LHR to Rome for Galaxy cruise?

[mollmatt]

Can someone help me figure out how to get from London to Rome for a cruise in June? I can only get FF tickets into LHR, arriving June 1st at approximately 10am. BA flights are around $200pp. The Galaxy leaves Civitavecchia at 7pm on June 3rd. Can we utilize any of the discount European carriers like EasyJet or Ryanair and fly from a London-area airport on the 3rd of June to Rome? Can you fly into one of the other Rome airports like CIA and get to the port via shuttle or train? I'm trying to plan this trip for myself and my 13yr old daughter and we are on a tight budget. Any advice would be appreciated.

[StephenJohnson]

Hmm..could you use your FF points to fly to Milan instead, by any chance? It would be easy to travel by rail into Rome at any convenient time, and then take the brief commuter run out to Civitavecchia.

 

I've never booked separate intra-Europe fairs, so I really can't provide any guidance on that, alas.

[ozcaz]

Hi,

Found the following info for you.

 

Ryan Air fly Luton- Ciampino Put in a dumby date for June and was around 73.00 pounds for the two of you.

Easy Jet fly Gatwick to Ciampino Couldnt get as far as June but got one for Jan at $82.00 pounds. I am not sure how the US dollar goes against English Pound as I am an aussie.

 

To get to either Lyton or Gatwick go to Nationalrail.co.uk for details on how to get there. What you could do is go on to Lonely Planet travel site. There is a English Branch and ask the question how to get to either cheaply. This is a back packer site so they all know the cheapest ways of getting around. Ask for how long and how many stops to get there. My suggestion would be Gatwick would be easier.

 

As for Italy

 

You can get from Ciampino Airport to Stazione Terminal Rome by catching cotral bus from the airport to line a which takes you to Stazione Terminal.

.80c euro Could be a little more as i got this off my lonely planet book which is from 2002. Travel time is 45 minutes.

 

From Stazione Terminal to Civitavecchia is $19.00 each. 81kms about 1 hour. Nice scenery. Look at www.raileurope.com for details.

 

Personally, it is going to be a lot of messing around. If you can fly directly on ba from lhr to rome and then get a transfer to civitavecchia from the cruise line if they have a shuttle it may cost you more but a lot less stress. Remember you have to do this both ways.

Hope that helped.

 

Caz

[vivian02]

I think you are going in the right direction and quote me if I am wrong. Your probably flying into terminal 4 at LHR which means you will need to go over to terminal 2 if you get a flight out flying to Central Europe. Trying to get to the other airports can be done but it adds up to extra expenses and I think you might be limited on your luggage. You should be able to fly 70lbs into London but depending on the Airlines and their restriction you might be limited to 50 lbs from there. I would try to get the cheapest flight out of LHR into Rome say somewhere around $150 per/person. If you find a deal say $100 per/person arriving in Frankfurt or Zurich you could catch a train very easily to Rome. I would stick with a flight into Rome but you have time on your side and can check out alot ways to doing this. Also remember getting luggage to another airport in London can be a hassle. (Can be done, just a pain). Good luck with your research. Tim (Been there, done that).

[sparkers]

I too plan on traveling to Rome for a cruise with my 12 year old daughter. We plan on going on Carnival Liberty. I will be arranging my own air and I am currently debating on taking the train to get to the port. I give you credit for planning around the LHR part of the trip. Have you gone to the web site cruisecritic.com? They have wonderful threads that give info. on how to get to the port from the train station.

Sparky :)

[Globaliser]

Have you gone to the web site cruisecritic.com? They have wonderful threads that give info. on how to get to the port from the train station.

Yes, aren't we all wonderful here? :D

 

Back to the original questions: Much depends on whether you want to stop in London. If you just want to connect directly to Rome, you would be crazy to change airports just to save a few tens of dollars - you will incur travel costs, wasted time and a lot of hassle in doing so. Fares on BA to Rome for June start from just under £100. If you're flying BA to Heathrow from Miami, you will be arriving at Terminal 3, from which the transfer to Terminal 1 (where BA's Rome flights operate from) is slightly easier.

 

Alitalia also fly from London to Rome - it'll be worth checking their fares too.

 

If you are stopping over in London, though, then you will have to get back out to an airport somewhere in order to fly to Rome, so the arguments in favour of using a low-fare airline are stronger. There are reasonable rail links to all the relevant airports (Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton) so it's really just a question of finding out what you need.

 

On your trans-Atlantic flights, your baggage allowance should be 2 pieces, each no more than 32 kg (70 lbs). (Remember that 32 kg is now an absolute maximum limit per piece, for health and safety reasons.) If you buy a separate intra-Europe ticket on BA, the baggage allowance will be the standard 23 kg (50 lbs) total, although it is possible that you will be allowed to get away with it if you through-check the bags if connecting directly - although that concession is supposed to apply only if you are travelling on a single ticket covering the entire journey.

 

If you fly easyJet, the baggage limit should be 20 kg (44 lbs) total. On Ryanair it is significantly less - 15 kg (33 lbs) total. These two airlines have reputations for being much stricter with charging the excess baggage charges if you are overweight.

 

As for getting the train from Frankfurt or Zuerich to Rome, I wouldn't do it myself. You're talking about over 750 and 550 miles of train travel here, respectively.

[StephenJohnson]

Yes, aren't we all wonderful here? :D

 

-SNIP-

As for getting the train from Frankfurt or Zuerich to Rome, I wouldn't do it myself. You're talking about over 750 and 550 miles of train travel here, respectively.

 

Don't forget, this is European rail service.

 

You can pick up the 6:05PM in Frankfurt, and make one change in Basel - arrive 8:55, leave 9:30 PM -to arrive in Rome at 9:55 AM - sleepers and couchettes are available. When we traveled from Naples to Genoa (albeit a significantly shorter run), that worked very well for us. Of course, the strong Euro will tend to make European rail more expensive.

 

Frankfurt(Main)Hbf 02.06.05 dep 18:05 ICE 79 InterCityExpress BordRestaurant

Basel SBB 02.06.05 arr 20:55

Basel SBB 02.06.05 dep 21:27 EN 313 EuroNight Sleeper and couchette train

Roma Termini 03.06.05 arr 09:50

[Globaliser]

Yes, but just think of the overall travel proposition:

- Fly trans-Atlantic overnight to London.

- Change in London, fly to Frankfurt.

- Train from Frankfurt airport to Frankfurt Hbf.

- Then another 16 hours on an overnight train to Rome, with a further change.

 

Is it sensible to do this to save the $100 per person difference between the London-Frankfurt air fare and the London-Rome air fare? (And that's before you count the extra cost of the train tickets from Frankfurt airport to Rome.)

 

No way, this is not for me. And I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else, either.