pierce2italy

We are planning a trip to Italy (from Washington DC area) for 2 weeks. We want to see Rome, Florence and Venice. We plan to arrive Rome and leave from Venice. We will have a round tirp tickets for 3 people from Dullas (IAD) to London Stansted (STN).
1, The plane will arrive at 8:30am at STN. We can take Ryanair from STN to Rome Ciampino (CIA). There is one Ryanair leaving at 12:40pm. Is it enough time to make the transfer considering pick up the luggages, custom, and check-in? The next Ryanair from STN to CIA is 17:55pm which will arrive at CIA at 20:55pm. How is CIA different from FCO? What's the transportation choice to get into Rome downtown?

2, We need to leave STN at 1:00pm to come back to IAD. There is Ryanair leaving from Venice Treviso TSF at 9:50am and arriving 10:55AM at STN. Is that enough time for us? Anything we should know about Venice Treviso TSF?

We will travel the last 2 weeks of June 2006. Is there a better to way to travel Rome, Florence, Venice if we wil land at London Stansted first?
Thanks in advance.

WillTravel

If you are landing at 8:30 AM at Stansted, you will have more than enough time to make the 12:40 PM Ryanair flight. If you are two hours late, it becomes more dicey, but almost certainly possible. If you are three hours late, you probably wouldn't make it. You have to be checked in 40 minutes ahead of time at Stansted for a Ryanair flight, and that means actually checked in, not waiting in line (and the lines are often very long).

Presumably you need to be checked in some time prior to 1 PM for your return flight to IAD. Look it up, but I'd expect that would be by noon, approximately. Given luggage pickup at STN, and supposedly landing at 10:55 AM, but possibly later, and then having to go through immigration, and then having to check in before 12 noon, it sounds quite dicey.

You can get travel insurance to mitigate your risks, and they require a set number of hours between unrelated flights and a set amount of time to allow to reasonably get to the airport. My travel insurance for similar sorts of situations would have handled situation #1, but not situation #2.

WillTravel

CIA is just a different airport than FCO, in a different area. You can take the Terravision coach to get from CIA to Termini. http://www.terravision.it

You can also take the Terravision coach to get from Piazzale Roma to Treviso airport.

rkkwan

Apparently, you're flying the all-business class Maxjet.

I think that's important to say that in the original post, because apparently you'll not just trying to find the cheapest way to get to Italy. Instead, you want to get some good value.

Therefore, it's important to ask whether the overall itinerary makes sense. You save money on the trans-Atlantic flight, but you take a risk with the connection, and that connection is on no-frills Ryanair that charges one for everything, including checked bags. And if your first flight is late, you not only have to buy a new ticket on Ryanair (which may not be that cheap then), you also lose several hours, as I don't think easyjet flies Stansted-Rome.

I would seriously look at alternatives. For example, Continental often has relatively inexpensive "Z" fares to Europe that costs ~$2,000 r/t. And other airlines do as well. [I punched in some June dates, and found many business class tickets to Rome for about $2,600]

Yes, that may be a little more than Maxjet/Ryanair, but you save time, don't need to worry about connections, you don't need to fly back to London the day before, you earn tonnes of FF miles, you get to fly business class all the way to Italy, not just London, you don't need to worry about luggage allowance on Ryanair, etc...

WillTravel

It would be quite a shock to move from business-class MaxJet to cattle-class, pack-'em-in Ryanair! (Not that I mind Ryanair, for what it offers, which is cheap airfare.)

TimS

According to whichbudget.com, a search engine showing the routes of no-frills airlines in Europe, you could either fly Ryanair from STN to CIA or Air Berlin from STN to FCO. From Venice it looks like your only choice is TSF to STN on Ryanair.

Ryanair and other no-frills airlines often use outlying airports to keep their costs down (like CIA rather than FCO). That means you pay more in time and money to get between the airport and the city. Google the respective airport Web sites and you'll find information on public transportation to the city.

alanRow

"Google the respective airport Web sites and you'll find information on public transportation to the city."

