tuscanlifeedit

Ain't that the truth.

daveesl: I see no reason why the passes couldn't have been extended without any computer involvement at all. Just let people with passes have another day or two use of them. It really doesn't seem that big a deal. A simple announcement would have taken care of it.

Why not dispute the charge on your CC? You were sold a product that gave you access to transport and attractions. There was neither transport nor attractions. Get your money back.

kybourbon

I agree Tuscan. Dave bought a product from the city of Rome and they didn't provide it. It would have been different if he simply decided not to use the pass because the weather was iffy, but he didn't have the choice of using it.

If you bought a flight that was canceled because of weather, the airline would reschedule you. They wouldn't say too bad as the Rome Tourist Board seems to be.

Sheryn6

Hmmm sounds bad. So no Roma pass means we're better off purchasing Museum and site tickets individually?

A_Brit_In_Ischia

The answer to your question - a recurrence of that 'one-in-25-years' weather event aside - may depend on how much you value the other benefits offered by the Pass...

http://www.romapass.it/p.aspx?l=en&tid=2

If doing or needing none of those, this soon after the 2012 price increase, it's most unlikely to save you more than a few Euro as against paying as you go along.... although just having one has sometimes persuaded us to take a bus when we'd otherwise have hailed down a taxi!

Peter

Lexma90

Comment on the Roma Pass generally. We've visited Rome a number of times, and each time I price out whether we should purchase the Roma Pass, and each time it doesn't make economic sense FOR US. I'm not sure why - we always visit museums and places like the Forum, though we do tend to spend a lot of time in each place (as in, the entire day at the Vatican). We rarely use public transportation, though, preferring to walk.

So, bottom line is, irregardless of current issues, you should always price out the Roma Pass to see if it's a good deal for you and what you plan to or anticipate seeing in Rome.

annhig

I just began using this forum a couple of weeks ago. Is this normal banter? Is it meant to be helpful? Every time I get on there's some contibutor spewing mean-spiritedness. Maybe I'm just too thin-skinned to play with the big dogs.>>

annettafly - sometimes some of us get carried away. I'll leave it to you to decide to whom that applies here. however there are many, including some of those who do occasionally get carried away, who share a huge amount of information for free just in order to help them have better holidays.

so please hang around, and don'e get too put off by some of the bad boys - they are just playing, really.

kybourbon

>>>>you should always price out the Roma Pass to see if it's a good deal for you and what you plan to or anticipate seeing in Rome.<<<

It used to be easy to get the value of the pass when the price was 23€ and then 25€. The Colosseum/Forum/Palantine entry ticket is 12€ and only counts as one of your free entrances off the pass. If you added the Capitolini (12€ most of the time because of exhibitions) or Borghese )(about the same price) then it took only one transport ride to break even. You also get to bypass the ticket lines.

It remains to be seen if any value is there since the recent price increase to 30€ other than line bypass. If the museums raise their prices, then it might be a value again. It may be the Omnia pass which includes the Vatican and Rome is a better value for some travelers (85€).
http://www.omniavaticanrome.org/en/buy-now/index.html

annhig

You also get to bypass the ticket lines.>>

frankly that's worth more than the €6 extra it costs even in you never touch a bus or a metro in your entire trip.

the problem for me with the pass is that it means that you really have to concertina to highlights into 2 days, as [as I understand it] you have to use the free entrances first. not everyone wants to see the colosseum immediately followed by the borghese. ok if you only have 2-3 days, but if you are there for a week, i think that it's very restricting.

thanks for the link to the omnia pass - I'd never heard of it, so that's very useful .

kybourbon

There's also the Archeologia Card (27€) which is good for 7 consecutive days (no transport), but not quite the same sites. You can read it about on this link along with the Appia Antica Card and the Four Museum combo ticket.
http://www.roninrome.com/sites-and-a...ickets-in-rome

A_Brit_In_Ischia

Value's an individual judgement, but one of the things I've found most useful with the Roma Pass continues to be the map included in the pack, which we take along on every visit. The front's only slightly better than those given away at hotel desks etc, but it has some very handy information on the back....

http://www.pbase.com/isolaverde/image/131811136

.... particularly once one's learnt to phone ahead BEFORE setting off to less-frequented places!

