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Advance tickets to Pompeii -- all sold out?

The official Pompeii archaeological website, http://pompeiisites.org, sent me to https://www.ticketone.it to buy advance tickets. We plan to visit Oct 31 -- train and B&B already booked. We planned on buying entry tickets and doing the RS audio tour.

But the Ticketone website is has completely blank calendar except for Oct 9-12. All dates before and after are empty, and it won't let me advance to November.

Am I doing something wrong or is it possible that there are no advance tickets for Pompeii available through the official channel?

If so, are these our options:

  • Show up and hope for tickets on the day.
  • Book with a 3rd party guided tour company.
  • Book through a site like Getyourguide.com and pay a premium for the unguided or audio tour?

The latter two seem to have tickets available.

BTW, on the Ticketone website Herculaneum shows availability every day into late November, which seems to reinforce the idea that Pompeii is sold out. It just surprises me that, except for the next 3 days, there wouldn't be any Pompeii advance tickets for the next month.

Thanks.

Posted by
16618 posts

Jim, it looks to me like Ticketone is only selling tickets for the next few days: 9/10/23 (which was today) through 12/10/23. I'm not sure why it is for such a limited span of time but I'm sure that tickets beyond that date are NOT sold out. I'd just keep checking back to see if/when they expand purchase dates.

Pompeii is a VAST site so tickets really never sell out: they'll also be available at the Porta Marina, Piazza Anfiteatro and Piazza Esedra entrances.

Posted by
158 posts

Thank you.

I wondered if that was a possibility but it seemed odd. Of course it seemed odder that Pompeii would be sold out entirely for weeks.

I'll take your advice and keep checking.

Posted by
16618 posts

I'll cross fingers, and will try to check into Ticketone now and again to see what's cookin'. :O)

Posted by
5648 posts

I'm sure it's a computer glitch, but you could book a shared tour with the RS recommended Mondo tours, which we used this past May, and were very happy with. In our case, we paid the guide, who purchased our tickets just minutes before the tour. You could also communicate with them regarding ticket availability, but I don't think Pompeii ever sells out.
Have a great trip!

Posted by
158 posts

Back from the trip. There was no problem getting tickets to Pompeii through the official website.

We used the RS audio tour. It was very good but covered less ground than I expected. I'd like to have had a secondary source for the areas omitted from RS. We spent about 5 hours there and thought it very interesting.

Posted by
4625 posts

I used the RS audio tour once; in Florence and got turned around and frustrated and haven't used it since. When we were in Pompeii last Spring my wife and I both commented that his audio tour here might be challenging to follow. Did you do OK with it?

After our visit to Pompeii via Mondo Guide I looked at the RS guidebooks and both followed a similar path. Based on crowds at each place we stopped, I'm guessing most tours hit the same sites that fit within a 2 hour tour. I'm glad we did a tour but also glad we branched out on our own later as there are some gems that don't get a lot of attention.