Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Trip Report Rome Tourism drops the ball on Roma Pass and rips off thousands

Wow, it has been a few days since I checked in and quite a hornets nest I seem to have stirred up.

I will begin this, my last post in this thread, by saying I absolutely LOVE the people and the country of Italy and Rome in particular. I have no idea how many times I have come over, how many years I've been doing it or how much time I spend, but it is safe to say Rome is second only to my home in Florida in time spent.

With that all said, if people would have read my original post in detail, you would have seen that I have/had no intention of asking for a refund. As far as I was concerned, that is a non-starter and I would not want the money back. I simply wanted Rome Tourism to live up to their end of the bargain, and they never did.

For those that using some weird, twisted logic and failure to face their own hypocracy by essentially calling me out for calling out Rome, well, you lose. I could care less what you think of me, I don't even know you nor care to waste typing skills debating you. If you can honestly answer this question with a negative in all counts, then you have my apology. Any other answer and you are a hypocrite..."Has a product or service ever been not correct and you brought this to the attention of the managment and were blown off". Did you then complain to others, not simply to complain, but to warn people about the crappy service you recieved?

My friends, this was all I was doing, to try to undo years of promoting a product that now has obviously outlived its usefulness and is being pushed out onto the tourism public and is not being properly maintained. Someone above put in a great relational idea...you buy a plane ticket, you may or may not actually get off the ground, the plane must stop to to weather...the airline will normally get you back in the air as soon as possible to complete the contracted fare. Lawsuits would mean little, it would be the mountains of bad publicity they would get. That's what I was doing, hopefully letting them see that not understanding the client can cause them far more financial harm than simply extending whatever tickets were affected. Oh, and sorry, but the Tourism Info kiosks were shut down in the 5 places I walked by on Sunday.

Brit had it exactly right, this incident has not affected my time in Rome one bit. I love it here and will always love it here...both the people and the place. I will also stand up and say "No More" when I see something wrong.

For years I have openly promoted the purchase and use of the Roma Pass and that has now gone. The cost increase was one thing (and actually I did not even realize that until Ky brought it up), the failure is quite another. It is simply no longer a good deal and you stand the chance of it becoming an expensive piece of paper.

Yep, go to a ski resort, get a white-out, doesn't matter how long you skied that day, you get another lift ticket. I lived in the mountains of Colorado for a number of years and that is how it works. Go to Busch Gardens or (Yuck) Disney, get a lightning shortened day in the summer, you get another day ticket, no hassles. You do NOT get a refund, nor should a person expect one.

So, hope that clears up my side of this. It happened, I'm disappointed, I've forgotten about it.

dave