Colosseum underground

As far as I remember, yes, everyone is organized in groups of about 25 persons. It's marked as a "Guided Entrance" on their website too, and you should think about booking in advance. Here's the link: http://www.coopculture.it/en/colosseo-e-shop.cfm

It's a separate tour and costs extra (above the general admission cost), but well worth it in my opinion.

You can only visit the underground and third tier while on a tour. The "guided entrance" selection is only for kids under 12 who take the tour for free. Everyone else will choose "guided tours in English".

You must purchase entry tickets and tour tickets. For each adult you'll pay 25 euros for both. Everyone under 18 will get into the colosseum for free. Those under 12 can take the tour for free.

Donna

Thank you all so much for your comments/advice. First time out of the country for us and we chose Italy.

Just make sure you book as soon as you are sure of date. When we went in may the underground tours were booked approx. 2-3 months ahead. You book and pay for entry tickets online too. Make sure you leave plenty of time to get through sercurity. It took us about 30-35 min but I would allow more just in case. I found it interesting and well worth it.

They only release underground tour tickets a few months at a time. The tickets for May were released in mid April and only included May and June. Right now they have released tickets for October, November and December. They were releasing tickets in 2 month batches but they now seem to be heading towards releasing them for 3 month batches.

Donna

We are also going to Rome in early October, since it is booked up...is there another way to see the underground?

The only other ways to see the underground would be to book a tour through a third party tour company or to book a tour in another language. There are plenty of slots available on the Spanish language tours. If you do some research before getting to Italy on the colosseum and it's construction, you will understand what you're seeing and it won't matter if you understand the guide or not.

donna

I just want to mention - we went last year in early Sept and I went to the ticket booth first thing and booked the underground/3rd tier tour for early afternoon the same day. Maybe they don't totally sell all the tickets and have some free spots they fill in. There seemed to be a few slot choices for the day. We were there 6 days, so I would have taken one a few days later if I couldn't have gotten that day. I was prepared not to do it (I was OK either way) and were lucky enough to be at an airbnb only a few minutes walk to Colosseum so we got there when it opened.

So if you have no luck booking tickets online head there first thing and see if they can fit you in...hopefully you have a few days there and can take another day if they can't get you in that day...

Thank you! We will be there 10/6 and 10/7. So I have 2 days at least to try. I'll report back. I'll also look into Spanish tours..but I didn't see that option on the website.

Good luck travelcrazy - I would try to get there as early as possible if you decide not to book a tour with another company. And I could second the 'use a diff language' tour. Our tour guide was Italian, and tho his English was good, I had a hard time with the accent and after a while my mom and I just wandered around on the fringes and didn't really listen. Hubby enjoyed the commentary tho. It was our 2nd time at the Colosseum and I'm comfortably familiar with the history (1st time we went those sections weren't open, and first time for my mom). I was more interested in snapping pictures :)

If your heart is set on seeing those sections you may want to book with Walks of Italy or another company. It's so expensive tho!