Self-Guided Tour Colosseum Skip-the-Line Ticket

Dear Frankie, Thank you for the five-star review. As you saw, during high season and on national holidays the skip-the-line ticket is even more the best choice to avoid long queues and wait for ages to get inside the Colosseum. Getting inside as a group gave you the possibility to skip long lines and start as soon as possible your self-guided tour (which means that you’re on your own once inside). Kind Regards A&R

Dear Customer, thank you very much for taking time to post a review. We are so sorry to hear that the experience did not meet your expectations, and that you had to skip the visit to the Palatine Hill/Roman Forum. The Colosseum is one of the most visited monuments in the world and it welcomes thousands of people everyday. For this reason it has very strict entry procedures, it requires security checks and cannot welcome more than 3000 people at the same time. All these rules are provided by the Italian authorities to preserve the safety of both visitors and the monument itself. Unfortunately, it is impossible to predict the tourist flows in advance: then, some delays in entering the Colosseum may be experienced also by the skip-the-line ticket holders in high season or in the days of higher flows. All these warnings are clearly available on the tour page, before booking. You can check them even on your reservation voucher within the "Before you go" tips. Please be aware that, even if with a delay, the skip-the-line ticket is still the fastest way to access the Colosseum: non-owners have to queue with double waiting time. However, we always do our best to provide our customers with the best experience possible even when we have to face delays and other inconveniences. We are sad in this case we did not success, and we will keep in mind your comments to improve our service. Best regards, Ancient&Recent Staff

Dear Customer, Thank you for taking time to post a review. We are sorry your experience did not meet your expectations, but we would like to clarify the points you criticize. The tour you booked was a self-guided one. Please be aware that nowhere we say the self-guided tour includes a live guide. Contrariwise, as the name clearly states, it means that you only gain fast access to the Colosseum and then you are free to explore the monument by yourself. Our staff gives you general information on how to find your way around, helps you with the difficult entry procedures and escorts you inside. But there is no live guide, as if you want a guided tour you have to book the dedicated option. All these information are clearly available on the tour's page, before booking. You can check everything even on your reservation voucher. Furthermore, please be aware that our company neither provides nor rents audioguides. If you want you can get one inside the Colosseum, and you pay the extra-cost to the Colosseum's staff - not to our company. We are very accurate in giving our customers all the information on what they are booking and how does it works, and more than available in explaining what is not clear. For this reason, we regret you tagged our service as "poor advertising". However, we are sorry we did not success in satisfying your needs and we will surely use your comments to grow up. All the best regards, Ancient&Recent Staff

Dear Guest, We are sorry to hear that ! We are using the largest sign ever seen on the Colosseum square and the Arch of Constantine area, difficult to miss it! We are always available to answer also the emergency calls of our guests to guide them to reach the meeting point on time, even for who don't read carefully where is our meeting point! Regards.

Dear Customer, Thank you for taking time to post a review. We are deeply sorry to hear that the experience did not meet your expectations. We apologize with you if our staff arrived late at the meeting point. This is very strange because the team is very well trained, especially to be punctual. But we take customers' feedbacks very seriously, and if someone has made a mistake he will for sure respond for that. For the same reason, we have further investigated what happened on that day directly with the guide who was supervising your tour. The amount of waiting time at the meeting point is normally around 15 minutes: we always ask our customers to show up 15 minutes prior to the arranged time of the tour's departure. This is because, as you can realize, not all customers find the meeting location immediately because the area is very crowded and it hosts many different tour operators. Once the 15 minutes have passed, at the arranged time of departure, the guide leaves the meeting location with the group in order to reach the entrance of the Colosseum and start the entry procedures, that requires: documents check, children account, voucher exchange. These procedures are mandatory for everybody and even for the skip-the line ticket holders, as noted both in the tour's page and in your reservation voucher ("Before you go" tips). The day of your tour the Colosseum staff did not want to admitt a teenager of the group because in their opinion he should have been accounted within the adults, but he had actually booked a children ticket so he should have been included within the under-18. The total number of adults must correspond to the number on the voucher, while under-18 can be accounted apart. On that day we had no spots left for adults, so he would have been left outside if the Colosseum staff had not included him within the under-18 (as correct, since he was holding a children ticket). Our guide was trying to help him and his family to solve the misunderstanding: this is the reason why you saw her arguing, and checking the group members so many times. We understand that this may have caused a discomfort to you, and we renew our regret for this. Our guide acted only to avoid that a member of the group was unfairly left out from the Colosseum, as we always try to support all our customers without leaving anyone alone facing the complex entry procedures the monument requires. The amount of time you waited surely includes the meeting point (15 minutes), the entry procedures listed above (they cannot be skipped and we apologize again if on that day we had to face some unexpected issues) and the security checks inside the monument. About this last point we would like to clarify better. We will never stop to highlight that the Colosseum is one of the most visited monuments in the world: for this reason it requires mandatory security checks, and it also has strict limitations on the amount of people that can stay inside at the same moment (no more than 3000). Unfortunately, it is impossible to predict the tourist flows: then some slowdowns in entering the Colosseum may be experienced even by the skip-the-line ticket holders, during high season and in the days of higher flow. This unfortunately out of our control, because these norms (security checks and the '3000 people' rule) are provided by the Italian authorities in order to ensure the security of both the visitors and the Colosseum itself. It is also strange that our staff only gave you half an hour to visit the Colosseum: the Colosseum self-guided tour is 1 hour default, we never give less than 1 hour to spend inside (even in exceptional circumstances). Furthermore, we were not able to find similar complaints by the other members of your group. We work hard everyday to ensure our customer with the more enjoyable experience, but sometimes we have to face some unexpected issues that we cannot predict in advance and that are our of our control. Once again, please accept our sincere apologizes if the tour did not go smoothly as expected. Best regards, Ancient&Recent Staff