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Flights out of Rome (FCO), What's the earliest you would book?


Vincent

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Family of 4 has cruise onboard Symphony this June that is scheduled to return/arrive at port in Rome (Civitavecchia) at 7 am on a Thursday. Our fight back home (USA) has been rescheduled for 9:45 am, same day we get off the ship. Assuming the ship gets in on time (is that even a norm?), is this even a possibility? Should be able to be some of the first off of the ship with the help of our genie. Already flying into Rome 3 days early, so would prefer not to stay another night if possible. Any suggestions for quickest transportation to FCO from port? What has your experience been at FCO? Thanks in advance!

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That is going to be close to impossible.  Drive time from the port to FCO without traffic concerns is almost an hour... If the ship docks at 7 am on the dot and is cleared immediately and you are off the ship by 7:30 (ha!) you still have to clear customs, which is opening at the same time... say you're through everything by 7:45 you have to take a shuttle from the dock itself to the taxi stand where the train station is. Even if the shuttle leaves immediately (which it's not going to do - it will wait for the bus to fill up) you're not getting to the taxi stand before 8 am. An hour WITHOUT TRAFFIC BACKUPS to the airport and you're arriving at FCO at 9 am, where you have to get through security etc.  

 

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That’s not even close to realistic. The ship may disembark at 7am, but do you honestly think you are going to make it through the terminal, pick up luggage, go through customs, travel to the airport, check in for flight, go through security and get on the plane in less than 3 hours? Also remember 9:45 is when the plane takes off. Boarding is about 30 minutes before that, so really you are looking at 2 hours for all that to happen….which it isn’t. Anything before noon is pushing it. Before 10am on an international flight is a fantasy.

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The size of your ship and the other ships arriving the same day can put stress on the transportation network all at once, even private reserved transportation can have issues. If I am going to fly home the same day, 3pm is the earliest, 5 pm is ideal if the port and airport are an hour or more apart. Ports in big cities where the port is essentially downtown it's easier but in ports an hour from the city like Civitavecchia, Southampton or even Galveston if multiple ships come in it can overwhelm the bus, train, taxi capacity and smaller cities and towns don't have hundreds of cabs and ubers like the city center ports do. Stay another night or take an afternoon flight just to reduce your stress. Now if you were sailing and flying out of Miami, Ft. Lauderdale or San Diego or similar cities where the airports are next to the dock, heck you could walk in a pinch and a cab/uber can make dozens of runs back and forth in a morning. In San Diego I've seen people take Pedi cabs from the dock to the airport as it is a little over 2 miles from the airport. I just checked rome to rio, train or bus is nearly two hours, cab or car can be done in 40 minutes with no traffic, but what are the odds of that? Oh and it's Europe, so transit related strikes are not uncommon, even if you aren't taking a bus or train if either go on strike, the other modes get overwhelmed.

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