Galaxy in Civitaveccia: debarkation and other ?s

[mlbcruiser]

I have read on this board that the Galaxy gets into port in Civitaveccia very early in the morning on debarkation day. People have talked about getting off the ship as early as 5 a.m. (!). We will not want to get off THAT early. My question is how long can one expect to be able to stay on the ship (and sleep!) the morning of debarkation?

 

Also, are there plenty of unbooked cabs, vans or buses waiting in the port area to make it easy to just grab one w/out a reservation to be taken back to Rome? We don't know exactly what time we will HAVE to get off the ship so we don't want to reserve something to take us back to Rome TOO early.

 

Thanks for any info.

[mlbcruiser]

Sorry. Just trying to get back to check the email notification setting!

[superjerryw]

We did a Med cruise on Galaxy this past September in and out of Civitavecchia (sp.?). Based on what I had read on these boards it seemed that there were not a lot of cabs available at the pier so I arranged for private car. I asked that the car pick us up at 9:00 AM and they were there waiting for us when we walked off the ship. That gave us plenty of time to eat breakfast, collect our stuff and disembark. The trip cost too much overall to bother trying to save a few dollars on transportation back to Rome and face the possibility of not finding a cab when we got off the ship. When we actually got off the ship I did NOT see a long line of taxi's as you would typically see if you disembarked in Miami or Fort Lauderdale.

[mlbcruiser]

Thanks, superjerryw, for the info. I was mostly concerned over what time Celebrity expected us to be off the ship, after reading how so many people planned to disembark REALLY early. I had someone to share a limo with, but that party has a flight out of Rome that same day and wanted to head off the ship too early for me. I know there is always the train back to Rome but we'll probably hire a taxi or van again. I had just hoped we could hook up w/others at the port and not have to prearrange the ride so we could take our time getting off, etc.

[Ships R Great]

mlb---go over to the Cruise Connections Board and see if there are others you can hook up with to arrange transportation. The facilities at Civitaveccia are terrible. No place to sit---no rest rooms---just a shed with the luggage. I also did not see many cabs waiting. Don't count on picking up a cab and zooming away.

[cechase]

mlb we disembarked from Galaxy in October. Ships R Great is giving you the true picture, which can even be worse with embarkation. When we embarked, it was raining heavily, and you had to walk a considerable distance to a tent where you checked-in after dropping off your luggage.

 

It is best to arrange transfers from Rome to the dock, and from the dock to

Rome or the airport well in advance. We were able to get some good suggestons concerning limo and van services and post it on the cruise connection thread for our cruise. We were even able to double up on one transfer with another couple. Beaware of arranging a large group for a transfer. One of our group arranged a bus for about 16 couples on disembarkation - and they sent a bus with a capacity of just one half. The result was that we all waited around for an hour and half or more at the pier so they could send a bus which barely held all of us and our luggage [luggage had to be placed in the aisle].

 

If you go to the cruise connection thread for the 10/7/2005 Galaxy cruise, somewhere in there will be a listing of limo services, including email addresses, etc. Just be forewarned that this is still active thread with about 126 pages. :D

[nparmelee]

That last morning they often only serve breakfast until a certain time, so don't plan on sleeping in too late if you want to eat. They can't start loading the next group of passengers until your group is off so they'll probably try to have you off by 10/10:30.

[casavaha]

We were on the Galaxy last Oct.

Forget about cabs or other transportation at the dock. Arrange your own

transport before arrival. Our hotel provided transport for us. I would

contact other persons on the ship, and charter a van or bus into Rome.

 

We have taken the train before. Nice trip, but slow. There is no terminal

at the dock only a large tent, used for checkin and departures.

[mlbcruiser]

Thanks so much for all of your input! At least there is a tent in Civitaveccia for your luggae now! We were on an RCCL cruise 5 yrs. ago from there and man, talk about being BASIC. I remember the long walk, too! (Don't even want to THINK about it raining!) We actually went ahead onto the ship right away but sat around in common areas they directed us to for ages. Only food was cookies, coffee, and punch. Agents came around checking our documentation, etc. That took forever. Then we were herded to different stations to more or less go through the stuff you normally do at a check in like in Miami. In comparison, in another case of no actual terminal in Tahiti, Princess was much better organized. Tents were set up w/regular check in desks and guarded holding areas for luggage. Went MUCH quicker and smoother.

 

We do have a van reservation w/4 other people from our cruise set up for embarkation day. Our disembarkation needs were different so we didn't set anything up for that day. But it sounds like we need to. A disembarkation at 9 a.m. is fine and what we are more used to. That is a good point about having too many riders, though. Luggage can be substantial and take up lots of room! By the way, last time we cruised from Civitaveccia, we had rented a car because we still had 4 more days to spend in Italy, which is why I couldn't remember about transportation.

 

Thanks again to all of your for your excellent tips and help!

[sbc98grad]

We used Romecabs last year upon debarkation. I can't find the contact info, but I know I found it on the message boards, so you could search and find it. They were quite helpful, even managing to upsize from a car to a minivan via e-mail in the middle of our cruise. (We found another couple who decided to join us at debarkation since they planned to "just take a cab" from the train station at embarkation and ended up walking since no cabs were to be found).

[mlbcruiser]

sbc, wow, having to lug the luggage all the way to the train station wouldn't be fun, for sure! I do recall that when we first got into town (on a Sat.) it was maybe about 12:30 and it seemed like much of the town of Civitaveccia had already gone on an afternoon siesta or something! Many places were closed. Some of them opened later on but some did not ever reopen. Town was very quiet. But on debarkation day, it seemed a lot more "active". I don't know why as that was also a Sat., but just earlier, I guess.