u/mirr0rrim

This started about a week ago. In an effort to stop scalping bots from taking all the public tickets, forcing you to hire a third party tour guide, these unapproved tour companies are intermittently being denied access to the Colosseum.

This is NOT about tour companies lying saying they have tickets for you but at the last minute cancelling because they couldn't buy any. This is about the Colosseum only allowing third party tour guides' tickets to be used if they are on an approved list.

List here:

https://colosseo.it/en/2026/01/list-of-accredited-partners-april-2026/

Because this enforcement is so new, there are mixed results. If you get lucky and the Colosseum employee is feeling generous, you'll still get in (just without your guide). However others have not been so lucky and they were denied entrance and had to get in line to buy new tickets. If you buy on location, you will NOT get to buy underground, attic, or arena tickets. Just general access.

Some tour companies are warning a week in advance, others 1 day, and even worse some say nothing til you show up.

Highly recommend checking this list or contacting your tour guide. If you don't see your guide, they might still be approved, it's just their parent company is listed and they fall under that umbrella.

Edit: this is about the tour company's guide not being allowed entrance, but saying we can still enter with their tickets. However the language is very vague and results vary.

And I don't mean hard to get tickets like the Underground or Attic. We had Arena, Forum, and Palatine Hill guided tour tickets for tomorrow, 5/18 at 8:45am through Viator/Show Me Italy. A week ago they changed it to 11 which wasn't great for our schedule but we'd manage.

Then, with less than 24hrs notice, we received what is basically a cancellation email without saying so.

According to the tour company's email and some Internet research, the Colosseum has started enforcing the rule that only **approved** third party tour companies can enter the Colosseum.

Show Me Italy assured us that we can still enter. However they go on to say:

"Please note that access inside the Colosseum is not guaranteed. You may still try to enter; however, entry depends entirely on the current regulations and staff discretion on site."

I think this is a shady way of telling us "if you show up and get in line you have the chance to buy tickets for entry." So basically they have no tickets for us. They only offered us a 30% refund because they are "still able to provide a tour of the forum," but in my googling I saw other people say this was not true and both the guide and tour group members were not allowed entry at all.

People have been posting about this since a week ago, but our tour company conveniently waited until under 24hrs to notify us so that we couldn't get a full refund through Viator.

The tour company has not responded to me. I used Viator's live chat and got "sorry it's too late to cancel." I then called Viator's phone #: +1 702-648-5873 and after a few minutes she fully refunded us.

I know third party booking for the Colosseum is risky. I have been trying to get tickets through the official website since April. I managed to get last minute tickets for a different day that doesn't conflict with all of our other non refundable tickets but it's not at a great time. And no tour guide. I'm so annoyed that they didn't tell us yesterday so I could have had a chance to try this morning to get tickets for our ideal original time tomorrow.

Here is official list of approved third party tour companies:

https://colosseo.it/en/2026/01/list-of-accredited-partners-january-2026