The OMNIA Rome and Vatican Pass Reviews 

10 reasons not to use:
1) To pick up the card will take at least 2 hours of your life. Pickup points are poorly marked. Once you find one, you will deal with lethargic and unfriendly Italian clerks that will take at least another half an hour. God forbid you forgot to print out your forms - they live in a e-stone age and do not do scanning off your screen, like the rest of the world, insisting on pieces of paper, like before Julius Caesar. They might send you away to print the forms - so add another 3 hours to your pickup time. No air-con and no chairs to sit and wait, in case you are unwell - just stand and suck it up.
If you think it's over when you are done, you are wrong - it's just the beginning of your misfortunes. You are trapped - they took your money and they care even less now.
2) They seem to have only one bus in the whole of Rome. While we were waiting for it (45 minutes wait), at least 7 buses of other companies went past, but no yellow Omnia bus! When we finally got on board and mentioned this, the guide said it's not true! NO apology! It's not an Italian thing. We were told we were wrong - when the only wrong thing we did was to buy a card in the first place.
3) All the other buses had a cover on the top deck by that time of day, but not Omnia. Boiling hot seats and blazing sun on the top, stuffy on the bottom. No air-con.
4) I went through 6 earphone sockets before I found one which sort of worked, but not really, playing commentary just some of the time. My friend and I had to separate to find working sockets. I was having to tell new arrivals 'that socket next to mine doesn't work', but by then the bus was full and they were stuck, having to look around not knowing what was happening. They didn't miss much.
5) The commentary was very basic, to say the least. For example-"Trevi fountain is beautiful, you can throw money in it for luck". As I said, too late, our luck had run out when we stupidly bought Omnia based on the top review without looking at the first negative one (which said exactly what I am saying now).
6) more on commentary - very heavy on religion, not much else, even though Rome is full of ancient, more interesting attractions. After a couple of days of touring around we found many places more interesting than the mouldering churches that filled the commentary.
7)the Vatican museums (included) is a whole other story. The Omnia office sign is almost invisible, so ask around for it. Once they get you into a herd, you will stride for about 25 minutes, galloping through the hot streets, hoping you will not lose sight of the little flag the leader is carrying. If you can not walk fast or get lost, too bad. You will be lucky not to be trod on by herds of tourists, also anxious not to lose their flag.
8) the downloadable Vatican Museum guide is a joke and only sounds good if you compare it with the bus commentary. We had to pass through a few dozen crowded rooms of exhibits before finally reaching the Sistine chapel - and then were forbidden to take any photos! Better to visit it online.
9) St Peter's basilica. Having an Omnia card will shorten your queue from 3 hours in the blazing sun, where people were fainting, to merely 1 hour in the shade (we were lucky with the time of day when the shadow was falling on our queue.)
10) We could have bought the Roma Pass, which was the best part of the Omnia card, but could be bought separately.
In conclusion:
Save yourself time, money and nerves and buy a Roma pass. DO NOT bother with Vatican, especially if you are unwell, unfit and do not like crowds. I am not claustrophobic, but it got to me, with rude attendants that do not let you go to the Sistine chapel, herding you first through dozens of other chambers and hot, bothered and distressed people.
USE HOP ON-HOP OFF RED BUS, which we did in several other cities. They are the best value with good guides (what were we thinking? We just wanted to try something different and learnt our lesson). We used the yellow bus only 1 day out of 3 we paid for - I just couldn't bring myself to board it again, but you do not have to. Buy a red bus ticket (you can do it at the bus stop) and a Roma pass for public transport. Enjoy your trip to Roma ;-)

Had to cancel four passes due to the Monarch collapse-they refunded the money without a fuss.

