My husband and I currently have a reserved ticket on flixbus, Siena (viale Toselli) to Rome Fiumicino Airport.
Bus is supposed to leave at 7:25 and arrive at 11:15 at the airport. It has one stop at the Tibertina bus station.
Our flight departs at 3:15.
I'm starting to feel nervous about cutting this too close. I've read a few things in reviews about flixbus being late at times, and confusion about pickup spots.
Does anyone have experience with this particular route?
We took a Flixbus from Rome to Siena about a week ago. We missed our stop which was at viale Toselli. The bus did pull over there but there didn't seem to be anything that looked like a town, and we didn't realize it was our stop. There was no announcement of any sort by the driver. So we wound up at the next stop by the train station. That worked out but I now don't have a sense of the location that we are scheduled to be leaving from, which is adding to my nervousness.
Experiences appreciated!
If need be we could go back a day early and stay over in Rome.
Posted by
Gettysburg PA
7189 posts
Sorry- no experience with that bus but I would always plan to stay the night before IN the town I am departing from.
Even though your flight is later in day- if staying in Rome is feasible- that's would I would suggest.
Stuff happens
Posted by
Chicago
654 posts
Obviously, the safest thing to do is to go to Rome the night before.
But, another way to help make sure you get to where you're going is to
turn on location on your smartphone and open a map application when
you think you are getting close to your stop. You can then follow the
progress of your bus and get off at the right location. In this situation,
of course, I doubt you are going to mistake the airport for anything but
an airport.
If you are worried about missing the pickup spot, you could try going to
the main bus station a bit early. Most likely, assuming that is the origination
of the route, the bus will be sitting there and you can have time to find it
and load your bags on board.
4 hours would seem to be sufficient to make your flight, but, spending 4
hours on the bus, to get to the airport and wait in lines for 4 hours, and
then fly (especially if you have a 8+ hour flight back to the US), seems to
be a very (very) long day.
I have never had any issues with Flixbus, and it is worth considering that
for the most part, the reviews you are likely to read are negative ones.
Not that many people post a review to say their bus ride was just fine.
Posted by
Los Angeles
1192 posts
You will be leaving from the same place you were dropped off?
Viale Pietro Toselli - Penny market, 53100 Siena [address is from the Flixbus website - they provide a tiny map link icon on their sales page that shows each location]
Map it in Google Maps, then ask it for directions from where you will be starting from.
The consensus opinion you will find here on the forum is to travel back to Rome the evening before. You're flight is late enough in the day so that you can take an inexpensive method - such as the bus - to the airport if you're watching your pennies. If you end up staying near Tiburtina you also have the option of taking the FL1 train from Tiburtina to the airport.
Posted by
OP
14 posts
Thanks to all who replied. We did wind up going a day earlier, staying the night before we left near the airport. All went well.
Flixbus direct from Siena to the Rome airport turned out to be quite straightforward, and easy - and cheap! I wound up changing the reservation, so there was a slight fee for that, but the original fee was somewhere around 18E per person, as I recall. Very inexpensive transport!