Rome - where to get tickets

[chickenpieandchips]

Sorry, head is spinning.
Taking kids (teens) to Rome in April. Looked at direct ticket sites for the Vatican and colosseum. Do I book direct? Do I get a tour (especially of the colosseum), do direct tickets from the authorised sites do tours or headphone things?
If not, can anyone recommend some teen friendly tours for there. Enough for the interesting facts, but not too long. There seems like loads of choice.
Any other places we should go. The church made from bones?? Not going to overload the itinerary and they won't want a tour of all the old sites so need a few great choices.
Thank you.
Staying near Ottaviano metro.

And thanks for the citymapper tip. Live in London so use it all the time.

Following as I'd love to go, but weighing up with ds being in gcse year and not wanting to go anywhere this year.

No problem. The cats live in a ruin which is a huge open space with glass borders at street level, the sanctuary is at the end towards Trastevere and is, I'm pretty sure, open between 12 and 2 but if you just take 15 mins between buses and look down into the ruin, you can usually spot at least 1 cat, especially towards the sanctuary end!

Sometimes they do late night entry to the Vatican Museums which is much less crowded - when I went they also had a free concert in one of the chapels, and by the end of the night I was the only one left in the galleries, it was amazing. Everyone always tries to go first thing in the morning but honestly 8pm is much better!

Hands down the best thing we did was the vespa tour - I drove , one kid on the back and one in a side car. You can also get a guide to drive.it was simply amazing - we saw so much and it was such fun zipping over cobbled streets.

They don’t accept photos - several people got turned away when we were there recently because they didn’t have original ID

We were in Rome last Easter. Booked tickets for the guided Vatican museum tour direct with the website. It took a lot of patience to get it to accept payment. I also booked the Colosseum direct with the Coop culture website and happened upon the night tour of the underground by luck. Keep checking back for tickets , availability is very erratic but the night tour was incredible especially as it was very limited numbers and so quiet . We went to the Scavi in 2016. Well worth it but it's very limited numbers, book well in advance and age restrictions for young teenagers.
Trastevere is well worth a trip as was the Sunday morning market.

Yes I’ve done the night tour of the Colosseum too and it’s definite worth it. Hardly anyone about & very atmospheric

I think those two are greyed out because can only book 30 days in advance. That's what the guy I finally got hold of over the phone today said anyway.

They did for my group!

If one were to apply national stereotypes one might say that sums up the general chaos of entry 😉

Whilst you are all being helpful what's the best way to get in from the airport (FCO). I'm right by the metro stop.

Placemarking! We're hoping to scream at the Sistine this summer too

No one ever mentiones the Baths of Caracalla on these threads about Rome. Dh and I went ten years ago and kind of stumbled upon it and it is immense, in both senses of the word, we had the place pretty much to ourselves too which was a welcome relief after the chaos of St. Peters. I think it was about a ten minute walk from the forum.

My only other advice is to wear your most comfortable shoes. I wore converse which was a massive mistake 🤣 I think we averaged 35k steps a day and by the last day I couldn’t feel my feet!

@chickenpieandchips I’ve only ever done taxi. It’s one price from the airport to within the city walls which isn’t particularly cheap these days but only 25 to 30 mins. I prefer to see where I’m going when I’m somewhere new.

I’ve used the bus from the car park outside the city too when we drove once. So cheap and the driver was lovely and helped us work out where to get off. If there’s a bus from the airport that could work.

Never used the metro. Too much to see up top!

Just put it into Google maps and the route will pop up. You get the airport train to Termini, then switch to the metro. It’s pretty seamless. We were in Rome last Sept for the Ryder Cup, and they’ve considerably upgraded transport options since my last visit.

@Oriunda it's suggesting some sort of coach link as first choice so I'll focus on working out the train or get a cab!

No, definitely get the airport train. On Google maps it’s listed as RV. Just the one stop to Termini. Terravision coach will come up too, but much better to loop straight into metro imho.

From Fiumicino there’s a train to Termini station, the Leonardo express, then metro. Or book a cab. The taxi fare to within the walls of Rome is a flat rate, but it jumps up once outside the walls, which might be only 100 metres away. You can prebook a car, ask your hotel. It tends to cost €45 instead of €60 odd. Or that was a couple of years ago. It can work out cheaper than 4 people getting the train.

We got a car organised by the hotel. Also they checked our passports for the night entry to the Colosseum and all the names had to match those on the online reservation.

Airport train is very straightforward-and significantly cheaper than a taxi!

I think a taxi is €48, so will check out that train.
Started watching one day last night. Some scenes in Rome and it did look lovely although rather tourist free!

Just to update, I managed to get official Colosseum tickets over the phone this morning, for 31 March. It took about an hour including several failed attempts to get through and then 25 mins on the phone itself. A lot of the tickets for the time I wanted were booked up already, and standard tickets are released in ten minute intervals. I wanted to include the arena and the underground bit but was told they were all gone and I'd have to try calling back in an hour, so at that point I just decided to go for whatever I was able to book as have spent more than enough time on this! Am glad to have it sorted but what a faff. Also happy to have paid just the official prices of EUR 18 per ticket. So, perseverance works eventually, but it's not easy!! Good luck to everyone else booking :)

Have things changed recently? I last went about a year ago, we turned up at the Forum, bought a ticket for both the Forum and the Colosseum and got into both. Or is it an Easter thing?

No, there has been no change.

There are also ticket sellers everywhere, selling tickets for same day tours.