Hello! We will be traveling to Rome in October and had questions about Colosseum tickets. We have read that full experience underground tickets are nearly impossible to get 30 days out. Is it worth it just to go with the arena only? Any advice on getting full experience tickets? Also, should we try calling to get tickets? Thanks, Y’all.
Posted by
Calgary
1869 posts
I did the full experience and enjoyed it, but I'm not sure how you define "worth it."
You can see into parts of the underground from the arena, but not all of it. I also liked the experience of viewing the colosseum, including the arena, from below. I liked that we weren't in a big crowd for our time below.
We did see and learn about some of the below-the-scenes operations and how that worked, including seeing a replica of one of the lifts that brought animals, etc. to the arena level.
That said, I don't think the underground is the main/most crucial part of the Colosseum experience. So, if you can manage to get tickets to it, great. If you can't, don't feel terrible about it.
I got tickets by following the advice here and setting my clock to get tickets as soon as they went on sale at the official site. I won't go into more detail than that, since the site and procedure have changed since I did it. You should be able to find other posts on that topic.
Good luck!
Posted by
Minnesota 🎒
17494 posts
Hi and a warm welcome to the RS forums, Libby!
A suggestion? The Colosseum is a reasonably easy structure to understand as it was the model for today's large sporting arenas: it could efficiently handle the entrance and exit of very large numbers of people, and even in Roman times they all had tickets for specific seating. That said, I've been twice, didn't do the underground and never felt we've missed out. You can see down into a large part from above, and I frankly don't have interest in fighting for those nearly-impossible tickets; so many other interesting things to see in Rome!
But of equal, if not more, importance are the Forum and Palatine right next door. These are more complex sites that greatly benefit from a guided tour. Unfortunately, official website doesn't offer a tour that's inclusive of all three but there are independent companies which do. Some of them also include the Underground but given even the professional tour companies have trouble landing those tickets, some of them state that you need to be flexible to an after-booking change in tour time, and others have thrown in the towel offering underground access altogether as they ended up having to cancel their bookings enough times to be an annoyance.
Anyway, something to think about? Here are some oft-recommended companies to look at:
https://theromanguy.com/tours/italy/colosseum-tours
https://www.througheternity.com/en/colosseum-tours/
https://www.walksofitaly.com/rome-tours/
Others may have additional suggestions.
As with any booking, read the small print carefully, OK? :O)