Rome in one day with family of 8

We have a great guide, but we are doing all of that plus San Clemente in 2 days - I don't think it can be done in one day. It's too much and overwhelming. You can email her and see what she says. Sonia Tavoletta -- [email protected]

There is NO dock in Rome - it's NOT on the coast -- It is quite a long bus ride from the coast to Rome, so you have much less than 10 hrs. You're probably better off doing a cruise excursion - or return to Rome and spend a minimum of 4 days there to see everything. We are not fans of international cruises as there is never enough time, esp in Italy and you miss all the amazing food.

The Vatican takes a few hours. And getting to all those other places takes LOTS of time. Rome is NOT to be rushed.

Short of having the Star Trek 'Transporter' it would be difficult to do more than a drive by of all the locales on your list. Several are in a pedestrian only zones, so driving by is not an option.

Is the boat in port for 10 hours? Or is 10 hours what you have after accounting for the time it will take you to get off and then re-board the boat?

Best case scenario is 3 hrs ( r/t) of travel time from the Port to central Rome.

"The Vatican"-- do you mean St Peters Basilica or the Vatican Museum?

What is 'affordable' ?

If you only have ten hours off of a cruise ship, you can take the train in (about an hour) and get off at San Pietro (near the Vatican and walk across Rome to Termini and the return train to Civit.... Along the way you will walk pass or visit briefly the Plazza Navone, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, swing down and hit the Roman Forum, the Collisseum and on to Termini. You can grab some street food and a couple of restroom stops and your time is done. What is your exact schedule or available time?

In my opinion you need to drop either the Collisseum or the Vatican. The Collisseum requires prebooked tickets and to see the Vatican in any sort of fashion you will also want some sort of ticket or all you will do is stand in line. The Pantheon may also require tickets ( it has varied over the last couple of years) but will certainly have a long line up if not.

A quick search of the forum turns up a lot of other recommendations for guides. Just type Rome tour guide in the search, hit travel forum and I like to filter by last 2 years.

This strikes me as a time when using the cruise ships excursions might be worth it. Trying to move and please 8 people in 10 rushed hours may leave you exhausted. You don't mention ages of the group, but could always split up to accommodate preferences that way.

And to add to the good advice above, "affordable" is a subjective term. There will also be a big cost difference between seeing just the exteriors of the some of the landmarks you list and getting inside them. In some cases, even a personal guide will require you to purchase your own advance tickets. In others, maybe they'll do that for you but in either case you're going to be on a STRICT timeline as those tickets will be timed-entry so you must be present at the time of your reserved slot.

To get an idea of what this could cost you to have a tour pick you up/drop you off in Civitavecchia, private guide service, entry to the Colosseum/Forum/Palatine, entry to the Vatican museums, a walk-by of the Pantheon (not inside), Piazza Navona and Trevi + time for lunch (not included in the price)..... It's not going to be inexpensive.

https://livtours.com/tours/shore-excursion-rome-in-a-day-exclusive-experience/

Editing to add: I'd linked a tour with a pickup and dropoff at the port to make sure you DO get back to the port on time. That is a benefit of booking shore excursions as those sorts of tours understand that ships don't wait; it's their job to keep you on track.

https://search.ricksteves.com/?button=&filter=Travel+Forum&query=Rome+in+a+day&utf8=%E2%9C%93

Hi there, you've gotten some good advice above, 10 hours just doesn't allow you to visit all the places you've mentioned. Someone suggested splitting up the group, in case certain people want to focus on specific monuments, not a bad idea but then those groups would be responsible for making it back to the ship on time. Are there young adults under the age, of let's say 16 on this trip? In which case, I would suggest skip the jammed Vatican Museum. You could go first to St Peters, which has a security line that might take dunno up to an hour, IF that was a must, and then walk past the other monuments to Termini station... or skip the Vatican entirely.

Frank's idea might work, if you're looking for a cheaper option - You can take the train in (about an hour) and get off at San Pietro (near the Vatican and walk across Rome to Termini and the return train to Civit.... Along the way you will walk pass or visit briefly the Piazza Navona, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, swing down and hit the Roman Forum, the Coliseum and on to Termini. You can grab some street food and a couple of restroom stops and your time is done.

You can see the outside of these monuments, but that's about it. And that's a lot of walking on uneven surfaces, cobblestones etc., dependent upon the fitness of the group. If you could pick either the Coliseum / Forum OR Vatican Museums & St Peters, that makes it almost do-able. (Note both of these only work with pre-paid tickets or you're going to get stuck in huge lines and see very little.) The Pantheon also requires tickets, best to get them ahead of time if you want to see interior.