We brought the full package for our 4 days rome trip. We saw a lots of the main sites for free with these cards and great discounts with smaller attractions. Great for fast track and not waiting in the sun for long period if time. However none of the buses allowed us to use the card for free on and off drops off so we never did get the tour of rome by bus. We went in the both the information centres to check and confirm specific buses bus but once on we got charged. So we walked all of rome and yes we got blisters.
Collection of cards in st Peter's area was quick and staff were very friendly. Just a huge let down on buses as waited lots of time walking but found wonderful shops and cafes.

Absolutely worth it! I stayed for 3 days in Rome and this card allowed me not only to see Rome without any hurry, as it allowed me to move around rapidly. I didn't need to worry about the queues (although I got to most places quite early). I also have to say it is an advantage specially in the summer, because Rome can get really warm. I recommend it!

We purchased 2 x Omnia Cards.
Staff / lady at the pick up desk could not speak good English -were unhelpful to the point of being rude
we were told to meet at a point on St Peters square at 0900 for fast queue - no-one was there to direct us - we made our way in by ourselves in the queu
we were told there was free audio for St Peters - there was no free audio - we had to pay another 4E if we wanted
We were told that the Roam pass yellow buses stopped at designated places regularly - we were left stranded and it is unclear where to catch these buses
We were told that the Romacard could be used to get to the airport by train - we were fined 58E for using the card - you cannot use it for the train to the airport
Pathetic, uninformative and rude communication by Omnia office staff and not worth it - rather buy a fast queue from the many companies in St Peters Square itself and buy a day Rome travel pass from the ticket machine
Omnia is a bad experience

The Omnia and Roma Passes were an invaluable part of a large group visit to Rome. We were a party of 50 people and the passes enabled us to move smoothly between venues, as well as beating the queues. We found this element to be the most valuable – we didn’t save money compared to individual entry prices, but we saved a lot of time queuing! The Omnia card for the Vatican was definitely the best part, and although some of the signposting wasn’t very clear, we worked out where we needed to be fairly easily thanks to the office staff taking time to explain when we picked up our passes. Picking up the passes took a long time so in peak season this would have been a significant wait for others. The only let down was the bus tour – with a pre-recorded voice that was hard to follow, our group switched off and weren’t pleased with the experience.

We used the 3 day Roma Pass / Omnia Card for along weekend in Rome (around May1, 2017). In principle the idea is great and could give you a lot of help and save time and money. Practice is different, and we agree with the reviews by Williamson and BLS. We pre-ordered the card and picked it up in the city-center at an understaffed desk (so: take at least 1 hour to pick it up). Staff was very friendly and we got clear directions how to visit the Vatican Museums and the StPieter Basilica. The Skip-the-line option only indicates you don't have to qeue for the box office. The real line is for the security checks at all major sights (Colosseum, St. Pieter, Vatican Museums). This is going to be the pain of modern times I am afraid. The Omnia-card entrances are poorly signposted and staff is not very helpful to be honest, and they send you back and forth. After visiting St. Peter we headed for the musuem-entrance at 11:50 for the 12:00 time slot as we got instructed. The staff-member at the museum entrance said we had to go back to St.Peter square to start the tour there at 12:30, which would then enter at 13:00. We decided to wait another hour (skip the line?) at the entrance....Eventualy, our tour started 13:30h. Really very bad management, and nobody of the staff seem to care.
On May 1 we used the Omnia-bus for the second time, to go from the Collosseum to the Vatican again. There are no signposts at all for this bus. We saw green busses, red buses, all sorts of busses, but had to wait for ONE HOUR for the yellow bus to arrive (from 9:50 - 10:50). The staff-person informed us there was no 15 min schedule, as we were told (and indeed, you can find that nowhere; typical Italian shrewdness?). As an answer why there are no proper signposts for the bus-stops the bus operator said "this is a Vatican-company, and we now drive in another country with different rules". Welcome in the EU! Vatican-exit?
The reviews on the OmniaCard website date from years ago. Was the service then better? The quotes do not concur with our experience in spring 2017. We believe there is much left to improve and make the card better vaue for money.

