What Italy With Family offers
Italy With Family is a Rome-based company (VAT IT16935531000, contactable 8:30–17:00 daily) that positions every product for parents travelling with children. The official site lists four Rome experiences at our last check:
- Ultimate VIP Super Early Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel tour — entry at 8:00 before the general public.
- Ultimate Colosseum Arena tour — small group, up to six people, via the gladiators’ gate onto the arena floor.
- Colosseum Express tour — a shorter Colosseum visit.
- Best of Eataly food tour — a tasting walk through the Eataly food hall near Ostiense.
The site also names Naples, Pompeii, Florence, Milan and Venice, so the brand is a family-travel umbrella rather than a Rome-only outfit. It does not publish durations, euro prices, group caps beyond the Arena tour, a founding year or a cancellation policy.
The two features that matter with children are real: an 8:00 Vatican entry avoids the mid-morning crush in the Raphael Rooms and the chapel, and a six-person cap on the arena floor means a guide can actually talk to a nine-year-old.
Tours and prices
Prices as shown on Tripadvisor in US dollars at our last check:
| Tour | Duration | From | Product score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vatican VIP Early Entrance at 8:00 | 3 h | $116 per person | 4.7 from 99 reviews |
| Colosseum Gladiator’s Arena and Roman Forum | 2–3 h | $137 per person | 3.9 from 55 reviews |
| Colosseum Arena, up to 6 people | 1–2 h | $106 per person | 1.8 from 5 reviews |
For context, GetYourGuide’s Colosseum family tour for kids costs from about €60–€70 per person and includes the Forum, and LivTours’ family Colosseum tours — the reference point for premium family guiding — run higher than Italy With Family but with a stronger record. At $106–$137 per person for a family of four, an Italy With Family Colosseum tour costs €400–€500; that is private-tour money, so the quality of execution matters.
What travellers report
The headline number is respectable: 4.5 from 577 Tripadvisor reviews, ranked #342 of 3,886 tours and activities in Rome at our last check. Positive reviews are specific and credible — “very knowledgeable and friendly” guides who engage all participants, guides described as archaeologists, and underground or arena access called “not to be missed”.
The negatives are the reason for caution, because they describe operations rather than a bad day: tours cancelled with minimal notice; the underground portion dropped days before with poor compensation offered; tours moved to evening slots when little could be seen; and unanswered WhatsApp messages until the customer switched to another channel. The Colosseum Arena listing’s 1.8 from five reviews is a tiny sample, but the 3.9 from 55 on the Arena and Forum tour points the same way. The Vatican early-entry tour, by contrast, holds 4.7 from about 100 reviews and looks like the product to trust.
Booking and cancellation
Book on italywithfamily.com, by phone or email, or through Tripadvisor/Viator. The official site does not state cancellation terms; platform bookings carry the platform’s refund rules, which is the practical safeguard given the pattern above. Colosseum arena and underground slots are allocated by the Parco archeologico del Colosseo in limited numbers and can be withdrawn, so ask in writing what happens — and what you are refunded — if the arena access is cancelled by the site rather than the operator. Bring ID for name-matched Vatican tickets; children need their own.
Alternatives on GetYourGuide/Tiqets
For the Colosseum, the Colosseum and Ancient Rome family tour for kids on GetYourGuide is rated 4.8 from about 340 reviews, built around games and gladiator stories, with free cancellation up to 24 hours before. The wider family-friendly activities category lists arena-floor and underground options with children’s pricing. For the Vatican, the Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel and St Peter’s tour is the mass-market benchmark from about €59; for a premium family option, compare LivTours.
Our Rome with kids guide lists which sites and formats work by age, and the Colosseum arena floor guide explains how arena access is allocated and why it sometimes disappears.
Verdict
Italy With Family sells the right products for parents — early Vatican entry and a six-person arena tour — and its guides get good words. The problem is reliability: enough reviewers report cancellations and weak communication that the Colosseum products in particular carry risk at private-tour prices. Book the Vatican early-entrance tour if you want this company; for the Colosseum, choose GetYourGuide’s family tour or LivTours instead. As a Rome tour operator for families, Italy With Family is a cautious maybe rather than a first choice.
Ratings are reported from public review platforms and the operator’s own pages; we do not host reviews.
