tried again, waited 3’, got to the operator, slot is sold out.

tried again, waited 10’ and got cut out.

first call at call centre (especially dedicated to tour guides!), waited 4‘ and got cut out.

This is exactly how it went, with a clock in front of my eyes to be accurate. Slots end up in the hands of few companies that invest a lot on that (with some non totally transparent systems), pay somebody just for this job, and then overcharge you for something that formally should cost 24 euros per person (I found a rate of 278 euros for two people joining a group tour). It’s pretty clear a tour guide, or anybody else who is not doing this “calling activity” as a primary job, cannot get the underground slots. This morning I had no tours, I decided to be careful in documenting this frustrating activity and this is what I got (I called for each slot at every given hour). You try again and when you finally get to the operator, the slot is gone. Unfortunately this line keeps you on hold for minutes and systematically you get cut off after a while. Second option is calling an operator: as tour guides, we were granted a dedicated line, “how nice” one may think. Online tickets should “appear” and be on sale one month ahead on the exact time of the tour, this morning the little square in the calendar for May 29th went from grey area (not bookable) to red (sold-out ) without showing the green option for not even a minute.

Today (April 29, 2022) I decided to help some Italian friends to get these tickets, they live in Rome and have flexibility in day and time to attend such a tour, I thought this would make things easier.

Annually I make an attempt, to verify if the situation is still the same, sadly it’s getting always worse. We already tried to explain in another blogpost why it is so difficult to visit the underground sector of the Colosseum.

Call of the colosseum slot