We arrive in Rome on 10/12/07 and are planning an orientation tour later in the day. Our party arrives at 11:10 a.m. (if all goes according to plan). The tour company would pick us up at our airport area hotel (2.5 miles from airport)at 2:30 p.m. Do you think that's too soon? Can someone provide an idea of how long it usually takes to pick up baggage and clear customs? This information would sure help us arrange our tour time. Thanks!

It took us about an hour to get through and pick up our luggage. I'm curious as to why you would stay at the airport instead of in Rome?

HI V,

On our last visit, our luggage took 1:45 hr to arrive.

Although our BA flight from London was a couple hours late arriving at FCO, we cleared everything and claimed our luggage and met our driver in a little less than one hour after landing.

The 2:30 time would make me a little bit nervous just because anything could happen to make your flight late. As far as arrival, it took us almost no time to go through passport control so it was really just getting to baggage claim and waiting on our bags, which didn't take any longer than any other airport (in our experience).

We carried on for 3 weeks in Italy. Of course that was 2 years ago when liquids and gels were no problem. Customs was a non event but I can't speak to the baggage claim issue. I guess I'll find out in April. If you're taking a shuttle bus to your hotel, those can run slowly and infrequently.

Clearing Customs takes about 2 minutes.

But - Customs and Immigration are NOT the same.

Immigration can take 10/15 minutes but I've had it take about 40 - when bad weather issues resulted in a pack of planes landing at once.

The next issue was waiting forever for the bags (they somehow got bags from different flights mixed) - took about an hour.

Once you have your bags you just walk through the Green lane - and unless you're pulled aside (I've never seen this) it takes a couple of minutes to push your cart through.

Okay - now I'm nervous. I just booked our bus tickets to Siena and left 3 hrs from our scheduled landing to get to the bus station. It takes about an hour to get to the bus station from FCO, so that leaves 2 hrs to clear customs and get our luggage.

Does the time of day matter? Last time we landed early morning and made it through in less than an hour.

Hi BJ,

>Does the time of day matter?

Not really. It's more a matter of luck.

Landed there a month ago on a Monday at about 5 p.m. and it was the worst baggage recovery system I have ever seen. Nearly 2 hours to get bags, but we then sailed through customs, etc in a couple of minutes. Next time to Rome it's all carry on for me.