There are golf cart tours of central Rome, they could pick you up & drop you off at Roma Termini, the main train station. That would save on trying to figure out how to get around & you would get to see the ancient center.

If you get back to us with more details, day of week, ages, what the top picks out of your list are, perhaps there are ways to maximize your short time in Rome!

If you just ‘see’ the sights, then I think you will be o.k. But if you want to go into the colosseum, forum, and st peters, you will have trouble. And the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Museum forgetaboutit !

You might want to comsider a couple of churches that are along the way, for example St Peter in Chains which has Michelangelo’s Moses

hey hey david
this schedule is overkill to expect that much to do with 8 people (adults & kids (ages if so). some sites will need prebooked tickets to order from site, fees being charged. many places are pedestrians only, all the places you're hoping to see will be crowded since that's where everyone wants to go and see, long lines, including cruise ship passengers.
when does cruise get to port, how early can your group get off, how many other ships are in port when departure time?
(cruisemapper.com)
click ports, name of port (rome), click date to january 2025, click your date and see how many ships in port
will be waiting for shuttles to rome (i would book a taxi/shuttle for your 8). years ago we had a huge kerfuffule getting to our cruise ship. staying in piazza navona had a HUGE student protest closing all the streets/alleyways, cops "carboneria" with guns/rifles/swat tanks all over. walked around looking for a taxi, found one for 140E for 2 of us and took 1h20m. just watch your time you have in rome and getting back to ship, several of our passengers missed the ship and had to flew to barcelona for board. it was UGLY.
look at golf cart tours, make sure of date and time, how many people allowed on cart, plus what is 'affordable" mean to you?
sorry to sound like deloris downer but this is like fitting a round peg in a square hole, cut back on places to see and what's important to you. i would dropped off the vatican (too many people, wait times. we waited almost 2 hours and i said no way, left and went to another beautiful church with the priest standing outside, asked to take picture with him, kissed my forward/blessed me and friend took picture and he became my "pope" for the day.
hope all works out for you and enjoy the cruise
aloha

I was just in Rome for 5 nights (4 days). Skip Piazza Navone; all 3 fountains are under restoration. Looking thru the barrier windows, you will on see scaffolding around the fountains. It feels like the whole central city is under construction or restoration to get ready the next year’s Jubilee.
Unless you just want a drive-by tour, for the time you have, you want to narrow your list down, perhaps to one major site and one minor site.
I don’t have a guide to recommend. Perhaps look at RS guide book for suggestions. Or look at tours, such as Walks of Italy or the Roman Guy.

I took a ship's excursion (by bus) from Civitavecchia which visited the Colosseum, the Vatican Museums, and St. Peter's Basilica with a guide. IIRC it was a very full day and it wasn't inexpensive.

As some others said I would drop the Vatican altogether, you simply don’t have time for it. My recommendation would be to do the Colosseum and Forum and then with whatever remaining time you have (which may not be much depending on how much you linger and absorb what you’re learning about), I would do the Rick Steve’s Heart of Rome walk (free audio guide). It’s an hour long, of course will take longer depending on your speed of walking and how much you linger at each place, but it will get you to see most of the other things you mentioned. If you’re really short on time pick the things on that route that interest you and skip whatever doesn’t.

You mentioned you’ll be there in January, so would give yourself a short list of indoor activities in the event of cold/inclement weather. Some suggestions include Basilica Santa Maria Maggie (one of the 4 papal churches to give you your “church” fill since you won’t have time for St. Peter’s), Domus of Palazzo Valentini (indoor and has light show recreations of what the ruins looked like in antiquity, may be of interest to your kids too),
Basilica San Clemente (multi layer church where each layer down is older than the next), and cappuchin crypt (may be too eerie for the kids but it’s a place decorated with tons of bones/skeletons).

To be clear I’m not suggesting you do ALL of those things. Just ideas in case you need some indoor activities. By the way if the weather is truly terrible would recommend you skip colosseum/forum and do only Vatican museum (basically opposite of my above suggestion haha). But if the weather is nice and you only have time for one, would do the colosseum and forum.

David, it has been over ten years since your previously posted. Nothing has changed. It still works best with a little conversation -- back and forth. We have asked some questions. It would be nice to have a response so that we could better shape our answers to met your questions. Lets hear from you.