pompeii ticket, late June 2021

We purchased our tickets at Pompeii when we arrived at about 10:30am there was just a line of a few people. We were there at the beginning of November, so it may have been less busy. Although, my guess is that sites in Italy will be less busy this summer as travel starts to resume.

I wish the official site sold tickets online

Arte, they do, though ticketone. Did you look here?
http://pompeiisites.org/en/visiting-info/timetables-and-tickets/

Scroll about halfway down the page to "ticket"; the link to ticketone is there.

Note that you have to choose a specific entry time from what's available. Ticketone provides the option of picking up your pre-purchased tickets at the scavi; you'll see that under "delivery options" when you go to the shopping cart page after you've selected your tickets. While I don't think you'll have trouble buying at the scavi, doing it in advance might ease your mind plus they'll already be paid for. :O)

Tickets for Porta Marina Superiore is probably what you want: that's most commonly known as the main entrance, close to the Circumvesuviana Scavi Ville Dei Misteri train station, The Piazza Anfiteatro entrance is further east, nearer the Pompei Santuario station. These two stations are not on the same Circumvesuviana routes, and the one you want might depend on where you're coming from.

Worth a mention? A fair number of the 'official' ticketing sites for Italian museums/attractions are through ticketing services. For instance, B-ticket is the 'official' online service for quite a number of museums in Florence, such as the Uffizi.

My suggestion is to book a tour of Pompeii. We did it on our own a few years back and don't think we got nearly as much out of the site as we could with a guide. Another alternative would be to join one of the tours offered by vendors holding up signs just outside the entrance. I don't know how good those are or if they are entirely legit, though.l

We just picked up a guide at the entrance. We chatted with him for a few minutes as to rates, what we would see, etc., but the main reason we spoken was just to make sure we would understand his english. Maybe we got lucky but had an excellent guide at a reasonable price for four of us for about three hours. We asked for a highlights type of tour and we cycled back on our own for a more detailed look at a few of the sites. It can be hot with min shade so come prepared.

If you don't hire a tour guide, Rick Steves has an audiotour that you can use offline. We followed it and had done some independent research.

Kathy, how strict are they about the time slot? A 15 min slot is pretty restrictive, but if 10am is really fine from 9:30-10:30 that's a bit more realistic.

The official website is very clear: you have a TIMED entry. You go at that time (the whole purpose of a timed entry), in 15 min groups (9, 9:15, 9;30 etc) due to Covid attendance limitations. The official website states they will allow you entry 10 min after your scheduled time. Thus 9:00 am has until 9:10 to enter.