which tickets for vatican? coliseum?

Colosseum entry tickets /tours are all timed-entry, which helps somewhat with crowd control. This is the official ticket seller:

https://www.coopculture.it/en/city/rome/

Tickets currently being released on a 30-day rolling schedule so probably aren't available yet for your May dates. Once released, you shouldn't have an issue getting a timed-entry, no-guided tour ticket but any tour/ticket which includes the underground commonly sells out within minutes, and you can't access that part independently. There are 3rd parties which offer tours as well, assuming THEY can get underground tickets.

Vatican? Also timed-entry, and I'm seeing that slots for general-entry tickets and some of the tours for the month of April and some of May are already sold out for many dates so things are definitely heating up there. Early-entrance tours generally get you into the Sistine before the worst of the mob but how busy the post-Sistine tour route will be in May is a best guess. Based on ticketing sales, I'd guess pretty busy.

If you are going to be in Rome on a Friday or Saturday, there is the option of going during seasonal late openings: 6:00/18;00 - 8:00/20:00 pm entry time slots, although I wouldn't choose the latest of the slots so that you have enough time: the museums close at 10:30 pm. Not all of the museums may be open (not sure but that's been the case in the past) but the Sistine and other most visited of them will be. The crowds might be a bit thinner during these later hours.

https://tickets.museivaticani.va/home

I take it that by "Vatican" you mean the Vatican Museums (including the Sistine Chapel). There have been reports recently that the Museums are not as packed as they were pre-COVID, but it's hard to know what will happen between now and the time of your trip. I believe tourism in Rome typically picks up a lot around Easter.

A few weeks ago I put together a summary of the ticket types for the Vatican Museums offered by the Vatican itself:

• Regular admission from 9 AM: €21; audio guide €7. On Friday and Saturday the museums are open late.
• Prime Experience at 7:30 AM includes 2-hour tour and breakfast. €63; audio guide (€7) might be available if wanted.
  
• Breakfast Visit at 7:45 AM. Includes breakfast then access to museum, €39; audio guide €7.
  
• Extra Time Sistine Chapel at 3:45, beginning in early May. Includes tour and happy hour; €61; audio guide (€7) might be available. (I think this isn't available on Friday and Saturday.)
  
• Vatican Gardens tour with Museum entry included: Two hours on foot. Reserve ahead. €34. English tours begin at 8:30, 9:00 or 9:30 AM and include Sistine Chapel, not necessarily every day of every week. Tours seem to go to gardens first then to parts of museums (incl Sistine Chapel), so museum visit would be during maximum-traffic period.

I am guessing the "Extra Time Sistine Chapel" tour extends late enough that by the time you reach the Sistine Chapel, it is closed to other visitors. However, the first 90+ minutes of the tour, while the Museums are still open, you will presumably be part of a mob. I think the value of this opportunity depends to a considerable degree on how interested you are in the rest of the Museums.

I haven't been to the Vatican Museums since they became crowded, so I don't even know what they were like just prior to the pandemic, much less now. My take is that going on Friday or Saturday in the late afternoon and staying until the museums close is probably the best-value proposition. If you're more a morning person, the two early-entry opportunities--one with a tour, one without--may be the best for you.

There are private companies offering early-access tours in the morning, but they all seem to be quite a bit more expensive than the Vatican's offerings.

I can't tell you anything about the Colosseum except that you may find tours covering extra parts of the Colosseum sold out pretty far ahead of time.

does anyone know what time the coliseum opens up tickets for the next day? Like midnight Italian time?

And thanks for the informative replies Kathy and acraven. Kathy, thanks for helping me as you've helped many others in the past.
acraven, I saw the earlier post you mentioned and hope you have a good time when you visit the Vatican this month.

I will be in Rome for many days including a Friday so I'm between paying extra to go before it officially opens or following acraven's advice and maybe getting a ticket for like 5:30 pm which should give me plenty of time before things close at 10:30 pm. I know some things close for the evening as Kathy said but hopefully 5:30 is still early enough to catch them? Any advice on that is greatly appreciated.

