Rome by Night Walking Tour

What an awful experience I had with Viator! I only gave it one star so that I could write this review. The trip was cancelled due to there being too few participants. OK, that was understandable. Unfortunately, Viator or it’s subcontracted service provider decided to book me (and a friend) on a food tour of Rome. I absolutely did not want this, and tried to respond to the text I received, but due to the complications of phone plans and SIM cards, the texts did not go through. I could see that, so I sent a message to PayPal to stop payment. After that, I received messages from the service provider, saying that I had to reject the offer on a specific form by a specific hour that day, even though I had rejected it through PayPal. By the time I received this instruction, the hour had passed. I filled out the form anyway, which stated that 0 of my $90 would be refunded. I received another message from the subcontractor, which I answered, and from Viator, which I answered. I had to explain the situation no fewer than five times - and then I got a message from Trip Advisor wondering what happened. This is nuts. I am on vacation. I signed up for a tour. The provider canceled it. Why should I not have my payment reimbursed? Why is the onus on me to reject the unrelated tour that I was placed into? This is one of the worst business practices that I have ever experienced. I truly hope that I’ll find my payment reimbursed soon. So far I’ve heard nothing about it.

This tour was cancelled at the last minute we were offered a food tour in replacement. But as we had a Castro tour on the first night decided not to take the alternative. And we took the red bus night tour instead

Seeing the sights at night was beautiful except as the brochure stated, we were very disappointed not to see the Colosseum at night as that was one of our main objectives! Could not hear or understand our guide so did not know what we were looking at. Wish we would have had earbuds with amplifiers like many tours have.

Your guide unprepared and did not give details of the sights, we did not see the Spanish steps as advertised. The tour was advertised for 3 hours, it lasted one and one half hour. He left us stranded after the tour without any idea how to get to the starting point Very disappointed

Catia was very knowledgeable. She did a great job of showing us Rome. She also gave us some recommendations for places to eat. Really enjoyed her tour.

My son and I had a fabulous walking tour of Rome in the early evening led by our wonderful guide Irene Amedeo. Our tour was slightly different than the one listed here on Tripadvisor - we did not do the Colosseum on our tour. However, we hit many of Rome's greatest sights, including the Piazza Navona, Spanish Steps, Pantheon and Trevi Fountain. We took many routes off of the "beaten path" including the criminally underrated Jewish section of Rome. Irene told many wonderful stories and made this a truly special experience for us. Irene showed special attention to my 12 year old son and made this an experience he won't ever forget. I cannot recommend enough taking a tour of Rome with Irene!

This was the best way to see and learn alot about Rome. Tour guide was excellent and very knowledgable. She included everyone and took her time.

Full disclosure, although difficult to find due to a rather chaotic meeting point, WE were 5 minutes late (our fault) and missed the tour. The complaint, however is that neither the TEXT or Phone number listed on our Viator confirmation for this tour were responded to when we called. Never...not even to this day. We called Viator who DID respond and seemed more focused on that fact that we were late. We would have been happy to catch up to the walking tour....happy to reschedule. Neither of these requests were honored. It is for this reason that I recommend avoiding this tour.

We are currently trying to get part of our money back on this tour because the first half of the tour was not acceptable: the bad quality radios and walking route along very busy main roads made it impossible to hear our guide even walking alongside her. So we didn’t learn a anything until we got to a quiet part of Rome for the second half of the tour.

I had great expectations as had just been on a wonderful tour in Florence but this one was lacking. The guide kept apologising when she took us the wrong way - she said “I’m so tired” on numerous occasions but we (as in the walking group) had been kept waiting first for the ear phones and then for the guide herself for over 30 mins. Then the tour was abruptly finished as most of the group dropped off... we were not back at the original meeting point and I was by myself! Her response was that it was “easy” to get back - I do not speak Italian and it was my first day in Rome - it was not “easy” to find my way home - especially in the dark. I felt she had other plans and really just wanted to get god if me. Not good! In saying all this - she was informative and when focused - knew her stuff!