Civitavecchia Disembarkation Question

[cavou]

Greetings..We will be sailing on the Splendour of the Seas on 9/3/05. My question regards the scheduled arrival time in Civitavecchia. Our scheduled arrival time in Civitavecchia is 7am and I am estimating that by the time we disembark and make it to the train station it will be 8:30-9am-ish. Does anyone know what time the ship actually disembarks? I am trying to decide whether or not to purchase trenitalia tickets online or wait to do so at the station and risk not making an earlier train. My guessing skills or not the best!

 

Thanks!

[General Max]

The trains to Termini Station run every half hour. Why prepurchase tickets? You alsos might want to think about taking a taxi from the ship to the train station with your luggage. You will have to go up 40 steps and down 40 steps with that luggage at the train station.

 

Cheers

 

General Max

[suzy671]

Can you tell me how this port is set up. Do they have a building where you check in and get your sign and sail card or do they have it set up different and do they have porters that will take your luggage.

[24butterfly]

Can you tell me how this port is set up. Do they have a building where you check in and get your sign and sail card or do they have it set up different and do they have porters that will take your luggage.

 

You have a ways from the train station to the ship. It's probably docked in the #20's....I strongly urge you to take a car and forgo the train. I tried to find the train station, and it looked like it was a ways. I doubt that a taxi will want to take you to the ship--they want big fares...Also, being that Civit. is a small town, they don't have many taxi's, and it will be HOT--esp lugging that luggage....

[Cleopatra]

There is a shuttle bus which circles the port picking up passengers from all cruise lines and dropping them off. It is a white bus resembling a school bus. The driver assists loading baggage. It is a 3 or 4 block flat walk to or from the train station to the entrance of the port where the bus loads or drops off. If you have more luggage than you personally can handle, you may have a problem walking to or from the train station. A wheeled suitcase and carry-on can be managed easily assuming one has no disabilities. Taxis are not abundently available as they prefer longer fares than the short hop to or from the ship to the train.

[cruisetoscrap]

Greetings..We will be sailing on the Splendour of the Seas on 9/3/05. My question regards the scheduled arrival time in Civitavecchia. Our scheduled arrival time in Civitavecchia is 7am and I am estimating that by the time we disembark and make it to the train station it will be 8:30-9am-ish. Does anyone know what time the ship actually disembarks? I am trying to decide whether or not to purchase trenitalia tickets online or wait to do so at the station and risk not making an earlier train. My guessing skills or not the best!

 

Thanks!

 

I'm on the next sailing and since we are only there for a day (opposed to other itineraries that stop there and luggage is involved). I'd also like to know when we REALLY get off and have to get back on.

[BuckGuy]

Can you tell me how this port is set up. Do they have a building where you check in and get your sign and sail card or do they have it set up different and do they have porters that will take your luggage.

 

 

Suzys -- The port in Civitavecchia is huge and it encompasses a sea industry that ranges far beyond tourism. So I would advise people not to get to the Civitavecchia port on their own because it is most difficult to find the pier where your ship will be assigned.....instead, reserve a place on the shuttle that your cruiseline offers (most probably they will use an independently contracted shuttle company) or take a taxi from Rome and tell him to take you right to your ship's gangway.

 

If you wish to be strong, independent and take the gamble and find your ship on your own, then at the entry to the port there is a rotary road. You want to head left, going toward the nine o'clock position. You proceed about two blocks and you will see a stainless steel facade building I think it says "tickets" (but in Italian) and from there you look toward your right about another block further and you will see shuttles taking independently-arriving people to their ships. When I went on my cruise this past July 2005, you would have to wait for the particular shuttle that took people to their specific ship. Celebrity cruiseline passengers had to wait for the Celebrity shuttle, Costa cruisers had to wait for the Costa shuttle etc.

 

The people who work at the piers speak only Italian and are not very interested in helping tourists find their way to their cruise ship. I say, purchase a shuttle transfer ticket from your travel agent, or take a taxi from your hotel or plane. It costs alot (about 80 Euro) but that'll get you right to the gangway of your boat.

