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1st class vs 2nd class on Italia Rail

Posted by on

Hi there,

I'm getting ready to purchase train tickets for our trip in May. We have two days of travel planned in the middle of our trip. The first is Florence to Venice, which is 2 hours. The second trip is Venice to Rome, which is 3 hours 45 minutes.

Since the trains include WiFi, I plan to use that time to upload photos and catch up on social media / work using my IPad.

When I look up 1st class vs 2nd class on Italia Rail, there is a photo of first class that shows each seat has a table of some sort. But I don't see any photos of 2nd class.

Can anyone tell me what type of amenities 2nd class offers? Will we have a small table? Electrical outlet? If not, then it's worth it to me to spend a little more for 1st class.

Thanks in advance!

Posted by
211 posts

If you're talking about the Frecciarossa, there are tables between seats that face one another, and power outlets. Logging into wifi can take awhile to input either a phone number/email address, etc., and its speed and strength goes up and down.

Posted by
224 posts

Good luck with WiFi. I don’t think we’ve ever had it work on a train. Last time in Milan it wouldn’t even work in the lounge at the train station.

Man in Seat 61 will tell you all you want to know about trains. Just google him and go to his site.

Posted by
23642 posts

Personally I would not rely on WIFI for anything other than checking email. The few times we have tried using it, it was slow and inconsistent. For those short trips I would use 2nd class. I don't think that first class always has tables but our experience with first class is limited.

Posted by
34001 posts

The trains can only make a wifi hotspot when they can clearly receive a strong cellular signal, and that isn't very often between Florence and Venice because of the mountains and therefor the tunnels the train spends so much of its time in. And then there are so many people sharing the signal on the train that it can become very slow.

To Rome it can be even worse. The high speed line has just so many tunnels every time I've tried, on both Trenitalia and Italo, I have been frustrated.

Posted by
29 posts

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I think we'll go with 2nd class, and I won't count on being able to use Wi-Fi. :-)

Posted by
1722 posts

My (frequent) experience with trains is that wifi usually works, but heavy downloads and video services are disabled. In order to log on you need a password usually sent as a SMS to a cell phone, I am afraid an Italian SIM may be needed.

Posted by
257 posts

For the long distance runs, you can also take Italo, and when I took them last year, the wifi worked surprisingly well on board, and I was in second class.

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