Getting through Rome airport & into Rome

No one is as good an expert on this topic as Ron in Rome. His website is amazingly helpful, as you'll see.

With checked bags add anywhere from 30 minutes to 3+ hours, the latter applying if your bags are lost and you go fill out the lost luggage forms and try to figure out where your bags are. Don't know if you have a direct flight to Rome which minimizes the chance of this. On my last flight to Rome I was talking to the woman sitting next to me on the leg of the flight from Frankfurt (big United hub) to Rome and ran into her again a few days later in Pompeii (I guess tourists are on the same loop). Her bag didn't make the plane, hassle to track it down and get it delivered to her hotel.

FCO at 9 am- out by 9:45 if no checked bags- in Termini station by 10:45 to 11:00 or so. It's only a 35 minute express train ride. If you arrange a private ride you could cut it down by 30 minutes or so.

How much extra if checked bags?

Thomas, it's really hard to say. If you have checked luggage, that may be the longest part of your wait. Take a look at these two posts for some maps and photos that may help: Arriving at FCO and Terminal 3 Arrivals at Fiumicino Airport. As you'll see in the article, if you're coming from the US, you'll probably come in through the satellite G Gates, ride the Skytrain, wind through Terminal 3, go through immigration (passport control), get your luggage, and then literally walk through customs in about 5 seconds! Passport Control will be a challenge if a lot of non-Schengen planes come in at the same time. And of course, FCO is notorious for luggage times. I've received my luggage in 20-25 minutes... and then I've also waited an hour! I'd say 30-40 minutes has been my average. Given all that, I think Bob's time-frame is probably a good estimate. You may be able to save some money if you look at other shuttle options besides those offered by your apt. group - usually there's a mark-up involved. If you ride the train in to Roma Termini station, then you'll have to get from there to your apartment. The Leonardo Express train departs every 30 minutes from the FCO Train Station. If you take the train, your time-frame will be impacted by when you get to the platform.

Thanks all......now have a better picture of what to expect. Will probably still go with being picked up as we are a group of six & a couple are new to traveling abroad. Definitely will try to get everyone to have carry one. Thomas

OUCH John... I will say that in the last 18 months luggage delivery times have improved at FCO. But we've had some negative experiences at FCO. Our most frustrating was when the ground crew called a work-slow-down just as we arrived from Prague. The entire planeload of passengers - not to mention the other arriving flights - waited for their baggage, and waited. We watched the luggage crews sitting and smoking outside... Another time, 1.5 hours of waiting after our older, Delta Airlines 763 landed, we learned our luggage was still on the plane because the cargo door would not open. The plane was headed BACK to ATL soon and we would have to wait until perhaps the next day (after they fixed the problem at ATL) to get our luggage. Fortunately, while we stood in line to file our lost luggage claim... our luggage magically appeared - with no notification from anyone and on a different carousel than what was still posted on the monitors. Thank goodness my wife saw our bags. Still, it was more than two hours after we arrived. But we were so happy to see them... We have "lost" our luggage in Italy a few times, see Lost Luggage for our experiences tracking down our luggage and some lessons we learned. Certainly if you can go carry-on only, you'll save yourself a lot of time (and possible frustration). We're fortunate to now be able to fly short hops on Euro-liners so we DO often go without checked luggage. Nest week we're off to London for just the weekend and we won't be taking any checked luggage. Good thing, as we're flying easyjet who I think is up to 11€ for a checked bag each way. Isn't it terrible when you have to PAY for checked luggage and then they still lose it? Good luck Thomas!

Thomas, To add to the comments from the others, if you have checked luggage the time to get to the airport rail station can vary widely. This also tends to vary at times with the number of Passport control staff on hand. If a lot of flights arrive at about the same time, the process can be slowed down. One experience that comes to mind is my trip in 2010, arriving on a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt. I waited over 30-minutes for my checked bag to appear on the Carousel. I eventually asked one of the staff and was informed that it was in now in another Terminal (would have been NICE if someone had mentioned that!). Retrieving the bag involved going through security again, with the usual "empty the pockets and everything in the bin". Even the Lufthansa staff didn't seem to know what was happening, and they were very apologetic. If you decide to use the Leonardo Express rather than a Shuttle, BE SURE to validate your tickets in the yellow machine on the platform (time & date stamp). As this is the first trip abroad for all of your group, you may find it helpful to read the Guidebook Europe Through The Back Door, as it has lots of good information. Happy travels!

If you are staying near Trastevere or the Pantheon, we find the local train is much more reasonable and only a little slower. You board it at the same place as the Leonardo Express, buy by your ticket to Trastevere. At the Trastevere station, you just walk across the street to the tram 8 towards Argentina. If you take the tram to the end, a few miles, you end up very close to the Pantheon and Piazza Navonna. We have always found this to be an easy and inexpensive way to get into Rome.
PS Remember to always validate your transit train tickets before you board. For local buses, rome or elsewhere, validate your ticket as soon as you board. Italy is proof of payment system. No proof of payment, pay a fine! We found out the hard way. Have a great trip, Becky and Arnie