Ryanair's website (under destinations) has information on the airports they use including transport. Some of the other low-cost airlines do the same

rkkwan

AirBelin's STN-FCO flight leaves 7:50am, so no same-day connection for the OP.

Anyways, Ryanair has a early morning flight CIA-STN that departs 6:35am, so they don't have to stay a night in London/Stansted, but they need to get to CIA really early.

CIA is actually closer to central Rome than FCO, and has good bus/train service.

I found the lowest Ryanir fare one can get now for STN-CIA roundtrip to be about 47GBP, or about $82. It's a very attractive fare. But last minute fare right now is 50GBP + tax for the one-way STN-CIA, which is about US$115. That's what the OP may have to pay if they miss their original flight.

WillTravel

If the original poster does want to use MaxJet and Ryanair (or another budget airline), I'd suggest to take a flight back from Italy the night before, and stay in London or near Stansted the last night of the trip.

TimS

OP needs to fly from Venice to London, not from Rome to London, on the return trip. I wouldn't want to take a chance on the short connection time at Stansted on the return trip. A safer option would be to fly to London the night before, either to Stansted on Ryanair or to Heathrow on a national carrier like British Airways.

TimS

If OP decides to return to London a day early, one other option would be to fly from Venice Marco Polo (VCE) to London Gatwick (LGW) on easyJet.

pierce2italy

Thank you all for replying. Especially for WillTravel and rkkwan. Yes, it's MAXjet. No, rkkwan, we are not the "business" class type and we don't shop for "business class" normally..(I didn't buy the power ball this past Friday). I was one of those still waiting for airfare to Italy to drop from IAD (Washington. DC area) until last night/this morning. It was about $1100-$1200 for the dates we want, and at least with 1 stop. We want to leave 6/17 weekend, the first weekend when school is off. Any way, MAXjet has this intro promo $999 (BOOK BY March 15)from IAD to Stansted and that includes any and all taxes!! So I don't want to wait for economy fare to drop any more because I can't work on the hotel reservations and other details before I have the flights booked. So we will take MAXjet and work on the extra legs to get to Italy and back. It's a little hassle but we will be staying for 2 weeks and so we can work on the alternatives.

1, Assuming we go Vince first, and then leave ROME to Stansted for connection. Would ROME be much hotter during 6/27-7/3 than say 6/18-6/24? It seems it's a silly question since it's only a week a part. I just read comments from this board that Rome will get hot in the summer so I put Rome first to visit.

2, What other city in Italy that we should/could vist last to make the connection to Stansted? I know there is limited flights/schedule from Venice Treviso TSF to Stansted, so may be we can leave from other city? I'm using whichbudget.com and it lists all information, but it doesn't have a map to show. I'm using the maps on Fordor's Exploring Italy and it just doesn't help much. I have to admit that I'm geographic challenged and I need help. Which northern/northeast Italy city that has connection to Stansted and that's also worth the trip for first time Italy vistors? Milan is an option, except I don't know what we will do at Milan. As far as I know, Milan is a party city and shopping city and I'm not into that now.

Thanks again everyone!

WillTravel

Look here, and scroll down to the Italy section. I see Bologna, Verona, Milan, Trieste, Pisa, and Turin as northern possibilities (some obviously more convenient than others).

http://www.whichbudget.com/en/cheapflights.php?from=STN

Whatever way you'd do it, I'd advise against relying on Ryanair, which is very good but not perfect in terms of reliability, particularly in combination with Italian strike propensities, for a morning flight to London the day you are supposed to fly to London.

rkkwan

Oh, I see that special now. Yes, I would book it for ~$999 roundtrip in June. And worry about the connections later on.

As you said, you have two weeks, so a few hours extra in London on the way there and an overnight stay coming back is still worth it, in my opinion.

WillTravel

Make that fly from London, in the last post.