Ferry and train tickets

Lucky you. Go to www.capitrain.com for all you will need to know. Check out www.seat61.com for all the rest. You won't go wrong at either site.

To answer your question. No, advance purchase is not necessary. Trains in Italy rarely if ever sell out. The only reason to purchase on line would be to take advantage of any discounts that may be available. Of course, the discount come with restrictions. The ferry can be weather dependent.

I believe George meant Capitaine Train .com Unless you want to attend an Asian conference on financing emerging African markets ;-)

For those not familiar with them (always remember, though - Wikipedia is not always a ironclad source of fact, whatever the subject): here's some info on Capitaine Train.

Some tickets cannot be purchased in advanced and some can be purchased in advance online at great savings. For instance, you could save a lot of money on your ticket from Rome to Naples, but you need to purchase your Circumvesuviana ticket at the Naples train station (actually the Circumvesuviana station; they're connected). You don't have to buy them in advance, though.

Why the ferry instead of flying?

Thank you everyone for the advice! Zoe, we thought taking a ferry would be the best savings time wise. We've heard that flights can take just as long or longer to get to Sicily. Is this not true?

" We've heard that flights can take just as long or longer to get to Sicily. Is this not true? "

I don't know about a ferry from Naples to Catania. There is definitely one from Naples to Palermo, and it's overnight. The flights take under 90 minutes, so even with the airport stuff on each end (and it's not bad since it's a domestic flight), they are definitely faster. Look at Skyscanner to see all the flight options: http://www.skyscanner.com/.

Note that flights start out cheap, but the cheap tickets sell out quickly; if it's a peak time (like Monday morning), the last minute tickets can be hundreds of euros. If you're flying Alitalia within Italy, use their International website rather than their US one, as the International one has lower price options like the Italian website does, but still has an English language option.

Thanks again everyone!!! We have decided to fly!!!
Grazie! Ciao