Wonderful all day experience, the vatican and guide were wonderful, colliseum was interesting although it would have been better if the guide had shown a bit more enthusiasm, we side tracked on the great rail system in rome to see the trevi fountain as an extra before getting the train back to florence.

I wish I could give this 0 stars. A total waste of money. Horrible co-ordination and instructions. First the landmark in the florence station to meet was a tiny board that you will find tough to fine. Then we reach. The person from the tour company arrives 15 mins late.We have only 15 mins left to catch the train to Rome. There was another elderly lady who was also waiting with us who was to come on the tour. Tour lady says she cannot find her name. After a while she figures it out and then says she was sleepy and that is why she is making these mistakes. Then she mumbles that she cannot do this. All this when we have 10 more mins left for the train and then we ask her shouldn't we start walking to the train. She says 'oh yes', hurries with out instructions packets and says 2 sentences and you will be fine. After we get down at Rome, we are totally on our own to get to the vatican. The tour company just has the train tickets in the packet. A different tour company provides the vatican tour and then again you are on your won to the Colosseum. I cannot stress enough. YOU HAVE TO FIGURE OUT EVERYTHING ON YOUR OWN. the instructions on the tour packet are USELESS.

My recommendation to do the exact same tour on your own by spending half the cost - Purchase all tickets ahead online
1. Get round trip train tickets from SM Novella station in florence to Rome ahead of time. Get an early morning train
2. Get a map of Rome and go to the via metro. Get a skip the line tour of Vatican, Sistine chapel , ST.peters
3. After this get lunch, take a metro to the Colosseum. Again get a skip the line tour ticket ahead of time.
4. You will have ample time to do other stuff after this. Enjoy Rome , get the metro to the train station to Florence.

YOU DO NOT NEED THIS EXPENSIVE TOUR if you follow the above.
Hope this helps!

We stayed in Florence but really wanted a chance to see Rome. This was one of the few trips from Florence to Rome that I was able to find. You meet a representative in the train station. We had a little bit of trouble finding them, so I had to call the number but they were able to direct us to the right place. The representative gives you everything you need for the day. It is your responsibility to get to each of the sites. But once we got to the Vatican and Colosseum, we had great experiences. We were really glad that we had a chance to see Rome and this made it very easy, just be ready to navigate to each place on your own. Skipping the line was great and these two sites were highlights of our trip!

Could not have done this trip without this tour. We were met at the train station in Florence, given the train tickets, metro passes, maps, everything we needed for the day. Travelled on the high speed alone, then the metro. A little tricky following the map from Rome metro station to the meeting place but found it. Tour guide was really great, got right into the Vatican with hardly a wait. Without the tour, the lines would be crazy. Very informative! Ran over time so needed to rush a little for lunch but it was a nice break then met the second tour at the Coliseum with a different tour guide. This tour was equally great. A lot to see in one day but it worked well for my son and I. Lots of walking but so worth it. Highly recommend!!

Our tour was great! It was a long day and very crowded at times but our tour leader was very well versed with history and interesting facts. She very accommodating and engaging.

Perfect if you only have one day and want to see Rome. It was a long day but worth it. We were met at the train station and given our train tickets for both the outbound and return trip, an all day Metro pass, a detailed instruction sheet and a map to the first meeting point. The instruction sheet listed all the Metro rail stops to take and what time to be where you need to be. I would suggest a couple needed additions to the instructions would be a map from the end of each tour back to the Metro station, and to the afternoon meeting point. If we hadn't had a phone with international service, we would have had a hard time finding the restaurant we were to meet our tour guide at for the afternoon tour.

Our tour guides at each location were great. We learned a lot of great information from them. I still can't believe I was at these both these places! This tour took care of all the planning, we bypassed the very long lines, and made it possible to see the top spots in Rome in one day.

I am sorry that this trip was not what I expected. It was not organized well.

This was the worst trip I have every gone on. First, I was expecting a tour from ciao Florence because that is the company viator sets you up with. This is not the case. They give you and envelope and basically say good luck navigating Rome by yourself! We ended up waiting in line for over an hour!