Walks of Italy Anmeldelser 

I booked Walks of Italy's Pompeii and Amalfi Coast tour from Rome for nine people. After comparing several tour companies, I specifically chose Walks of Italy despite its approximately 25% higher price because of how they advertised their Pompeii experience.

Their website promises:

"Tour Pompeii In-Depth – See both the highlights and hidden gems of Pompeii, going deeper than most tours have time to do."

Unfortunately, that is not the experience we received.

Our group spent approximately 90 minutes at Pompeii and was hurried along to maintain the day's schedule. We visited the standard highlights and did not experience anything that appeared to distinguish this tour from what other tour companies were offering. In fact, competing companies advertised approximately two hours at Pompeii for considerably less money.

My frustration isn't simply that I wanted more time at Pompeii. It's that I paid a premium specifically because Walks of Italy advertised a more comprehensive experience than its competitors, yet we received what felt like a shorter, more rushed version of a standard tour.

Regarding customer service: I contacted Walks of Italy directly, explained my concerns, and a partial refund rather than a full refund, recognizing that other portions of the excursion still had value.

Their response was that the tour had operated according to its scheduled itinerary. Unfortunately, that missed my point entirely. My concern wasn't whether they followed their schedule; it was whether the experience they advertised accurately reflected what customers would receive.

I subsequently requested a management review and followed up again when I received no response. Neither communication has received a reply.

The tour itself had some value, but the Pompeii portion did not meet the expectations created by their advertising, and their handling of my complaint has been disappointing.

My advice to future travelers: If you're considering this tour primarily for the advertised "in-depth" Pompeii experience, ask exactly how much time you'll spend at Pompeii and what distinguishes the experience from other operators before booking. Given the price premium, I expected considerably more than what we received.

An additional consideration for travelers with specific needs: One member of our group was pregnant and found that communication regarding the timing of meal opportunities and restroom breaks could have been better. While this likely had little impact on most guests, the lack of advance guidance made it difficult for her to plan accordingly and created some unnecessary stress during an already busy day. This is worth keeping in mind for pregnant travelers or anyone who may need more predictable access to food and restrooms. I would recommend asking the tour operator about the expected timing of breaks before booking.

My husband and I booked the Colosseum/Roman Forum and Palatine Hill tour with the added Gladiator Gate. Claudia was the best tour guide we’ve ever had on a tour. She was knowledgeable, personable and so much fun. What an amazing experience!

Wir hatten eine Buchung für 16.00 Uhr , das wurde uns auch vom dortigen Guide bestätigt. Die Tour fand aber um 14.00 Uhr statt und wir hatten absolut keine Möglichkeit das Kollosseum zu besuchen.
Es war so enttäuschend für uns, weil wir
A sehr viel Geld gezahlt hatten
B nichts dafür bekamen
C einfach im Regen stehen gelassen wurden
Es ist eine Frechheit das zu tun und uns anzulügen und zu sagen, unser Reisebüro wurde informiert und hat vergessen es uns weiter zu übermitteln.
Wie oft fliegt man nach Rom?

Vatican Museeum group Tour with Sistine Chapel and St Peter's Basilica.

A fantastic tour with a very knowledgeable guide! She adapted the tour to the group's needs and gave very clear instructions. There was a lot of information to cover in a short time, and the museum was very crowded, so we had to keep up a brisk pace to get through everything. Nothing but positive things to say!

Terrible experience. We did the Vatican tour with Sistine Chapel and St. Peters Basilica. The Vatican was super-crowded to the point where people were getting sick from the heat and the overcrowding. The guide was not good. And the microphone/listening devices would cut-out all the time, so you couldn't understand hardly anything being said. Overall a huge disappointment.

Highly recommend this Alone in St Marks walking tour. It was much more meaningful to walk through St Marks & Doge’s palace with few other people. It was easy to get closer to certain artwork in order to see it better. It was much easier to hear and talk with the guide. Loved our guide and everything about it. Such a wonderful tour!

