Driving cruise port to Sorrento

The majority of the drive is not difficult, but once you get onto the peninsula you may encounter traffic. Look at the route on Viamichelin's website--I am not sure if the Sorrentine drive is windy and steep like the Amalfi side.
You will need a car large enough for your luggage. If you just want to save a bit of time, it may be worth it if you drop the car in Sorrento, but there is little advantage to having a car on the Amalfi/Sorrentine coasts in season because of traffic, parking availability and costs. You will need an IDP from AAA and be sure to familiarize yourself with ZTLs.
What some do is take the train to Naples and then use a private driver the rest of the way.

I think the best solution would be to take the train. A car is a problem once you get to Sorrento and the train would be cheaper. There is a direct train from Civitavecchia to Naples at 9.24am and takes about 3 hours. At Naples you would have to change to the local commuter run - Circumvesuvianna - for about an hour ending in Sorrento. There are also a numbers of trains (2,3 an hour) from Civitavecchia that change in Rome to Naples that are actually quicker -- in the range of 2 to 2.5 hours. The only issue with taking the train is how much luggage do you have and can you easily handle it getting to, on, and off the train.

April is not quite high season in Sorrento, but it is popular year-round with dwellers in climates like Great Britain. In May, we found a line of cars waiting, every night, to pay and get into the underground parking lots in Sorrento. You don't indicate if you are familiar with regular issues of car rental in Italy, like insurance, IDP, ZTL, ferry restrictions, and so on. You might wish to search this site on those topics if you are not.

There is no good reason to make that long drive, because the car is a hindrance once you get to the destination. Because cruises disembark in the morning, you could expect an unpleasant time around Rome. The traffic from Naples to Sorrento can be quite bad. And traffic onward to the actual Amalfi Coast (say, Positano or Amalfi) is on a scenic two-lane road with horrible delays. What are your actual plans for the car?

If you drove I doubt if you would have much of a traffic problem around Rome. Without checking a map, not even sure how close you would come to Rome. Civit..... is a good hour NW of Rome and Rome has an outer ring road (interstate style) that is handles traffic pretty well when we have been on it. Probably just head south from Civit.... and avoid Rome in total.

If we drove on our own, we would turn the car into the rental agency immediately upon arriving Sorrento or perhaps right after taking our luggage to the hotel.
My concern is one couple is not good with walking and managing luggage at the same time. Will try to pack one medium bag each and one carryon each. So, we would get a private driver to take us to the Car rental in Civitavecchia.
Our travel agent suggested a train from Civitavecchia to Naples and a private driver from Naples to Sorrento. Choosing the train plan has me concerned about how far we would have to walk pulling suitcases between trains and changes.

If you get the direct Civitavecchia to Naples train, you would not have to change trains, provided you switch to a private driver at Naples. If you choose to continue by train, there is a more comfortable tourist train (Campania Express) that you can use instead of the commuter line the Circumvesuviana, which may be ill-advised with luggage if you have difficulty.
But as long as you are aware of avoiding the ZTL in Sorrento, I see no issue with using a car.

Having been on several cruises I wonder if we could get through ship disembarking procedures and make it to the train station in time to catch that 9:34 train from Civitavecchis to Naples. It would be an easy solution if disembarking is not chaotic.

Napoli Centrale station has escalators between the floors. You would arrive on the ground/platform floor and go down to the lower floor for trains to Sorrento.

The drive into Sorrento on the E45 and SS145 is not particularly narrow or winding, but there can still be a lot of stop-and-go traffic. Driving from there toward Amalfi has both problems.

Cruises might sell transfers to Rome/Termini (as they do to FCO) for people with walking problems, but they are expensive. Getting to the Civitavecchia rail station may require competition for taxis, and 8 bags and 4 people might not fit in one taxi.

You have to take a free 1/4 mile bus from ship side to the port transit center, unless you buy a Cruise company transfer. That means big bags underneath the bus. As you know, most 49-passenger busses only have hat racks over the seats.

How are you getting to Embarcation? Or does the ship start elsewhere?

