Help understanding Coop Culture reservations/tickets

Hi egs,

A lot of threads have been coming up lately:

Here is one post/reply I am borrowing from Kathy, USA

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/bought-colesseum-tickets-online-but-no-pdf-attachment
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/help-please-did-not-receive-confirmation-for-colosseum-tickets

Hopefully, others will chime in with their recent experience. Some may be in Rome "now."

You mentioned you went on their site: https://www.coopculture.it/en/it/colosseo-e-shop.cfm < for easy reference.

Also egs, here are some recent threads regarding the Colosseum

https://search.ricksteves.com/?button=&date_range=6m&filter=Travel+Forum&query=colosseum&utf8=%E2%9C%93

Maybe you can find your answer there if some are experiencing the same.

Hi egschuetter -

Unfortunately none of the info in the links provided above regarding email ticketing confirmation is going to help you at all as yours is a completely different situation. As you are thinking, I'd contact your tour guide and ask if the ticket provided for your tour could be used to book a discounted SUPER ticket. You may not be able to do that BEFORE your booked tour but the best thing you can do is to ask the question and see if your guide will do the footwork!

I know, the coopculture site is REALLY confusing. :O(

Girasole - thank you for taking time to post the links. I feel for the folks having issues with their Colosseum tickets. While both are Coop Culture related, I think my issue is different.

Kathy - thanks for commiserating about the confusing website (good to know it is not just me!). Fingers-crossed that our guide will be able to help us see one or more of the SUPER sites. I've asked and hope to hear back tomorrow (wish me luck : )

oops, okay, egs. I hope you get your issue resolved :)

egschuetter, some random thoughts on your first post.....

We will tour the Colosseum/Forum/Palatine with a guide on a diff
day.... so we may be able to buy the SUPER ticket for the House of
Augustus and other sites as an add-on ticket.

As a combo ticket to the 3 sites is only good for a single entry to each, you may have to arrange it to have your guide end your tour in the Palatine and have an idea what time that will be to make your advance Augustus reservation. You would also have to arrange it with him/her to allow time to buy the SUPER ticket before entering the Forum/Palatine if you want the 6-euro price.

My best guess is that reservation openings for House of Augustus will coincide with July ticket sales. From the website:

https://www.coopculture.it/en/the-colosseum.cfm

QUARTERLY OPENING JULY-AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2019 Tuesday, May 21st at 3 pm
(italian time): The pre-sale of the first set of tickets with
scheduled entrance time for the ordinary access of the Colosseum, of
tickets with scheduled entrance time to the Coliseum arena, in
quarterly availability for the months of July August and September
2019 will be released both online and through the call center.

Wednesday, May 22nd at 3 pm (italian time): The pre-sale of the second
set of tickets with scheduled entrance time for the ordinary access of
the Colosseum, of tickets with scheduled entrance time to the Coliseum
arena, in quarterly availability for the months of July August and
September 2019 will be released both online and through call centers.

I'll be interested to know how this all shakes out? If intent on seeing House of Augustus and there's no way to work that with your organized tour/tickets for that tour, then I'd just bite the bullet and buy the € 18,00 SUPER ticket for a different day. Your online, timed-entry reservation for Augustus will be free.

https://ecm.coopculture.it/index.php?option=com_snapp&view=products&catalogid=37012C05-6EA9-0D04-570E-0167A8226C2E&snappTemplate=template3&lang=en

I would love to know how your trip turned out. I will visit in late October and am trying to sort out the ever-changing Super Ticket. Please share any tips. It looks like now you can only use it on one day. Since it appears that I can only use it within 30 days of purchase, I need to wait until late September to order. But, like you mention, should I make reservations for those entries requiring it before I actually have a ticket? I emailed Coop Culture but their reply did not really help much.

Thanks for any advice.

Hi, marydavy and everyone!

Thanks for asking. Our trip went great -- we were there during the recent heat wave. Not too long after this forum discussion, we decided to use a private tour guide for the Colosseum/Forum/Palatine. We initially planned to use SUPER tickets with our guide. Last minute closure (a technical issue) of the SUPER site we planned to see, the House of Livia, meant that we ended up not buying SUPER tickets. We were disappointed, but our tour was still great.

We toured with Agnes from Understanding Rome. Communication was great! Agnes was flexible when the site closed in reaching out to us and making a new plan. We enjoyed seeing the sites with her and Agnes definitely knows her stuff!

I never was able to figure out Coop Culture's website and ticketing policies. (Agnes reserved all our tickets for us.) It sounds like they change the procedures and policies pretty frequently.