I'm curious about the early closings within the museums, too. I'd think those wouldn't start happening until after 5:30, since the regular closing time (other days of the week) is 6 PM. However, that's a hope based on zero information. What I've done in London, where some of the museums have late hours that don't apply to the entire facility, is ask the folks at the information desk what's going to happen so I can make sure I see places important to me before they close. However, I read (somewhere...) a recent reference to a one-way path through the Vatican Museums. I hadn't heard about that before, so I assumed it was COVID-related. Of course, now that I'm trying to find that info again, I'm coming up empty-handed.

I did uncover this website that has potentially useful information: https://freetoursbyfoot.com/sistine-chapel-vatican-museums/. That page is dated October 2021, so it's not absolutely up to date.

The Vatican Museum website doesn't note which, if any, parts are closed for 2022 late openings but I wouldn't worry about it. With 9 MILES of combined stuff in the collection, there's no way you could do it all in even a full day!

Walks of Italy's Friday and Sat. night tours note that they visit the Raphael Rooms, Belvedere Courtyard, Pinecone Courtyard, Gallery of the Candelabra, Gallery of the Maps, Gallery of the Tapestries and the Sistine. The Roman Guy's tours on the same evenings note all of those plus Pio-Clementino collection and Borgia Apartments so I'd guess all of those areas listed would be open to all visitors. Who knows, maybe the whole enchilada will be open late this year but that hasn't been the case so far.

Maybe someone who has booked a Fri. or Sat. general-entry evening visit this month can chime in after they've done it. 🤞

does anyone know what time the coliseum opens up tickets for the next
day? Like midnight Italian time?

Ooops, I see that I skipped over this question but am sorry to say that I don't have an answer for you; the coopculture website used to state what time of day online tickets sales opened but aren't doing that right now. As I said above, I don't think you'll have any trouble landing non-tour, timed-entry tickets (no underground access) for the day you want to visit; just check 30 days in advance of that day. For instance, I see plenty of tickets still available for time slots TODAY so they're not selling as quickly as the two economical options which include the underground. Those are the ones that are next to impossible to get.

But if it makes you feel better about? I've seen the Colosseum twice and neither time visited the underground as it wasn't open to visitors back then. Did I feel I missed anything? No. As long as that lower level remains half uncovered by the reconstructed arena floor, you can see down into it; you'll probably view more of it than if you were down below. That's just my personal take on it; others may feel differently. :O)

So, your most possible ticket options are:
Timed entry with no tour/no underground/no arena floor:
https://www.coopculture.it/en/products/ticket-colosseum-roman-forum-palatine_24h/

Timed entry with audio guide/no tour/no underground/no arena floor::
https://www.coopculture.it/en/products/audioguide-of-the-colosseum-with-ticket-colosseum-roman-forum-palatine-imperial-forum_h24/

And I see tickets which include access to that partial reconstruction of the arena floor also aren't selling like hotcakes:
https://www.coopculture.it/en/products/full-experience-ticket-with-access-to-the-arena-of-the-colosseum/

But another option is to book an educational tour of the Colosseum, Forum + Palatine. Those are only available right now through 3rd parties, such as Walks of Italy, The Roman Guy and some other companies RS posters have recommended. Yes, these options cost more but the Forum and Palatine are complex sites which benefit from a professional's guidance. Some of those tour options do include the Colosseum underground, and evening tours of the Colosseum + underground are available as well. Just a couple of resources to get you started:

https://www.walksofitaly.com
https://theromanguy.com/tours/italy
https://www.througheternity.com/

does anyone know what time the coliseum opens up tickets for the next day? Like midnight Italian time?

So I spent the last couple of weeks closely monitoring the coopculture website to see if I could figure it out and make sure I could snag underground tour tickets direct from the source.

The short answer is that not all the tickets update at the same time, but the English language tour tickets go up at 1:30 AM PT/10:30 AM Italy time.

