We flew into Rome two days early. Keep in mind that the cruise does NOT start from Rome (Rome is inland), rather it starts at the port city of Civitavecchia, a 60 minute train ride from Rome. The train terminal was a bit confusing on where were to go to get on our train. We had to walk through a department store and eventually found the way to the tracks. However, there wasn’t anyone really directing us to the proper train nor were there any signs or porters to ask if we were getting on the right train. So, we hopped on and luckily it was the correct train. For second-class tickets, 4.5 Euros/per person was a pretty good price. We had plenty of room, initially, until more stops were made and more passengers got on board. Still, not a problem. I had to keep track of our location on Google maps to know what the next stop was. Since we had luggage in the overhead bins, I wanted to start getting it down in advance of the stop. Once we got off, we had to go down several flights of stairs carrying our luggage (some of it rather heavy) and back up the other side since there were no escalators. Once out, we had to figure out where and which local bus to take to the actual port. It was fairly easy to guess since there were a lot of other people with luggage waiting at curbside. Eventually one bus came and everyone started to crowd towards it and a few minutes later, another one came. It felt like a rather like a crazy cattle drive to get on. The bus cost 2 Euros per person. On port days, there should have been some sort of queue lines set up by the local bus authority. The bus took us to the port where WE had to transfer all of our luggage to another bus provided by Holland which then took us to the check in pavilion. The check in pavilion (managed by the port authority) was mildly chaotic.

Embarkation:

We arrived around 1:30and the check in process from the Holland America side was very smooth. It was not busy when we arrived to check in and we were on board within20 minutes. Room was ready and clean. Read more