Personally, my experience is that Coop Culture just wants to sell tickets and does it poorly. For our trip to Rome in May, I bought the tour of the Colosseum with the Belvedere portion. When we showed up at our appointed time and location, we were told our tour was cancelled due to inaccessibility of the Belvedere. They took my printed ticket, refunded some money, let us in the back way as feral tourists. We couldn't even get an audio guide. It felt like we had been marooned. At the Palatine, I realized I didn't have my printed ticket and had no proof I had a ticket. One of the few times when maybe we should have sprung for a cellphone plan.

Obviously, the Belvedere has been closed for a long time and they shouldn't even have sold us a ticket. We were certainly never notified it was closed. Our vacation experience was that, in the future, we will try to avoid all prepaid tours. Just say NO to following somebody with an umbrella.

Personally, my experience is that Coop Culture just wants to sell
tickets and does it poorly

Coopculture is the official website and ticketing portal for the Colosseum and other attractions/events on its website so yes, its purpose is to sell tickets/tours. Nothing wrong with that. Yes, the website is confusing and I'm sure translation contributes to some of that plus the wide variety of products it has to deal with. Add changes/unscheduled closures that are very likely are outside of their control - as in unexpected repairs needed of the Belvedere - and, well, handling the 7+ million yearly visitors to this fragile, 2,000 year-old relic is a challenge!

At the time you bought your May tour for the Belvedere, it may not yet have been closed; I'm guessing you'd purchased that tour before April? Belvedere tours could also cancel at the last minute because of rain: a safety issue. Anyway, coopculture did put a notice of the repair closure on the website, and I'm uncertain why you didn't get an emailed notice (did you check your spam folder?) as others reported having received.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/belvedere-tours-cancelled-colosseum-rome
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/email-this-am

Our vacation experience was that, in the future, we will try to avoid
all prepaid tours. Just say NO to following somebody with an umbrella.

That's fine as I know tours aren't everyone's cuppa. They are unavoidable where accessing certain attractions, or parts of attractions, are concerned, though. The Colosseum's Belvedere and Underground are ONLY accessible with a tour, must be booked in advance, and tickets sell our very, very quickly when becoming available. St. Peter's scavi, Domus Aurea, and the catacombs are some other attractions that can only be visited with guided tours.

Hi! So happy to find others to discuss this topic with. I am trying to book the 29 euro english tour of the colosseum, with underground access and panoramic view for early/mid-october. I had been watching the website like a hawk, but it seems that there are NO tickets available, yet TripAdvisor and other tour companies are selling the exact same English tours for around $150 per piece. Does anyone know if more tickets are to be released or is my hunch correct, do tour companies buy up these tickets (HOW?!) and resell for a much higher price -- this seems to be like a scam!

Our vacation experience was that, in the future, we will try to avoid all prepaid tours. Just say NO to following somebody with an umbrella.

Well, you don't have to expect that from all prepaid tours.......find a small tour group, and have a conversation with your tour guide - who knows not just about where your tour is going, but about the city, the culture, and the subject matter generally. Those tours do exist. My tour company of choice is Context Tours, because of those exact things (group tours are 6 people max). I've used them in Japan, and have a couple of tours booked for my trip to Italy in October. I'm sure they're not the only company that offers very small group tours of cities around the world, but it's the one I came across and have used.

janice8, the panoramic level (the two uppermost tiers) have been closed for repairs since spring: no word yet on a reopening. They are not currently selling tours which include those levels.

October tickets for the "Colosseum, Roman Forum And Palatine Regular Entrance + Undergrounds And Level III English Tour" went on sale (online only) on July 25th at 6.30 pm. There's currently no communication I'm seeing on the website about more tickets being released. The next online ticket release for this tour is September 5 and that's for November and December.

If it's the underground you MOST want to see, you do get another shot at tickets for that one. From the website:
https://www.coopculture.it/en/the-colosseum.cfm

Every first Thursday of the month
Pre-sale of the underground tour only online:
September 5th at 6.30 pm (UTC+1) in the monthly availability for the month of October

That would be this tour:
https://ecm.coopculture.it/index.php?option=com_snapp&view=event&id=7F92A2ED-7C0B-A61F-649D-016524395482&catalogid=F4C3D833-DD3A-CA7F-4D7B-0167A8418A21&lang=en

Yes, tours offered by independent companies are usually higher priced but their groups are usually smaller, their guides can be especially gifted/trained at what they do, and getting these tickets are not easy for them either; we've seen cancellations of independent tours for that reason. Some of the higher-priced tours also include the Forum and Palatine and are quite lengthy so best to read all the details. That said, no, I'd never pay $150 just to see the underground+ third tier and I'm not even seeing any that cost that much for that little.