We decided it was time, when we were already “across the pond” in Rome, to take a cruise of the Mediterranean. While we had cruised out of Florida many times, this was our first time cruising out of Civitavecchia, Rome’s cruise port. We were delighted to find it very easy to reach the port! Civitavecchia is only about 70 kilometers from Rome, and easily reached by train. 

Our ship sailed at 6 p.m.  So just after lunch, we took a short taxi ride to Termini, Rome’s main train station. We walked right up to an electronic ticket kiosk. We could have purchased the tickets online in advance, but we wanted to have the kiosk experience so we could share it with you!

It took us a few minutes to figure the process out. But then we were able to book our first class seats (which are specific, reserved seats) on the express/non-stop train from Trenitalia (one of Italy’s two train companies, the other being Italo). We chose a fast train, a Frecciabianca (freccia = arrow, and bianca = white) train — only the Frecciarossa (rossa = red) is faster, but that line does not run to Civitavecchia.  

Buying the ticket was the only tricky part of this trip:  you need to enter the correct destination, which is the Civitavecchia cruise port and not the city of Civitavecchia. If you purchase your Trenitalia ticket to Civitavecchia Porto, rather than Civitavecchia, you will also receive the bus to the cruise port (yes, technically you can buy a ticket for the bus separately, or walk to the port from the train station, but it’s a long walk and even more of a pain if you have luggage). This bus service is referred to as the Civitavecchia “Portlink,” and the change from the train to the bus is noted as a “change” on your ticket (the train itself was express/non-stop).  

So, we each received a pair of tickets — one for the train, the other for the bus. The tickets were €27.50 per person.

Our tickets in hand, we looked up at the big board about which track (binario) our train was leaving from.

One thing to note: The kiosk had trouble accepting our U.S. credit card even though the contactless symbol was on it (and, “tap to pay” works fine at Italian cafe bars and restaurants). So we suggest — even if your payment card has the contactless symbol on it — having cash or a back-up card to pay. Perhaps it was because the U.S. card was a credit, rather than a debit, card.

 

It was a very short walk from where we bought our tickets.  We saw we’d lucked out in our choice of ticket kiosks — the lines for the ticket machines right in front of the electronic gates were horrendously long.  We each scanned our train ticket at the electronic gate, it opened, and we walked onto the platform for our train. Our tickets had the train number and our seat numbers on them.

Energized with excitement, we quickly found our seats. One of our two bags fit overhead, the other we stored in the space between two back-to-back seats.  Several other travelers had bags that were far too large for either storage space — so they ended up plopping those bags on empty seats (had the train car been filled, those enormous bags might have been a problem).  

And, we were off! The train left right on time, and we had a relaxing time watching the landscape go by.  Before we knew it — less than a hour later — we were there.  We exited the little train station (there are some stairs, or you’ll have to seek out the small elevator) and did not see any signs for the bus, but we just followed the crowd to the right after exiting the station.

 

 

 

A line quickly formed of a bunch of non-Italians who were all headed off for a cruise. People chatted happily, and a few minutes later, the bus arrived. The driver asked people which cruise lines they were taking. We were on Princess, and he nodded that we were on the correct bus.  A couple cruising on Norwegian cruise lines, however, were told to wait for the next bus.

A few minutes later, we passed the massive Michelangelo fortress (you can see a bit of it in the picture at the top of this post) before being dropped off just a few meters away from the cruise terminal for our cruise line.  People were directed to proceed to the left (seemingly the opposite end) of the terminal if they were dropping off any luggage to be portered aboard. Otherwise, light packers such as ourselves, with no bags to drop off, could just walk straight inside.  

 

We breezed through security, and then check-in took all of three minutes… and then we walked aboard the big, new, and impressive Sun Princess. We were then asea on our Mediterranean cruise.

Easy peasy! Our first stop was Naples, where we headed off to Capri. More on that in our next post.