 

Check out this review on the Civitavecchia port

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=12119

[md1jw]

True the walk from the entrance to the port to the ship is a long way, and seems almost endless in the middle of the day. However, have gone several times to the port on our own. Got a train from Rome to Civitavecchia and then a taxi from the railway station to the port. You may have to wait a while for a taxi (on one of the times, there were only 4 taxis ferrying passengers, but people tended to double up with each other - the taxi drivers didn't mind). Cost was a fraction of what we would have paid for a taxi from Rome and also considerably cheaper than cruise transfers. Would definately do it this way again. If you are worried about the taxi driver not understanding you (although this seems unlikely, you only have to say the name of the ship), just write it down for him/her. You must remember that most of the train passengers travelling with you, will be going on the same ship!!

[md1jw]

I forgot to say, disembarkation is easy as well. There were taxis waiting at the side of the ship, we identified our luggage, took them to a waiting taxi - there was like a convoy of them! which took us to the railway station (no bother at all), and a train to Rome. I was at first dreading this, as I knew the distance from the ship to the station was long, I had even cut down my shopping, imagining it to be difficult, but it was extremely easy.

[BuckGuy]

Hey md1jw --

 

When you arrived at the Civitavecchia railway station, the taxi that picked you up and took you to the port did NOT take you all the way to the ship's gangway? Where exactly did he drop you off when you got to the port? I envy you -- I would say you have the instincts of an Eagle Scout to have been able to find your way so easily from the entry of the port to your ship, about a mile away, and across a maze of streets and roadways, with all the trucks and forklifts etc to deal with.

 

Also, I have only disembarked at the Civitavecchia port once, but we were warned that taxis are not always available for those just walking off the ship to be on their own. We were told that Civitavecchia only has 11 taxis and if other ships were disembarking around the same time, it might be hard to get one.

[General Max]

Consider the cost of your cruise and weigh it against the cost of a taxi or private car transfer from Rome. We like to save money too when on vacation but we will spend it where we think it is appropriate. All things being considered.

 

Cheers

 

General Max

[cruzinchar]

We will be arriving in Civitavecchia at the end of September on the Grand Princess and I was also wondering what time we could arrange for our driver to pick us up. Our ship docks at 4:00 a.m.........I suggest you do what I did. I just called Princess and they looked up a specific schedule and read it to me. Basically, it said to allow two and a half hours for all of the luggage to be unloaded (this probably differs from ship to ship), and then after that, we could probably plan on disembarking. We will talk to someone once we're on board and let them know when we need to be off in order to meet our driver. We are hoping for 8:00 a.m, which shouldn't be a problem if our luggage is all off by 6:30 a.m.

[BuckGuy]

Your plans for post-cruise transfer sounds a-ok.....in terms of arranging exactly what time to walk off the boat, what I'd suggest is this. The cruise ship will, as you probably know if you've been on cruises before, ask you to fill-out an info sheet sometime during your cruise pertaining to your disembarkation plans. As you fill it out, specify that you will be meetng your privately-arranged limo right outside the ship at 8 a.m. (I assume your limo driver will be right at the gangway.) THEN, stand in line at the purser's desk and PERSONALLY hand them the info form and tell them verbally that you are going to meet your limo right outside the ship at 8 a.m. That way they will give you the right color-coded exit luggage tag and you'll be (literally) "on your way." But first, enjoy your cruise!

 

<oh, and if they give you an exit time of 6:30a.m. you can stay on the boat as long as you want after that and have your morning coffee. But if they give you an exit time of, say, 9:30 (since you are arranging your own post-cruise transfer) make sure you go to the pursers desk immediately and arrange for an earlier exit.> Again, enjoy!

