Security in Rome

Skip the line has always referred to skipping the line to buy tickets. There has been a security line at the Colosseum and other major attractions for years not just the last two months. This situation has been described frequently on this site. If you didn't have the pass you would have waited in the ticket line and then the security line. If you had spent some time on this site earlier you would have been aware of the procedures.

Thank you for that information, Frank. If you all were aware of this, then why wasn't it mentioned in the RS Italy Guidebook (2016) which we have been studying exhaustively? I asked our tour guide how long there had been these security screenings (putting bags through detectors, etc), and she told me about two months.

Last October there was security screening in the form of a visual bag check for anything larger than a mini-purse, but no metal detectors. So yes there have been security checks for a long time, but they are more rigorous now---appropriately so.

I had the Roma Pass and used it for the Colosseum (this was in Fall of 2014, so not recent) and they did have a very minor security check, but for all intents and purposes, there was "no wait," we just walked through a turnstile and that was it.

There has indeed been security checks at the Colosseum for awhile but checks everywhere can become more stringent - or be added to a site which previously didn't have them - depending on the current national/local security situation. Since the incidents in Paris and Belgium, I would imagine that they've gotten tighter. Rome has also been on the alert list for awhile.

As these sorts of situations tend to be fluid, they're not sorts of things which can be up-to-date in a guidebook; forums like this one are probably the best places to keep a handle on current situations.

"Skip the line" passes or tickets only apply to ticket lines; everyone has to go through the security queues.

Skip the line tickets means just that- you skip the lines, the ticket lines. There is no way to skip the security lines, with or without a romapass or pre-purchased tickets.

In the last few months they have instituted airport type security screening at the colosseum. There has been security screening for a few years now but since the recent terrorist attacks they have stepped up the screening by adding the scanners. This is one of the reasons this information is not in any of the guide books yet, it's just too new for it to have made the most recent additions.

Donna

This has become a huge problem recently. I encountered it last month and reported it here. The only way to get a short wait is to take a guided tour as you did, and those freelancers are cleaning up. I don't think the Rick Steves has had time to experience this latest change/slowdown. I highly recommend to our visitors that they arrange a tour before they arrive, preferably with a private guide or a well-regarded company.

The security screens may have added a little time but not much from the sounds of it. We were there last year and 40-45 minutes was about average to go through security so I can understand it might be frustrating if you have cut it fine and it is an hour instead. We cut it a little fine last year allowing 45 minutes because we spent so long choosing our gelato (apparently one of everything isn't suitable) but these queues have been like this for quite a while.

Thanks, slavender. The issue is not so much the time (we're retired), but the ability to stand in a line for 45 minutes. We are older and slightly disabled, yet generally manage to get around reasonably well. We want to conserve our walking/standing strength for the sights. By purchasing a group tour, I got in in about 15 minutes, with useful information being supplied along the way; my spouse had to sit it out as he was not up to even the tour. When there are places to sit along the way, that is a great help to us.