We also took the WOI tour of the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and the Forum-including the underground.

I hated it. Our guide was a real dud, very repetitive, redundant, he had no spark, personality, humor or charisma. He was not in the right line of work as a tour guide. I also had trouble with understanding his very thick accent and had trouble with the headset. And the colosseum underground was the worst part.

-I don't think I'd miss much with the underground part even with an excellent guide though, it's just not that interesting to me.

Part of the colosseum tour was lead by a dedicated colosseum guide and she was great, I really enjoyed her and she brought it to life for me in the way I had hoped Walks of Italy would. But instead WOI put me to sleep!

Goodness, I'm relieved that I'm not the only one who didn't enjoy their WoI tour. After reading online reviews, I thought it was perhaps just me!

Huh. We used WOI in October 2013 for their Colosseum underground night tour because I couldn't get the official website to cooperate and it was one of the highlights of my husband's trip and I enjoyed it as well. Our headsets worked great and I thought it made it easier to hear him. I guess the guide is everything. We actually had two guides and I must admit the first one was better, but overall it was a great tour. We also really loved the experience at night. It just lended additional atmosphere somehow. I also loved that it was very uncrowned despite several tours happening simultaneously. Maybe we're easily pleased.

Cjar, I think "the guide is everything" is true. The guy we had was about the worst guide we'd ever had anywhere. But he was a nice guy, I hate even saying he was bad, because he certainly did try. Just not his talent.

"Maybe we're easily pleased" could also be a bit if that, I'm sure my husband would tell you I'm NOT easily pleased lol.

>>>I will take your advice and call.<<<

Or perhaps have your hotel call.

This has been the only tour I've taken where I was not pleased. I've done a number of other walking type tours--mostly with London and Paris Walks and City Guides in Paris--where I was really not satisfied. In every other instance I was able to hear and understand the guide easily. With the WOI tour, I simply could not hear or understand him, in part because of the headset but also because he was not a native English speaker AND he spoke to quickly and seemed to be out of breath a good bit of the time while we were walking, which added to our difficulty in understanding him through the headset. So after a while struggling with him and the headset, we just gave up and tuned out. I don't consider myself easily displeased, so I don't think in this instance it was a case of unrealistic expectations.

Oops; make that City Guides in San Francisco.

Indyhiker, I'm wondering if we had the same WOI guide. We have greatly enjoyed other walking tours as well. We did 5 of them just on our last European trip alone and loved every one of them.

BuffaloGirl - Did you take the Italian tour? How was it? Thanks