Our guide (forgot his name, tall guy wearing mouth mask all the time) was really below par, making the whole tour not worth the money. He felt the need to try to be funny every so many minutes (and unfortunately wasn’t), responded poorly to questions that popped up along the way or plainly said we don’t talk about fascist items we still see in the streets. When asked whether the Trevi fountain is less crowded late in the evening, he said he usually sleeps in the evening. After that last remark, I left the tour. He may have many masters and PHD’s, but a tour guide is more than just knowledge about history. An experience to quickly forget and a waste of my time.

Booked two different walking tours through your company. The private tour of the Vatican was excellent. Very highly recommended to all of our friends and family come here. The small group private tour of the Colosseum was frankly terrible. We handed in our earpiece about 45 minutes in. Our tour operator was perfectly fine, but when I signed up for a small group, the website suggested that was between six and eight people. We had nearly 20 in our group. None of them could keep up and within the first hour, we had barely scratched the surface. Beyond this, I booked the first opening tour nearly 9 months ago. Only a week before we arrive did I see that that was not kept and instead we were given the 10:40 AM experience. Which is just about the worst time of the day to do any tours outside in the sun in Italy in August. To say I was disappointed in this under expresses my frustration. So much so, that I ended up buying a small tour through another company for the next day at the opening time as I paid for. That was excellent. I doubt that anything can be done from your end for recompense, but I am really disappointed, and I will not be recommending walks of Italy to any of my family and friends who come here often if something can’t be done. Doug Vinish

I have book the Sistine Pristine tour and it a was a total bad experience! For 501 euro for 3 persons
1. "Get ahead of the crowds—and save hours waiting in line with an end of the day or early morning Vatican tour." - they where at leat 300 people in front of us!
2. The guide Jeb i think had a bad day or something or was in a hury!. he just keep talling us stuf but we really did not have the time to admire something or ask a question.
3. The only good thing was the shorcut from vatican museum to St. Peter.
I will never ever get a tour from them. Way to much money for the experience.

Whilst in Rome, we went on a morning guided tour of the Colosseum, Roman Forum and Palantine Hill last week. It was an excellent 3 hours. We had no problem finding the meeting place and the guides were easily identifiable. The earpiece worked fine, allowing freedom to look around whilst listening to the guide. The guide was very knowledgeable and imparted the information in an entertaining way. My friend and I enjoyed it a lot and definitely recommend it.

I booked a tour for our family with Walks of Italy (also called "Walks & Devour Tours") for the Private VIP Colosseum Tour with Roman Forum & Palatine Hill.
First of all, we booked our tour for four people months in advance, and reserved an 8:30am slot (as the morning is the best time for this tour in late May, as Rome gets hot fast).
A few months later, I was informed that our start time had been moved to 10:00am, with no options to rebook at a different time for the days we would be in Rome (5 days in late May 2026).
We received instructions on where and when to meet our guide, for this small group (basically, our family) VIP tour.
On the day of the tour, we arrived early at the designated location, but our guide was not there. An employee at a nearby cafe insisted that "the tour groups meet down those steps" and pointed to the pathway to the entrance of the Colosseum. We went down the steps and looked around but could not find our guide.
When we returned to the designated area (still before the 10am start time), a guide from another company told us our guide had been there but had left a few minutes prior. We went looking for the guide "with the green WALKS sign" but could not find him/her. I tried calling the customer assistance number provided in the email but was put on eternal hold.
More than an hour later I was finally able to speak to a customer service representative, who said "because you missed your guide, there is nothing I can do for you" (or words to that effect. Because our guide had our tickets/passes to get into the Colosseum and Palatine Hill, we had no way to even visit the Roman Forum.
I logged into the government-run website to see if there was any way we could purchase scheduled-entry tickets for the Colosseum sometime later when we were still in Rome, and the only tickets were for late on our last afternoon, when we had already scheduled a "Small Group VIP Tour of the Vatican Museums" with Walks & Devour. I purchased these tickets, knowing that we could end up having another Walks & Devour Guide disappear/no-show leaving us to miss pretty much everything we had come to Rome to see. When I tried to cancel our VIP Vatican Museum Tour, I was told that we had already passed the refund window. When I explained what had happened, the customer service rep said there was nothing she could do.