[md1jw]

Sorry, I forgot I posted on this thread! The taxi did take us from the railway station directly to the ship. There were small shuttle buses from the railway station to the port entrance, but we decided to join the long queue for a taxi to take us straight to the ship. I wouldn't have found my way there the first time other wise, similarly on the way back, there were taxis at the dockside. This time on Princess when we were staying for the day, the ship put on a shuttle bus (free) to the entrance to the port, and we walked to the railway station. Agree, it wouldn't be a very easy walk with cases.

[cruisetoscrap]

We just retuned Sunday from Splendor of the Seas. On that itinerary Civitacecchia is a stop not an embarkation or disembarkation point.

 

We breezed off the ship before 7:00 but we could have gotten off earlier and then we had planned to catch the shuttle out of port. They initially told us that is would be leaving as soon as enough people had gotten on off but then after we waited 15 minuets and asked again they said that it didn’t start until 8:00. Well at that point we had already missed the train that we wanted to take so we decide to walk to be able to catch the next one. Taxis wanted 26 euros. There are no signs directing you to the station or out of port but it’s simple. Go strait on the road away from the ship. At the dead end take a right and walk. I don’t think there was another turn from their but you feel like you’re going nowhere. We got lost from the directions they told us in relationship to McDonalds, where the shuttle drops you. We should have kept walking strait and we would have had the station on our left. It should only be a 15 – 20 minuet walk. We were lucky to have a schedule printed off with a picture we could point at for directions.

The train tickets were a couple of euros for a round trip ticket an quite easy to get right there, so don't worry about buying ahead of time. When we got to the station at Roma Termini we were late and it was along walk to get out of the station.

 

We then went back to the train station and the earlier train was late so we hoped on it and made it back in plenty of time. We you leave the train station a block before the shuttle is a good place for ice cream 1 euro for a 2 scoop cone and the bathroom is ok. The grocery store next to it is a cheep place to pick up a bottle of wine and some caned local food and the meat hanging there is an experience.

If you want to and do it yourself think about this, the people that went on ship tours saw more and were a lot happier but they did spend a lot more. We wish we would have gotten on the private tour with our cruise critic friends. We know we need to go back and once we realized that our plan was way to ambitious and we had to ask for directions the day was better.

 

Please please ask me question if you have them!

[Felice]

Any suggestions about getting from Civitavecchia to the airport without paying a king's ransom? We're on the Liberty next May 7, and the cab fares are daunting. The hotel will collect us from the airport and take us downtown, but getting to the port for the cruise and from the port to the airport when we dock - these things are keeping me up nights! I see that you can take a train from Termini Station to the dock. But is there a reasonably priced way to get to from the dock to the airport?

Help!

[BuckGuy]

There is an express train between Termini train station and the airport, both back and forth either way, and runs every half hour.

[BuckGuy]

I knew there was another train connection so I looked it up. From the train station at Civitavecchia you take the non-express train to Rome and make the connection to daVinci airport at Ostiense station.

[Felice]

I knew there was another train connection so I looked it up. From the train station at Civitavecchia you take the non-express train to Rome and make the connection to daVinci airport at Ostiense station.

Any idea how long it takes to get from the dock to the airport via the train? Are there choices re the train you take? Is Ostiense station before or after Termini? If there's a way to get lost, I'll do it and I sure wouldn't want to miss the plane. Do you have any reassuring words for this scaredy cat?:D

[BuckGuy]

Any idea how long it takes to get from the dock to the airport via the train? Is Ostiense station before or after Termini? If there's a way to get lost, I'll do it and I sure wouldn't want to miss the plane. Do you have any reassuring words for this scaredy cat?:D

 

 

Ostiense Station is before Termini Station. From dock to Ostiense is about 1 hour. From Ostiense to the airport is about 27 minutes.

 

There will be other fellow cruise passengers travelling the train with you I'm sure.

 

One thing to remind you about taking the train is how many times you'll be moving your luggage around. 1) Shuttle bus from boatside to port entry. 2) Walking from port entry to train station. 3) Lots of steps at the Civitavecchia station and then getting your bags onto the train. 4) Transferring yourself and your luggage to the next train at Ostiense station to the airport.