The longer answer is that now that we are entering the shoulder season/soon peak season, the tickets all seem to be either pre-sold to third party tour vendors or are being poached by ticket-buying bots, because even if you refresh the page at exactly the minute the tickets allegedly become available, they will already be sold out.

I was not able to buy tickets through coopculture for my own trip and ended up booking through a third party vendor for considerable markup. It seems very unfair, but c’est la vie.

Editing: Oops, sorry, Kat, as I see that it was the coopculture Underground Tour you were trying to buy.

Yes, it's pretty much the hottest ticket in Rome and they sell out at warp speed. Still, there are tickets for other options still available for tomorrow so it's not as if people can't get inside the Colosseum at all.

Kathy, yes— I was primarily responding about the underground since that and the arena tour are really the only ones worth worrying about timing of ticket sales for. The regular admission always seems to have plenty of slots available.

Thank you for the excellent info on this post. I am also trying to visit the Vatican with reduced crowds and hassle. I have a 12 and 14 year old, so anything to reduce crowds to improve their experience is worth the effort. Also, I don't want to be on a tour, as I think my children will get tired of being on a tour.

I was thinking an evening visit to the Vatican was going to be my best choice, but I'm not sure it's going to be less crowded. I'll be visiting at the end of June, and based on the April Friday evenings being sold out, I have to assume the late June Friday evenings will also be sold out. Therefore, I would assume, if it's sold out, the museum will be at max capacity, even in the evenings. Does this logic make sense? Or do they sell less tickets in the evening? Am I missing something about the evenings being better?

Also, are there any early entry tix that aren't tours? If so, what is it called? Thank you!

We are going to the Vatican on a Saturday night in June and there are plenty of evening tickets. We opted for the Happy Hour option but there are still both available. Check exactly 60 days before you want to go. They don't seem to sell out that quickly, I can see tickets for several weekends before ours as well.

This is what the Vatican is calling its early-access option that doesn't include a tour:

Breakfast at the Museums - Admission ticket and Breakfast at the Museums

I see that this option is sold out for at least some mornings in June, so you may not be able to get those tickets now. The cost is 39 euros, plus 7 euros if you want the audio guide. You don't have to get the audio guide, but I think without a tour it would be important.

I see that even the late entries are sold out for at least the next two weekends. I don't know whether they sell as many tickets for those periods as earlier in the day, but your question is definitely a valid on.

Even if each time slot has the same number of tickets available, I think conditions might be better in the evening because some folks who have those tickets might be too tired to tackle the Museums after a full day of sightseeing, and some might poop out after only an hour or so. That's just my speculation, obviously.

In three weeks, we fly out for our second trip to Italy. During our last visit, we realized we're not very good at tours. For that trip, we booked a Colosseum tour and an expensive early entry Vatican tour. When we checked in for our Colosseum tour, CoopCulture told us it was cancelled, refunded most of the money but let us in the backdoor without a group or audioguide. It was just fine and made us realize we don't really need tours. A few days later, the Vatican tour was still quite crowded and for some reason didn't give us actual early entry. Maybe the tour worked for others but not for us. This time, we've booked basic Vatican tickets with an audiotour. While you do book a timeslot, the ticket is for entry on THAT day. When we get to the Vatican, we'll wander around at our own speed and I'm not sure the crowds could be worse. Like every venue, I'm sure there are ebbs and flows to the traffic that we can take advantage of.

Everybody has their own vision for their travel experience. Learning what works for you is important. Contrarians that we are, if we never have to follow another flag again, we'll be happy women. We might not get every tidbit about where we're at but we're good with that. We're downloading a lot of Rick Steves guides and that should see us through.

Thank you for your replies!

For the Vatican... I agree that even if they sold the same number of tickets, it could be a bit less crowded in the evening due to the pooped out tourist factor. Also, I'm a bit confused about the Vatican breakfast without a tour. I'm not sure they let you into the museum early. They just give you breakfast before the museum opens, and then let you in at the regular admission time. Am I correct?

