herbanrenewal

I will be arriving by cruise and traveling on to Milan.
I hesitate to reserve a train ticket because of possible delays getting from the ship to the station.
Is there a difference in price if no reservations are made, or will the price be the same as shown on the Trenitalia website (€90-100 depending on train)

PalenQ

Yes full fare will be the same as on trenitalia.com as at the station - there are discounted fares that are train-specific and non-changeable so you do not want those in your situation. Just take a taxi or walk from the sprawling port area to the Civitavecchia train station and buy a thru ticket to Milan - there are two routes - one up the coast via Pisa and Genoa - the slow train route or you can go via Rome and hop high-speed trains that probably would be significantly faster and more expensive - all tickets except on regional trains come with the required seat reservation. And have no worry about getting on trains - so many, especially between Rome-Termini and Milan - trains go frequently from Civitavecchia to Rome Termini and many of these are regional trains you just hop on - leave ample time between arrival at Rome Termini and the train to Milan if you go that route as it is a huge station and trains can always be running late.

Lots of good info on Italian trains - www.seat61.com; www.ricksteves.com and www.budgeteuropetravel.com.

PalenQ

Yes it takes an hour longer via the coastal route and there are not that many direct trains - so it seems best to go thru Rome and www.bahn.de - German rail site that I use for schedules of all European trains indicates to leave 30 minutes transfer time at Rome Termini. So unless you can catch the relatively few ES (Eurostart) trains that go direct from Civitavecchia to Milan along the coast - direct no change but takes an hour longer than via Rome - but no hassle changing in Rome, etc - then the sure way is via Rome - but again that will cost significantly more I would think.

kybourbon

>>>I hesitate to reserve a train ticket because of possible delays getting from the ship to the station.<<<

There is no benefit to booking a train from Civitavecchia to Rome in advance. There are no discounts and no reserved seating on the frequent R trains. Ticket price in under 5€. Buy your ticket when you get to the train station and be sure to validate in the yellow machine. Travel time is a little over an hour.

For Rome/Milan (your fastest travel option - 3 hours), there are discounts if you purchase in advance (as cheap as 9€ for the fast AV trains), but since you don't know exact time, you might want to buy after arrival. The base prices will remain the same as they are now unless Trenitalia has a slight summer fare increase. I would probably leave myself some leeway to get to Rome and book a 9€ fare if I found one. To search the cheap fares between Rome/Milan (not Civitavecchia), use the Le Frecce link and enter the Italian spelling for the cities. Schedules for summer are probably not loaded yet and may only run through first week of June.

http://www.fsitaliane.it/cms/v/index...003f16f90aRCRD

PalenQ

9 euro tickets sound great but they are extremely limited in numbers - hype often sounds better than reality but I guess if you can nab one go for it and if you miss the train you are only out 9 euros - so great tip from kynourbon about that - and if you actually do find a 9 euro fare still leave some extra time between ship arrival and departure from Rome - at least 3 hours IMO.