Excellent experience. Informative, funny and did justice to the wonderful history of Florence. Great job!

Booked the Gladiator Gate tour months in advance, only to find out weeks before leaving for our trip that they were changing our tour and it would now not include the Gladiator Gate portion (which was the only reason we had booked this particular tour). Now we were left scrambling to find another company to do the tour with, luckily we were able to. Which means there were tickets available but this company just was not organized enough and oversold tickets. Let down by this company before we even got to Rome!

Very knowledgeable, friendly and entertaining guide.

We enjoyed all of the information that the guide was able to give us based on their own personal work and study background.

This walk was wonderful and we enjoyed every minute. The guide was very informative and very pleasant. I would recommend doing Walks of Italy to everyone who visits Italy.
Lauria Bell-Hughes

Silvia was really nice and helpful and explains everything we see. We really enjoy the tour. Thank you so much.

These people are crooks. I booked them for their "best selling" Pristine Sistine tour. Their website contains blatant lies and false advertising, which you don't realize until you are actually on the tour.

This is what their website says: "Enter the Sistine Chapel just as it opens, ahead of the daytime tour groups."

This is a lie. You have to wake up early and overpay (I paid $200) for NOTHING. It is only when you arrive that the guide tells you that the Vatican changed their rules years ago, and you do not enter the Sistine Chapel as it opens, and in fact it is not even the first stop on the tour. When we arrived at the Vatican, we waited to the side as other groups went in first, and then our guide proceeded slowly and babbled and it was clear that we would not enter the Sistine Chapel until around 10 am.

You can see how badly this company rips you off when you look at the €25 museum admission ticket. You are basically paying $200 for a ticket that costs $28, with zero added value.

I joined this tour with my partner so it was $400 wasted. The guide was also terrible, a complete amateur, and kept repeating himself. He began rushing us through, only to stop at random exhibits and babble for 5 minutes, offering nothing of value. I became alarmed when I looked at a museum sign next to one of the exhibits and it was far more insightful than our babbling guide.

This tour was so bad that my partner and I left after around 90 minutes in. We proceeded to purchase the €5 official audio guide, sold by the Vatican, and it was infinitely better than our babbling guide. I would have disputed the charge on my credit card for the blatant false advertising that Walks of Italy engages in, clear lies on their website, but unfortunately it was too late for me to dispute it. As this company is run by crooks, I know there is no chance I will get a refund from them.

All I can do is caution others not to spend $200 on a $30 ticket and guide, so others don't get robbed by these crooks like I was.

EDIT:

The response from management is predictably deceptive. I reached out to the company long before management responded to my review. I was asked for my contact information and told that management would contact me directly. They never did, and instead left a response here with fake concern, pretending they would like more information from me.

I then contacted the company again. I was told that management was in the process of conducting an "investigation" and would reach out to me next week. This was over 10 days ago. It is clear they are crooks and just making fake responses here to look like a respectable company. Would never use them again. BTW, their false and deceptive language is still on their website.

I purchased this tour just to go to the basilica well they said the basilica was closed and we would do the rest of the tour and skip the basilica however the basilica was open and they did not take us in. They told us to stand in line to go in on our own.

Our tour guide was knowledgeable and articulate with his review of our tour visit. It started with a detailed breakdown of what we were about to experience and how best to observe and understand its history. The tour covered so much it was overwhelming for us. The experience of being there was unbelievable and once in a lifetime visit. Walk of Italy made it our best tour of our vacation.