates were red.  What browser are you using in case that is making some difference?  I am on Firefox.  Or, can these tix go back into inventory after being sold out? 

 

When I looked last night, there was only morning slots available. When I looked a couple days ago, there were many times available (but I didnt specifically look for night)

[nini]

We used "City Wonders" in Rome for our "Colosseum, Forum, and Palatine

Hill" tour. Our guide was excellent and the price very reasonable. We also used

them for our "Early Access" Vatican tour and again, our guide was excellent. 

We would use them if we and when we return to Rome. They also offer tours in some

other cities.

[aprilF]

1 hour ago, nini said:

We used "City Wonders" in Rome for our "Colosseum, Forum, and Palatine

Hill" tour. Our guide was excellent and the price very reasonable. We also used

them for our "Early Access" Vatican tour and again, our guide was excellent. 

We would use them if we and when we return to Rome. They also offer tours in some

other cities.

 

Thank you but no night tours available and also they charge more than twice the regular fee, it seems like they are a part of the problem.

[nini]

AprilF-

I goofed and we actually used "Walks of Italy" for our Rome tours.

They have a "VIP Colosseum at Night with Underground and Arena Floor"

that may be helpful for you. There is also a "Vatican Museums Night Tour

with Sistine Chapel". At least you would have guides and ours were excellent.

 

[aprilF]

2 hours ago, nini said:

AprilF-

I goofed and we actually used "Walks of Italy" for our Rome tours.

They have a "VIP Colosseum at Night with Underground and Arena Floor"

that may be helpful for you. There is also a "Vatican Museums Night Tour

with Sistine Chapel". At least you would have guides and ours were excellent.

 

Thank you.  I do see a night tour.  Unfortunately they are very greedy with their pricing so I doubt I would go through them.  I understand these people need to make a living however Italy needs to decide if they are going to let the public actually buy tickets on the website or not.  Allowing tour groups to buy up all the best stuff and then charge 3-5X as much is just wrong and I doubt I'd feel good about doing it.  If Rome only wants these tours arranged through private guides then they shouldnt go through the sham of a website that CoopCulture currently is.  I dont know why this bothers me so much.  I do appreciate your trying to offer help even though it looks like I am throwing an ungrateful hissy fit, it just really bothers me.

[cruisemom42]

25 minutes ago, aprilF said:

Thank you.  I do see a night tour.  Unfortunately they are very greedy with their pricing so I doubt I would go through them.  I understand these people need to make a living however Italy needs to decide if they are going to let the public actually buy tickets on the website or not.  Allowing tour groups to buy up all the best stuff and then charge 3-5X as much is just wrong and I doubt I'd feel good about doing it.  If Rome only wants these tours arranged through private guides then they shouldnt go through the sham of a website that CoopCulture currently is.  I dont know why this bothers me so much.  I do appreciate your trying to offer help even though it looks like I am throwing an ungrateful hissy fit, it just really bothers me.

 

As mentioned above, this is no different from ticket websites in the US (and undoubtedly in other countries) where tickets for desireable events (concerts, sports events) are put on sale. 

 

Try to put it in perspective:  if this is something that you really want to do, how often will you be visiting Rome and have the opportunity to visit the Colosseum?

 

On the other hand, consider any flexibility you have. If you can't get a night tour (and frankly, I'm not really sure why one would want to do the Colosseum at night when you can't really see what you're there to  see, but....that's just me), then consider a different tour. 

 

The longer you wait to decide, however, the fewer choices you'll have.

[nini]

cruisemom42 has a few good points; especially going in the day vs. night.

I can't imagine doing ours at night; especially when up on Palatine Hill.

Whatever you decide, I hope it works well for you.

[ninjacat123]

The tour company I have booked ItalyTours.EU gave me instructions on how to book my Colosseum tickets. What concerns me is that the tour company said there are times when the Colosseum won't honor your ticket, stating that there are rare cases where the Colosseum won't honor their own codes on the tickets. I hope this won't be the case for us.