For the Colosseum... My family also does not really like to be on a tour. But my family REALLY wants to see the underground of the colosseum. I'm not sure, but I believe the underground of the Colosseum can only be accessed with a tour. If not, the tickets sell out so fast, that they are impossible to get. Am I wrong? Any ideas on how to see the Colosseum underground without a tour? Or at a reasonable price with a tour?

Thank you for the help!!!

mkydon, here's the deal....
You will be visiting Rome during high season, and you will be dealing with crowds at the tourist-magnet sites. It's unavoidable. How dense those crowds will be is up to anyone's best guess but I'm seeing reports of long queues at most-visited sites which don't require or offer timed-entry reservations. As no one here has been to Rome in late June after 2 years of COVID lockdowns or travel restrictions of one sort of another, no one can tell you for sure what sort of experience you'll have at the Vatican Museums for either early entrance, or for a Fri. or Sat. late entry. Personally? All I can tell you is what I might do myself....which would be a Fri or Sat. late entry. There appears to be plenty of those tickets left for the first weekend in May so they're not selling as fast as, say, the two coopculture tickets which include the underground.

Also, I'm a bit confused about the Vatican breakfast without a tour.
I'm not sure they let you into the museum early.

The breakfast-without-tour option gets you in at 7:45, according to the ticketing info. That gets you in for the meal; not to skip it and enter the rest of the museums; I'm not sure if you're allowed to do that after you're done eating or not. Early entrance tours get in anywhere from 7:15 to 8:00; those which include breakfast do the meal AFTER their tour, when other tours + general public have already been let in. So, you see, the tours are already going to have a head start. For most folks, the biggest reason for early entrance is to get into the Sistine before it's a zoo in there; it is, BTW, on the far end of the museums, and anywhere from a 20-30 minute walk from the entrance. Early entrance tours beeline there first and then tackle other parts of the museums; it's that head-start thing again.

Probably not what you wish to hear but it really doesn't sound like your teens are all that jazzed about the Vatican to begin with? Honestly, if you go without some sort of tour, audio guide or something to tell you what you're looking at, you won't, well, know what you're looking at. Tours also shepherd visitors directly to some highlights through what can be confusing corridor routes. Your choice - you don't HAVE to do it at all if the family isn't into it - but again, if it were me this year, I'd go for an evening opening after an early dinner. Will it still be really busy? Might and might not but I'd personally take the chance.

Any ideas on how to see the Colosseum underground without a tour? Or
at a reasonable price with a tour?

You cannot access the underground independently. "Reasonable price" is subjective; the most inexpensive tickets are two offered by coopculture (one which involves a guided tour, and one which is an "accompanied" visit) and the difficulty of landing either one has been addressed above. Coopculture used to have a night tour which included the underground and was very reasonable in price but so far it's not an option this year. Most tours offered by outside companies which include the underground run far more than coopculture's - probably becuase it's difficult for THEM to acquire time slots - and people have been willing to pay the price for what they most want to see. While your family doesn't enjoy tours, many others do and view the additional guidance through the Palatine and Forum, when included, as a benefit.

You might be interested in what some of the outdoor attractions in Rome are looking like, crowd-wise, on these live cams, such as the tourist numbers at Trevi and the line-up at the Pantheon? The Spanish Steps camera is currently offline but maybe it'll be back.
https://www.skylinewebcams.com/en/webcam/italia/lazio/roma.html

Hopefully, we'll be hearing more on the crowd situation from forum posters returning from Rome (Venice and Florence) as the season progresses! :O)

I want to re-emphasize what Kathy said: You don't have to go to any particular sight. I have been to Rome twice and haven't set foot in the Colosseum. I am not remotely interested in it, so I've spent my time doing other things. I'd skip the Vatican Museums in a heartbeat if I didn't like art (which I do) or feel some sort of religious imperative to see the Sistine Chapel or other parts of the Museums (which I do not). Try to plan your days around things that will give your group joy. Visiting a sight, especially one that is sure to be at least crowded, if not massively crowded, out of a sense of duty is not going to be a joyful experience.