At home, in February, it may well appear sensible to use the two pre-paid entries where you'd otherwise pay most on the "Reduced rate" that applies afterwards, but in reality the differences aren't huge...

http://www.romapass.it/doc/sitiAdere...lietti_eng.pdf

For example - give or take exhibition and booking charges - if buying into all 5 of the most popular tickets (for the list, see * below - and note that between them they'd cover an alarming 11 separate museums and sites!), by shuffling a very busy 3 day itinerary one might save €7, spending at most an additional €16 at the last three.

Don't know about anyone else, but I'd think twice before letting +/- 7 Euro dictate my own plans?

The three day duration probably reflects how short a time people tend to spend in the area - not only Italians and other Europeans on weekend citybreaks, but also those from further away...

http://www.pbase.com/isolaverde/image/141366535

The Pass is offered as a package, to help visitors enhance the pleasure they get from their time in the city... and although "many a mickle makes a muckle", one can all too easily be "penny wise, pound foolish"?

Peter

(*) http://www.pbase.com/isolaverde/image/130860387

bilboburgler

Well I guess the tourist office did not magic up the snow.

Was the sight of all that whiteness included in the ticket?

And I guess the OP had the chance to start the ticket when he wanted to

And yes the TI could have just added time on (but hey we are talking an organisation run by Italians here right), (zeppole knocks me half way across the floor with a right punch

And yes we do have some people here who like to offer "hard love" and sometimes the information they offer is the very best (and sometimes just do-lally)

For me the question is did the incident ruin a great holiday for the OP. If so, "let it go", pick up a great incident and tell everyone about that instead.

Wa145nzJeffery

I guess it pays to read the terms and conditions before you buy.

zeppole

It is really a waste of time to encourage daveesl to attempt to find some remedy for his alleged victimization. Time-activated cards with radio-frequency strips like that, which monitor when and where they are used and are blocked forever at a fixed time, cannot have their time extended

daveesl has said he doesn't want a refund, but who knows what he'll talk himself into next.

And while I will now refrain from simply knocking bilb across the Forum due the sensitive nature of Fodor's regular posters (their love of civility never on display unless I have posted, please note), I will politely point out that during this extraordinary weather event in Rome, when most working Romans were unable to get to their jobs, essential staff of the Rome Tourist Board -- which every day finds housing for hundreds of visitors and pilgirms who arrive in Rome with no booked accommodations -- not only opened its office but over the course of the weekend, left no visitor to Rome out in the cold and the city managed a situation in which no tourist was injured at Rome's tourist attractions and no objects of incomparable value were stolen due to the lack of staff to guard them.

The charge that the Rome "dropped the ball" or "can't get its act together" or is just too Italian is a thoughtless, ignorant, selfish and bigoted charge, and a terribly ungrateful charge to boot in light of the extraordinary level of care and money Romans and Italians give to the tens of millions of foreign tourists who come here every year, and to the preservation of priceless artworks and monuments of civilisation. I have noticed that several Fodor's posters who can afford to travel to Italy every year like daveesl only look for ways to nickel and dime the Italians at every turn and act as if paying for all this should fall mainly on the shoulders of Italian taxpayers, and they better hop to it when we snap our fingers.

I tend to think that if a terrorist attack had shut down Rome, daveesl would have been too shame faced to go into the tourist office and demand the personal e-mail and phone numbers of supervisors if the impossible wasn't given to him on demand. Please not that Italy suffered a deadly snowstorm, and Italians who felt they had better things to do than spend time attending to daveesl's expired Roma Pass or any well-heeled tourist whining about things not being up to snuff are the heroes in this tale, and people using message boards to try to whip up a mob to slander their reputations actually deserve every rotten thing somebody wants to say about them.


janisj,

You'd be more persuasive if you led by example!

bilboburgler

%+{

Cowboy1968

I assume that the total value in euros of a Roma Pass does not make it feasible to enter into legal battles in the real world. Or even to worry about.