My friend and I booked the Omnia card before our trip (booking was in her name) We have just returned from Rome and feel that the reviews of the card are notably inaccurate. The open top bus tour provides limited information and is a recorded description of the route, so that when the bus gets caught in traffic (this happens often) what is being described is nowhere near the bus location. This happened despite an Omnia conductor/guide on board to check tickets and being available to control the recording. So, open top bus tour was poor. The "Skip the line" aspect was cumbersome and badly organised. Signage for meeting points was seriously lacking. There was lots of waiting around and walking long distances to get to entrances of the actual sites.. Rather disappointed with all this, we investigated individual tours with private guides and quite honestly they would have been no more expensive than this unsatisfactory service. The Roma pass is useful but the overall cost of the Omnia pass is not worth the money.

While the use of the Rome Card was great and convenient, the Omnia Vatican experience left something to be desired. It was so nice having the cards to gain access to the hop on/off bus and to choose which sites in Rome to explore, but our day at the Vatican had some serious flaws.

The staff explained the Rome Card well enough, but they mixed up the directions on the use of the Omnia Card. We booked our times for the Vatican Museum and the Basilica, as instructed and attempted to follow those instructions only to discover they provided the wrong information. We were initially told we had to go to the Basilica at the stated time by meeting at the Omnia office for our tour time, but we could access the museum whenever we wanted, but it is actually opposite. We could go to the Basilica whenever we wanted, but had to stick with our museum time. This put a dent in our day as my mother can't do a ton of walking and we had to walk back from the museum to the main square as we had thought to do that before our Basilica time slot. When we attempted to confirm the details with the Omnia staff we were told that we were in the wrong and it was unlikely that their staff led us astray. It was especially annoying that they wouldn't even admit that they misinformed us. We ended up meeting a couple that had also been misinformed as we had and they were confused as to what they were supposed to do.

Then, when we went to the Omnia office for the stated time for the museum access, they were over 20 minutes late taking us to the museum despite quite a few people complaining, and were anything but conscious of the large group of people they were escorting. There were elderly and handicapped people who struggled to keep up with the pace, and there was no regard when it came to crossing the street, causing many people to get left behind as they had to wait for the next light to cross. Overall, the staff was quite rude and inconsiderate and our experiences at the Vatican left something to be desired. Mind you, while it was still touristy when we were in Rome, we were there in October so it was nothing like their busy summer season.

We bought the 3 day pass for a long weekend in Rome. Found the whole process very simple and got good use of the card. Worth the money and skipping the lines was the real bonus.

We only had three days so time was at a premium. Our top tips are :
1. Get the earliest possible Vatican City time-slot when you pick up your Omnia pack - despite the fast track arrangement, people arriving later had a long queue for security.
2. Don't go to St Peter's Basilica on a Wednesday unless you REALLY want to see the Pope - it will be absolutely packed with people in the piazza
3. Use the public transport and the Roma Cristiana bus (lovely staff) whenever you can, but walk as often and as far as possible - there is something new and wonderful around every corner, and the whole city is totally walkable (though possibly not in the height of summer)
4. Make sure you look after your stuff.
5. Enjoy this fabulous city to the full - Omnia is the best way to do it without a doubt

Easy transaction and it really helps to have this card , saves u a lot of time.

The pass was great, worth buying in advance, makes the holiday much easier.

Very useful especially on bus and Metro journeys.

We saved a lot of time and money and enjoyed our time. Thanks for your service.

The options are many and the time too short too fully utilise the card. Great for getting around the city. That in itself is a great reason to get the card.

Good Value for Money, great way to experience Rome and see so many sights.

Excellent priority access to the sites of Rome.

We only had 3 days in Rome so this pass was idea for my family. Easy to book online and collect. Enjoyed the hop on hop off bus.

The best idea for a short break in Rome. Passes for all the must visit places, fast tracked so no queues, metro passes and guided bus tours. What can I say? Recommended to anyone thinking of visiting the coty