Colosseum Underground and Belvedere tour

Could you give us a little more to go on? Maybe a link to the tour descriptions you are talking about?

Here's the link to the Roman Guy tour guide: https://theromanguy.com/tours/italy/italy-best-sellers/colosseum-underground-plus-belvedere?gclid=Cj0KCQjwnoqLBhD4ARIsAL5JedKUl0zAbbCIxq1aYePyc91WWdejGmNfnjSCmY3HebMCoh2et8-GfugaAp-iEALw_wcB

I was hoping to see the underground and the top tier level. I don't need to see the Palatine which is also included in this tour.
I was planning to buy tickets separately to see the forum
There is also the Moon over the Colosseum which is just of the underground.

mld780, last I knew, the very top levels were closed, and the detail text for this tour does include that fact:

https://theromanguy.com/tours/italy/rome/colosseum-underground-plus-belvedere

"*This tour does not include access to the fourth and fifth levels of the Colosseum, as these levels are currently closed due to maintenance."

If all you want is a ticket for a tour of the Colosseum underground and Third Ring (minus anything above the Third Ring, which is not available in ANY tour) then buy the English tour from the Coopculture website for € 34.00:

https://www.coopculture.it/en/products/the-wonders-of-the-colosseum-the-underground-and-the-arena/

Coopculture is the official ticket seller for the Colosseum/Forum/Palatine, and this ticket includes same-day entrance to the Forum and Palatine for independent (no tour) exploration.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!

The COOP site opens one day of tickets 30 days in advance. Get online early before the ticket resellers get them all!

Just as a followup, the Roman Guy tour you linked looks to be a 4-hour tour for up to 19 people so not private but of considerable length, and also includes the Forum; that's why it costs what it does. The tour I'd linked to the Coopculture site does not include a tour of the Forum, and is only 75 minutes in length, thus the lesser price.

My current problem is that the Underground tours are all booked for the dates I will be in Rome, except for tours provided by Italy Travels. While it's nice to find a company that has availability, it makes me wonder why it has so few bookings. Does anyone know this company enough to know if it is reliable?

Italy Travels has its head office in Florence
email: [email protected]
www.museumsrome.com,

Would any of these tours match your needs?
https://www.walksofitaly.com/rome-tours

Thanks for the link. I checked it but our date is completely booked. I reconsidered Italy Travels but the trip advisor reviews were so awful that I've decided not to go with that company. I may just show up at the Colosseum in time for one of the booked tours of the more reliable companies to see if there are any cancellations. Not sure if that would work, but might be worth a try

What about this one? Doing the night tour can be nice as it frees up time during the day for something else.
The drawback is that this one doesn't include tickets to the Palatine/Forum, doesn't include the Third Ring, and apparently is only offered on Friday and Saturday nights. It also tends to sell out very, very quickly.

https://www.coopculture.it/en/products/colosseum-by-night-00002/

What are the dates you're available to tour the thing? Understand that it's the #1 tourist magnet in Rome, and the underground is a hot ticket so tours book up quickly.

Editing to add: if your visiting dates are very soon and you REALLY want to see the underground, you might want to just bite the price bullet and book with Roman Guy (or Walks of Italy, if they still have openings.) Having a good guide for the Forum and Palatine is advised anyway as both are complex sites - especially the Forum - that benefit greatly from knowledgable narration.

One more thing... Did you check ALL the Roman Guy's tours which include the underground? The Belvedere isn't even open to visitors so the previous tour you'd linked can be taken off the pile. What about this one? Note that it includes the forum and Palatine. $103.21 (it is currently NOT $147.45 as shown on the main page; a current reduced price appears when you go to the check-out page. The same could be true for others of their tours.)

https://theromanguy.com/tours/italy/rome/colosseum-dungeons-tour-with-roman-forum-palantine-hill

Similar tour from Walks of Italy is roughly the same. ($106.71)
https://www.walksofitaly.com/rome-tours/colosseum-underground-tours/

Another option provided by a company which has seen good reviews on this forum:
https://www.througheternity.com/en/rome-tours/colosseum-tour-ancient-rome.html
It doesn't include the underground, however, and the group tours which did are marked as unavailable in 2021.