Nevertheless, OP has a valid point.

OP got into a contractual relationship with an entity offering free transport and access to museums for a defined period. For reasons of simplicity, we say that the City of Rome was that entity (in reality probably some commercial subsidiary).

Furthermore, there is mutual agreement that the extreme weather conditions constitute a force majeure, i.e. kept "Rome" from fulfilling its part of the contract due to reasons beyond its control.

At this point, most consumers steer away from the law and assume that one has to forego any remedies as God intervened (or a Russian high pressure zone).
Nothing could be further from the truth (and the law).

The inability of one party to fullfil its contractual obligation due to force majeure nullifies the contract, either in total or partially.
Which means that both parties are back to square one: Rome does not have to fullfil the contract (also does NOT have to pay for damages, i.e. use of taxis instead of free metro) and OP does not have to pay the fixed amount of the Roma Pass.

In case of partial fulfillment (which is usually the hardest to prove for both sides), OP gets reimbursed for the time it was impossible to use the Pass.
So if he activated the Pass Friday morning (to be active until Monday morning), but was unable to use transport and visit museums on Saturday and Sunday, one would have to agree to claim reimbursement for at least 2 days, i.e. 2/3 of the costs for a 3-day Roma Pass.
While national laws differ historically on many items, the effects of force majeure are very similar across borders, with the Italian law being more of the strict side with regard to the nullifying effects of force majeure.

It is absolutely irrelevant in this context that it would have been "smarter" if OP had used his pass on day 1 to a greater extent or not.

As it had entered the discussion: Even if there had been official communication on a weather/snow disaster or the potential threat of such, the burden of not closing the contract would have been on Rome:
It is beyond the average consumer's horizon to judge the ability of the City of Rome to keep traffic running and museums open in the event of a snow disaster.
Rome, though, as a prudent merchant should have that knowledge, one could argue.
And if so or when in doubt, Rome would have had the obligation the stop the sale of Roma Passes once it had become aware of the severe weather.
Otherwise, one could argue that Rome had lured tourists in wasting money on a promise that Rome knew it could not keep.
Which would have made the sale of the Pass as fraudulent as an offer for that famous ocean-front property in Arizona.

The emotional status or the weather-related hardships of the Roman populace or the what some people think would be "nice" or "not nice" are irrelevant.
Business transactions are run on legal terms and statutory obligations for both sides. It's not an area to get emotionally involved.

A_Brit_In_Ischia

Dave's perhaps still stuck at Heathrow, where apparently their initial reaction to the snow was to immediately cut one third of all flights...

Peter

bardo1

<i>"I tend to think that if a terrorist attack had shut down Rome, daveesl would have been too shame faced to go into the tourist office and demand the personal e-mail and phone numbers of supervisors if the impossible wasn't given to him on demand."</i>

I agree daveesl would have acknowledged that THAT would been beyond the control of the tourist employees....although I'm sure there were plenty of tourists in NYC on 09/11/2001 who were furious because their tourist passes became worthless...

bitten_by_the_bug

I'll probably "risk it" with the Roma Pass when I go in May. Even if I don't come out ahead €-wise, I like having to keep track of less things (separate tickets), and bypassing lines is is a no-brainer. I don't view the pass as dictating my schedule, I see it as an opportunity to plan better.

Cowboy1968,
best reply

ever.

Wekiva

<<I'm just too thin-skinned to play with the big dogs.>>

Don't think of them as big dogs...they're yippee little PITA dogs that got confused and are barking out of the wrong end of their digestive tract. You've just got to figure out which dogs to ignore around here!

A_Brit_In_Ischia

bbtb - we've used the Pass 3 times in perhaps 24 visits, and found it a great convenience for what we wanted to do on those occasions.

But once its 3 days have expired you're probably better to just use one or another of these for transport (or walk), and pay at the individual sites...

http://www.turismoroma.it/infoviaggi...-metro?lang=en

Peter