Edit: The Rome cruise port's placement is ridiculous. I asked a live travel agent ten years ago what she would do for a Rome cruise, and she immediately answered, "Hire a car service." After 3 trips through Civit., I agree with her. You should hire a car service to Termini, take a train to Naples, and hire a car service to Sorrento. For 4, it's not even a bad expense. Since you'll get big cars, the bags will fit in the trunk. But 4 passengers, even in a Mercedes sedan, is too crowded to ride one car all the way.

Edit 2: Regarding your proposed train: Many reduced fare tickets are not changeable or refundable, even if you miss the departure through no fault of your own. This is particularly true of Frecciarossa tickets, which can have quite an expensive "walk-up" fare. (Note that we used stand-alone Freccia tickets. It may be a different fare calculation for the two-city routing for non-direct trips from Civit. to Naples.) Looking at the Trenitalia site, I see a base fare of 48 Euros per person for the two train trip, but I don't find that high enough for a walk-up Frecciarossa. Note also the travel time possiblities of hours more if you miss that 9:24. Note that there will be an unpleasant ticket line at cruise-arrival time.

Based upon the info you provided, I would hire a private driver that is allowed to enter the port and pick you up at the ship and have him take you directly to Rome Termni and take the train or have him drive you direct to Sorrento. Any other scenario is going to have you schlepping bags through multiple intermediate stops.

As for disembarking procedures cruise lines love to you have get off as early as possible. Just ask the ship for early disembarkation.

Thank you. It is nice to hear from individuals familiar with the port.

We enjoy the direct bus to Sorrento from the train station. For us it was very relaxing and no worries about changing trains in Naples to continue to Sorrento.

Jo, please provide a link to the bus service you're referencing? It's unclear which train station in which location it departs from.

Kathy,. The bus run from Tiburtina station and the bus company is Marozzi. It's a nice clean bus with the luggage stored below.

I just seen that FlixBus does Rome to Sorrento too. I haven't checked the details yet but have used them in the past. Both lines were comfortable more so than our flight to Italy

Thanks Jo. I wondered if it was Marozzi you were talking about. :O)

The issue, however, with both that one and Flixbus are the very limited schedules they run on, For instance, there are many days that the only Marozzi bus from Rome Tiburtina>Sorrento is at 15:00. On days that there are two runs (looks to be weekends only) the other is at 7:00 AM. and the OP won't make it from Civitavecchia. That 15:00 bus would be an option although they'd kill most of the day getting there.

Flixbus (Rome Tiburtina) appears also to have just 1 run a day, generally at 8:00 AM, (they won't make it) although Rome to Naples is an option with either Circumvesuviana train or private driver from there. Still, that would be a 3-leg trip (Civitavecchia>Rome>Naples> Sorrento)

Train from Civitavecchia to Naples and then driver from there would get it down to 2 legs, transfer from port to train station aside. A driver is also going to be able to deliver the OP and Co. to their hotel in Sorrento (or close to it) if it's not an easy walk from the train station or bus stop.

This is true, since we had plenty of time it was very much worth spending a night in Rome to make the morning bus. At our age It was making the trip simplest for us. Also last year it was perfect traveling with our married sons and grandkids.

One more point the train to Rome is right outside the cruise port, If possible the easiest way to get to Sorrento would be to rest and spend the night in Rome. Get the bus in the morning. You will be so relaxed...no stress

The easiest and most worry-free solution is to hire a private driver to pick you up at the ship and deliver you to your hotel in Sorrento. I don’t think you could rent a car big enough for 4 adults & 8 suitcases and I also don’t think combining taxis & trains and/or buses is worth the hassle. You’re on vacation — splurge a little!

We have been through Civit...., six times either getting on or off or both with cruises but it has been a couple of years since our last cruise through Civit.... so I am not familiar with the new port arrangements. It is my understanding that the new port entrance is further from the train station and the train station may not be walkable. I think some of the above responses are making it more complicated that it needs to be.

Since you are just getting off a cruise ship, I am not sure why you would have to rest in Rome overnight prior to continuing on to Sorrento. The bus to Sorrento from Rome is handy (if in Rome) but doesn't solve the problem lugging luggage from point to point. In fact, it just increases the the number of times you would have to do that if coming from Civit.....

