Rome question on scheduling timed tickets

I can't answer all your questions. But, I'll do my best.
1). Forum/palatine hill/colosseum - at the forum, go to the side entrance along Via Di Fori Imperiali. Get your combo. ticket there. Do the forum first. Bring water. (RS guide helps.).
Colosseum is packed - long lines early in day. Go to Colosseum late in day (after 3 pm). There is a shortcut out the back of the basilica of Constantine to the colosseum - if you are close to it. Once at the colosseum - skip the ticket buying line. Take your combo. ticket and head straight to the security gate for admission. 1 hour is sufficient for colosseum unless you are doing a tour.
2). I had no problem with my family going out the back side of Sistine Chapel to St. Peter's. It's well worth a polite try.
3). Borghese - I would purchase tickets online in advance. You need to present your tickets and check your bags at the ground-level/gift shop area first. Then you go back outside and up the steps to the front door of Borghese. Visits to the Borghese are timed. I believe you have to leave after 2 hours. No need to rush. You are allotted adequate time for a steady paced visit. Take your time. You need to reserve your time slot at ticket purchase.

Thanks Sunbaked! Exactly what I needed.

So I think we'll do the Forum/Colosseum the afternoon we arrive. A 4:30 Colosseum ticket would allow 2+ hours for the forum and up to to two for the Colosseum. My husband and I can take turns and rush our visits, as we've seen both before and our friends can take their time, savor, and enjoy.

Vatican breakfast early entrance Monday, then St. Peters, then explore whatever else without an agenda.

Borghese Gallery Tuesday morning. Then we have the afternoon and evening to not be scheduled.

1). Forum/palatine hill/colosseum - at the forum, go to the side
entrance along Via Di Fori Imperiali. Get your combo. ticket there

Karen, I'll disagree with this option because at the time you purchase your ticket at the Forum, you will have to choose (or be assigned) an entry time for the Colosseum from whatever slots that day which are not fully booked, and it's possible for all slots - or the ones you want, anyway - to already be full. The random walk-in method to the Colosseum with a pre-purchased ticket from Forum/Palatine went out the window earlier this year.

To be sure of making your same-day strategy work, pre-purchase Colosseum tickets from the coopculture site: you will have to choose a open time slot from whatever late-afternoon slots are currently left.

Just some some backup....

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g187791-i22-k12884927-Colosseum_entry_time-Rome_Lazio.html
https://www.rometoolkit.com/whattodo/colosseum.htm#tickets (ignore the ads for tours)

With your reserved entry ticket, you will still need to pass through the security-check queue so be there 15 minutes or so before your scheduled time. The piece that I'm not completely sure of is being able to visit the forum FIRST with your pre-purchased general-entry tickets but Rick seems to think that's OK (see guidebook updates: https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/italy/guidebook-updates.) Where that method is reported NOT to work is if you have a coopculture Colosseum tour booked: then you can only visit the Forum/Palatine AFTER your tour.

Lots has changed for accessing this attraction this past year, and more changes are coming for November.

I’ll add some current information too. Last month when we got to the Borghese with our timed ticket reservation we went downstairs to exchange the printout for our actual tickets. We had arrived about 1/2 hour early and there was no line at the ticket counter for our 11 AM appointment. We sat down and had a snack at the cafe, used the toilets, etc. The audio guide and bag check counter are right there too. At about 10:45 we noticed people starting to stand near the double doors which lead upstairs into the gallery so we got in line, about 10 people back from the doors. At 11 they opened the doors and up we went.

We too were expecting to have to go back outside and line up for entering but this wasn’t the case for us last month.

RS says one can “sneak” from the Sistine Chapel” into St Peters through a shortcut. We did this in 2013, but have you had success with this in recent years?

You can try, but when I was there with a guided Vatican tour, there were two guards at the "back entrance" to the stairs after exiting The Sistine Chapel. They may or may not stop you. With the hordes of people jamming to get out and down, it could be hard to keep track of.

Last July I (re)visited the Vatican Museums, they were controlling tickets of people getting out of the chappel.

Kathy,
Thank you for the colosseum update. Aarrgh! Italy is a great country to visit - but I fear the tourists (like us) are loving it to death! Makes traveling more difficult; access to certain sites is not so easy anymore.
Italy offers visitors so much. There are still plenty of things to see with easy entry (i.e. Sopra Di Minerva church, etc..). I just hate some of the recently placed barricades and heavier security. Breaks my heart a bit. (Example: St. Francis Basilica in Assisi)

The "Sistine Chapel short-cut" we used is this. The wall opposite the altar side. There is a doorway going to a corridor. Walk through the corridor. This leads you outside the building. (NO rentry into museum at this point.). Once outside - you are very close to the stairs/lift for the dome climb (fee for this). And/or, you can just take a rather short walk to the front doors of St. Peter Basilica. This saves you from having to get in line and go through security again (about 1 hour of time just for that). I don't know of an inside passageway into the Basilica. Consider your trek through the Vatican museum as a one-way trip. Don't bring any large bags with you. Checking and retrieving a bag would be very difficult and not worth it! No bags and 1 water bottle is better. A tiny bag (not a backpack) is doable.

ARG! is right, Sun-Baked! The ramp-up in tourism has necessitated so many entry changes to the most-visited sites this year, and the Colosseum is particularly frustrating. That site is difficult to wade through to begin with - TONS of text - and the constant changes can be tough to spot and tough to decipher as they're not always very clearly explained; understandably, there can be some translation awkwardness from Italian to English.

I'm about ready to throw in the towel trying to keep a thumb on that one as they can throw a wrench in the machinery since providing someone what WAS correct information just a few days prior to yet another change. Additionally, the ticketing piece of the site appears to be totally down this morning (is for me, anyway) or I'd provide Karen with the exact page link she needs for pre-purchase! 😡

Walk through the corridor. This leads you outside the building. (NO rentry into museum at this point.). Once outside - you are very close to the stairs/lift for the dome climb (fee for this). And/or, you can just take a rather short walk to the front doors of St. Peter Basilica.

If I recall, this is how our Vatican Museums guide took us out and to the front doors (terrace) of St. Peter's Basilica. We walked down many stairs, through corridors and out and around to St. Peter's.

Thanks for all the tips.

I was able to book the Vatican early breakfast entry, but only after a couple attempts with purchase being blocked. Called Chase, said they show no attempt (heard this before) and asked to be connected to Verify Visa. They changed a setting after verifying it was me, and waited why I tried again and purchase went through. I said I was purchasing additional tickets on line, and they said they'd "approve all purchases for 24 hours". Even though Chase has my travel alert, Verified visa did not, so I updated countries and dates.

And booked the Colosseum tickets for 4:30pm, no problems. Borghese tickets are not available yet for October, I'll keep checking.

Excellent, Karen! Except for the Borghese (yep, I'm monitoring that thread too) it sounds like you're all set. You may or may not be able to use the back passage to basilica from Sistine if your breakfast entry doesn't include a guided tour but you could try. What option did you choose?

Thing is, if you booked without a guided tour (the "open tour" option) you're going to want to make a beeline to the Sistine as soon as they allow you to do so and THEN backtrack to the rest of the museums, if you're wanting to see other parts too. By the time you'd backtrack AGAIN to the Sistine to try and use that passage, it's likely to be a time-consuming zoo both in the chapel and the hallway leading to it.

Rules recently changed on entering St. Peter's from the Sistine Chapel. The shortcut is now restricted to tour companies. Check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFU3SGEQ0cA