Thank you so much for the info! You guys are fantastic! I bought a tour for the Colosseum. My son is 14 and Loves Roman history. I asked him... Tour and Underground or No Tour and No Underground. He wanted the Tour with Underground! The tours seem to be selling pretty fast, so I grabbed a Thursday 9:30am tour which included the underground and forum. I'm excited and I think it will work out. I didn't want to wait until 30 days before we arrive and try to land a coop culture ticket. If I missed it (which I think was likely), and all the tours were sold out, we wouldn't be able to see the Colosseum underground, which my son has placed at the top of his list for Rome. So, I'm happy, even though it was pricey.

As far as the Vatican, my wife really wants to do that. So, I'm going to book Friday evening. We'll have an early dinner as Kathy has recommended, and then do our best with some downloaded tours. I love learning and showing my family new things, so it will be fun for me to prepare. I know it will be busy, but we'll just have to make the best of it. And if everyone is getting tired, we can just move quicker through to the Sistine Chapel. I think I'll get a 6:00pm ticket.

Thanks everyone! Now that I have that sorted out, I feel better. We have 3.5 days in Rome. I think the other days we won't work too hard. I'll try to pick 1 or 2 more things that my family really wants to do and not push it too much.

I think those are both great decisions. Please report back on how they work out for your family.

Will do. Thanks again for your help!

I looked at midnight central time zone last night and the English tour of the underground was not for sale yet. I checked at 10 or so this morning for 30 days our and it was sold out for 2 people.

mkydon, I think you made great decisions too! Will be looking forward to your report back! :O)

I am back and have feedback. Will post shortly.
The forum won't let me post my reply. I posted it, but it never showed up. Then when I try to post it again, it says that I've already posted it and can't do it again. Any ideas?

mkydon, were you trying to post it as a NEW thread either in the Italy forum or trip reports forum, or as a reply to THIS thread?

As a reply to this thread.

Because I wasn't able to post this as one post for some weird reason, I've posted it as 3. I hope this might help some travelers.

So, our trip was great. The tour with the Colosseum Underground, Palatine Hill, and Forum was well worth it! It was 3.5 hours, and we were all tired by the time it was over, but our guide was great. And since the Underground was my son's #1 request, we did it. Anyone who has the underground on their list, I would highly recommend booking a tour well in advance. The 9am start time was great. We were one of the first tours to enter the Colosseum, and it was not crowded while we were there.

As far as the Vatican, things also worked out perfectly! We arrived in Vatican city around 3:30 pm. We decided to go straight up the dome. We were wearing shorts and nice t-shirts and had no problem with entry. The wait wasn't too bad. We finished the dome (which was wonderful) and were back down and in the church around 5:15pm. We enjoyed the church and square, and started walking to the museum around 5:45 pm. We got to the museum around 6pm and our pre-purchased tickets worked great. We got right in with no wait. The museum had plenty of people, but we never felt crowded. We got to see everything we wanted. Even the Laocoon, which was top on my list, we were able to see without fighting people for good pictures. Finally, we got to the Sistine Chapel around 8pm. It was crowded, but not too bad. We never felt rushed, and my family of 4 was able to find spaces to enjoy ourselves. We spent about 15 minutes in the chapel and then headed out. Even though it was our last day in Rome, it was one of our best days. I highly recommend a Friday evening at the Vatican.

In addition to those, we went to the Capitoline museum, did a night time light show at the Ceasar forum, the Pantheon, Ara Pacis, Trevi Fountain, a few churches, a few squares, lots of walking, and plenty of pasta and gelato. We didn't do everything I wanted to do, but we had a great 4 days in Rome and I'm glad we didn't work harder to try to do everything.

Thanks for updating us on your experiences. Who did you use for the Underground tour in the end?

I assume the Vatican was direct with the Museum. Glad it all worked out.

I used the Tour Guy or Roman Guy for the Colosseum tour. And yes, I bought direct through the Vatican website for the museum. I bought the Dome tickets on site without a prior reservation.