Unless your hire a driver to Sorrento, the train is only other solution. Hiring a driver could easily run up to 500 euro or maybe more. It is a hundred plus euro just to get to Rome. You can easily make the 9.24 train Sorrento. At the moment the cheapest in 2nd is less than 10 euro, even first class is only 24. These are discount tickets as the base walk up ticket for 2nd is about 44 euro. Since there is almost no risk to buying the discount ticket, I would buy it on line so that you would have the tickets and walk directly to the train platform. The ticket office at Civit..... can be a real zoo when the cruise ships are unloading.

Get off your ship around 8am. The port/cruise ship will have a shuttle that will take you to the port entrance. The entrance will be mobbed with taxi drivers and you may have to pay a premium for the short ride to the train station since most taxis would like to have the longer run to either the airport or Rome. (In the past we always walked to the train station.) With that amount of luggage you may have to take two taxis but it is a small station with only two or three platforms. The distance to the platforms will be short but you probably will have to go up and down some stairs between platforms. Check the departure board for your train number and platform. Walk to the platform and wait for your train. It is an intercity train, not the fastest, but you will have reserve seats. It is a three hour ride and makes five stops. It will be comfortable even in 2nd class with water closet and snacks available. At Naples, arrange for a driver to Sorrento. That probably, but guessing, will be in the range of a hundred euro or so. It is short distance -- maybe 30 to 45 minutes. You will be in your hotel room by mid-afternoon. Probably faster than driving a car. I think that would be easier and less stressful than picking up a rental, driving, and dropping the car.

In Naples you could take the Circumvesuvianna to Sorrento but it is a hike, maybe a hundred yards or more to the platform for the Circum...... train. It dead ends at Sorrento so you will not miss it but it is commuter line - old and clunky. It has a reputation for pickpockets but we have never seen any or had any problems the half dozen times we have ridden it. But still will need a taxi to your hotel from the Sorrento station.

I know you mention that everyone will have a medium size bag and a carry on. You can do less if you work at it a bit. When we do cruises we have three carry-on bags total for the two of us. The third carry-on bag has the extra shoes and clothes that we take for a cruise.

Good luck ---

Does anyone know how close to the ships hired private drivers are allowed to pick up?
I have seen a map brochure of the new port facilities so I assume we meet these drivers at either the “terminal “ or go another port transportation center which is fairly new( cannot remember the Italian name) ... all inside the port area.

Hiring a driver (from Civit. to Sorrento) could easily run up to 500
euro or maybe more

Exactly. That's WAY too much of a splurge for most budgets (it would be for ours!) Train to Naples and driver to Sorrento would shave a large chunk off that amount while still providing a decent amount of efficiency.

Sunshine, I know it's not the topic of this post but where will you be going after your stay in Sorrento? Any concerns? There are some cautions about bunking there on the night before international morning flights from Naples or Rome.

Kathy, your statement is not wrong in any way. But the cost comparison is misleading. You have to add in two taxis in two places (Civit. and Naples) and you have to count four people traveling. You also have to consider missing the prepaid train and paying up to 60 Euros per person for a walk-up trip with Frecciarossa (the longer standard train is much less, but it's still a second train ticket.

So at 5+44+60+25=134 per person, that's 536 Euros, plus a LOT of extra luggage handling, That is:
5 CIvit taxi pp
44 Prepaid train trip pp
60 Walk up train trip pp
25 Naples car service pp

My real point isn't the precise level of expenses, it's a suggestion that regret or sense of shame (?) over extravagance is not the correct emotion here. Even 296 Euros (one train fare only) for four people is still in the same ballpark as 500 for an OP who has PRIORITIZED non-walking, comfort, and luggage handling.

Unless things have changed, a private car service known as Rome Cabs (but not a taxi company despite the name) can pick you up on the pier next to the ship. Their site is www.romecabs.com. Email them with your needs and you should get a response within 24 hours. We've used them a number of times and have always been pleased.

Tim, I'm basing train fare on pre-purchased economy tickets of abt. 9.90 euro from Civit>Naples as there would be little risk in doing that. For a little more, they can book a later train (would likely involve one additional transfer) than the one they are looking at, if nervous about it.

But I guess it's up to them to have to decide which is more important, budget or convenience?