Greetings fellow Fodorites! I'm writing to express my mild frustration and see if any of you have suggestions for me ..

We will be traveling to Rome from 24-31 March and have contacted several tour companies for information / pricing and potential booking of their Colosseum and Vatican tours. None of them have responded to me.

I've provided dates, a general idea of what we're looking for and dates - yet still no reply. I can't understand why so many of these tour companies that have gotten such good reputations on other sites are not responding to my inquiries at all.

Can any of you provide any contacts or your own tour recommendations for Rome? I'm running out of options and would like to get this squared away before we go. (Is that the right thing to do?)

Thanks!!

It's likely your responses have ended up as spam. What type of e-mail account are you using? Try a gmail account if you haven't already.

You can book tours directly with the Vatican. You can also book entrance only tickets and then rent one of their audio guides.
http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/z-In...zi_Visite.html

The Colosseum also has audio guides for rent (4€). There are also guided tours availble there. Scroll down in the blue area for more info.

http://www.pierreci.it/en/museums-an.../colosseo.aspx

Tour info:
http://www.pierreci.it/en/museums-an...-colosseo.aspx

I used Marilena from www.walksinsiderome.com. Fantastic tours and also the restaurants they recommended were the best. In-expensive, local and very very good.

Planning on going back this year too and doing a gourmet tour of theirs as well.

Probably Kybourbon is right.
Sometimes I try to respond someone by the same email address that I received the mail and after few days I receive an error message.
It happens to me with verizon,comcast...
Not with gmail or yahoo.
If you don't have any answer back, don't worry. In that period is not high season and you can easly organize your tour, day by day. You can buy the tickets of the Vatican in advance by the official site.
http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/z-In...zi_Visite.html

I emailed Walks of Italy last week because I had a question about one of their tours and received a reply within 48 hours.

As already mentioned, comcast, verizon, etc. are notorious for blocking emails - especially from overseas. If you haven't already, resend your emails from a hotmail, gmail, or yahoo account.

...or much much better, don't use email at all, since a great number of Italians don't answer email - they simply don't check. ALWAYS and EXCLUSIVELY call by phone if you want to make any contact in Italy.

alwaysluv2travel, it's been about 10 years but we were very satified with American Express tours in Rome - we took one of the Vatican and later of the Catacombs & other churches. Their office was near the bottom of the Spanish Steps on the left as you descend.

I can recommend Context Tours; we used them in 2008 for an Ancient Rome tour and a Vatican tour. Both were excellent.

I have just booked my brother and his wife on an Ancient Rome tour with them in April. Find their website and you can organize your tours there.