Whatever the case, I wouldn't just arrive at the Colosseum hoping to jump onto a tour. They may not even be meeting their customers there, and running around looking for a way in would make you prime material for sharp-eyed scammers.
https://www.italy24news.com/local/153582.html

I have several tours booked with The Roman Guy, and they have been absolutely wonderful to deal with. I had initially booked with them for May of 2020, and when I had to cancel those, they were unable to give a refund at that time (because of so many cancellations), so, instead, they added 25% onto our credit. With this, we are going to do a tour that includes a gondola ride in Venice--something that I would normally see as an extravagance, as well as a tour of the Catacombs and the Capuchin Crypts in Rome. Bonus! Also, the other day, I decided to change another tour date, and it was no problem at all.

They have private tours, which are very expensive, but they also have small group tours. You can adjust your search filters on their site to exclude the private ones.

That said, the Colosseum is something that I did not book with The Roman Guy. I booked through Coop Culture, as others have mentioned. I am doing the Full Experience English tour, which includes the underground and the arena. The belvedere is not open, currently, I believe. You have to book ASAP on the day the tickets become available. (I set my alarm and woke up early to book.) At this time, they are booking 1 month in advance of the date, but if I remember correctly, pre-Covid it was 2 months.

BB, the OP said that, "the Underground tours are all booked" for their dates. As I'd linked the coopculture Full Experience tour in a previous post, I'll assume he/she is including that in the options they checked?

Are the Coop Culture tickets skip-the-line? Audio guides easy to acquire?

Susan, coopculture handles ticketing for many attractions, not all of them in Rome. Entry procedures may be specific to individual attraction.

Where the Colosseum is concerned, as far as I know, ALL tickets or tours are timed-entry...meaning you will only be admitted at the time your tour is scheduled for, or the time your entry ticket is for. General-entry tickets for the Colosseum/Forum/Palatine will involve a timed entry for the Colosseum, and open entry to the Forum/Palatine within 24 hours of first use of the ticket. It is advised to arrive at least 15 minutes before your booked Colosseum entry time.

I can't answer your question about rented audioguides but if determined to tour independently, I might purchase this: (EDITED: this is NOT for downloading to your own devices; sorry for the error.)

https://www.coopculture.it/en/products/audiovideoguide-of-the-colosseum-with-ticket-colosseum-forum-and-palatine_h24/

It includes a timed entry to the Colosseum + open entry (within 24 hours) to the Forum/Palatine. Understand, however, that you can access the underground, arena and third tier ONLY with an escorted tour; independent audioguide touring isn't allowed in those areas. If you want the whole enchilada, then this is what I'd buy:

https://www.coopculture.it/en/products/the-wonders-of-the-colosseum-the-underground-and-the-arena/

The coopculture website has lots of info for each ticketing option so spend some time with it? If your trip is not for many months yet, things could change but I wouldn't expect mandatory advance, timed-entry ticketing for the Colosseum to go away.

https://www.coopculture.it/en/

As a backup -- we saw the Colosseum using a Rick Steves free downloaded audio tour. Not the Underground, but we could go at our own speed.

Thank you for your very detailed information.
I decided to book a tour ahead of time because you are right, they probably would not allow me to join the tour at the start of the tour.
I booked with The Tour Guy which is connected to the Roman Guy. Once I clicked on the booking button, the price went from $145 to $104. So, that was a nice surprise. I had been stunned by the high price of these tours and that you had to spend 3.5 hours seeing things that went beyond my initial desire to just see the Underground. But am now happy to have made this particular choice. Thanks again to all who weighed in on this. It seemed like an impossible challenge matching up my date and budget with what was available. But in the end, all the right the pieces fell into place.

Once I clicked on the booking button, the price went from $145 to
$104.

As I'd said above, the Roman Guy tour you'd been looking at was on sale for $103.21 (or roughly $104.00) and not the $147.45 shown on the tour's main page. Good deal! But even the original price was not overly expensive for a 3 and 1/2 hour tour of the Colosseum/Forum/Palatine. Remember as well that the past couple of years have been really tough on professional guides so they're making up for a lot of lost time. :O(