high speed train reservations timing coordination with airport arrival

Don't reserve train tickets in advance for the day you arrive. Too many things can go wrong and cause you to miss your train, making your tickets worthless. You flight could be delayed, there could be lots of other flights landing at the same time leading to a back up at immigration, your luggage could be held up..... the list goes on and on. Just buy tickets at the train station upon arrival.

For all other trains you can make reservation up to 120 days in advance and take advantage of the huge savings. You can also buy them on the day of travel.

Donna

Thank you so much Donna for that reply. I agree completely, but wasn't sure I had the option of purchasing on the day of arrival. Am glad to know. Much gratitude! Sheri

You do have the option of purchasing on the day of your arrival as long as there are available seats on the train.

Percentage-wise, the advance discounts are great. But euro-wise, the full fares are not horrible - 44 euros per person for this route in Standard, 54 in Premium, or 64 in Business class (guessing that you won't have to spring for Executive).

The train from the airport to Rome Termini or Rome Tiburtina stations is a Regionale. On this type of trains you just get on board and find a seat on a first come first served basis. If seats are all taken, you just stand up. They work like buses or subway trains.

The train from Rome T. to Florence is a high speed train which requires an assigned seat. I've never experienced a train between Florence and Rome where all seats were sold out, even when I purchased 5 minutes prior to departure.

Occasionally, albeit rarely, seats on the standard class (the lowest class level) were sold out, but never on the higher classes. Since there are on average 2 to 3 trains per hour between Rome and Florence, if the standard class is sold out on a train, if you are not willing to pay more for the higher class seats, all you have to do is take the next train half hour later and almost certainly they'll have seats in all classes available. Since you will be traveling in the early afternoon, not a peak time, the chance of seats being sold out in any class is probably zero.

Thank you all for the comments. We'll take our chances and purchase tickets upon arrival at the station.

We are a family of 4. The tickets we purchased were so much cheaper than same day tickets that we decide to take a gamble. We arrived in Milan 8:30 and we had purchased tickets for a 1:30 train. We had no problem catching our train.

However, my sister was scheduled to meet us at the Milan Airport. Her United flight from the US was canceled and she arrived a full 24 hrs later. Furthermore, her credit card did not work at the train station kiosk she waited several hours to get a number that allowed her to wait several more hour to buy a ticket.

It was definitely worth it to take a gamble if only because the advance ticket was so cheap.

Before you just hop on the train to Roma at the airport, make sure you validate your ticket.

Good advice! Thanks! Do you have any experience with using the buses in Italy? I plan to take a bus from Florence to Siena on a Sunday. Is it difficult to find seats on Sunday? On Tuesday we plan to take the bus from Siena to Rome. Should either of these trips be booked in advance?

you board the bus to Siena at the main bus station and thus are boarding at the start of the route and it would be unusual to not get a seat. This is an easy trip; we have done it several times, once even catching the bus at Porta Romana. Be sure to note the second to last bus back to FLorence so you don't end up missing the last bus back.

You can buy your Florence train tickets at the FCO station when you get your tickets to Termini; they sell you the train you can make and you avoid the horrendous confusing lines at Termini.

If you gamble on cheap tickets ahead give yourself at least 4 hours from ETA and be prepared to buy new tickets if things go awry. The savings for several people is substantial enough to risk it if you can get the cheapest tickets well ahead.

Sunday bus schedules may be different from the rest of the week.

sheri,

A few additional points to mention.....

You can buy tickets both for the trip from the airport to Rome and then onward to Florence at the airport rail station. For the trip into Rome, you may be using either the Leonardo Express or the FM-1 train. The Leonardo Express goes to Roma Termini and the FM-1 to Roma Tiburtina. Be sure to board the correct train! One other crucial point is that you MUST validate your tickets prior to boarding the train or you'll risk hefty fines which will be collected on the spot!

For the trip from Rome to Florence, you'll be using the high speed Freccia trains, and those have compulsory seat reservations, so can only be used on the one train listed on the ticket. These tickets don't have to be validated. Note that your destination station will be Firenze Santa Maria Novella.

One other point to note is that if your flight is a bit late, it takes a bit longer to get through Passport control or to collect your luggage, there's a direct departure from FCO airport to Florence departing at 15:08 from the airport rail station. Travel time is 2H:14M.

Thanks for all the specific advice about using the bus. Wishing all of you happy travels! Sheri

....and the train advice as well!

Like everywhere else, Italy is trying to automate everything - this includes train ticket sales. More and more ticket kiosks are being installed and it seems like fewer and fewer humans are working in the ticket offices. That being said, ensure your chip & PIN credit card works and you know the PIN. These ticket machines will not accept a non chip & PIN credit or debit card! If you aren't sure if yours will work, arrive at the train station early enough to stand in an almost certainly long line (and be prepared for the agent to grumble about running a swipe & sign card).

Thanks for the card advice. We will be bringing a chip type card. Does anyone have advice about making bus reservations? From Florence to Siena it appears we use the SITA bus and from Siena to Rome it appears we use the SENA bus. Do we need reservations 10 days in advance (as the website indicates) on the SENA bus?

sheri,

You should be able to buy the bus tickets at least the day prior to travel at the bus station, and then just validate before boarding the bus. That's the method I normally use and it's always worked well.

We will be bringing a chip type card.

May not be good enough. Most US-issued cards are "chip and signature" meaning they have a chip but not a PIN. The card has the chip to help protect against counterfeiting, but you sign the receipt just like you do today. More confusingly, some of these cards will give you a so-called "PIN" so that you can use the card to get cash advances from your credit card at an ATM (which is never a good idea). But that pin is useless in, say, a train ticket machine.

The only card that will work in most automated machines is the "chip and PIN" card. You can find lists of who issues true "chip and PIN" online. One link is http://creditcardforum.com/blog/chip-and-pin-credit-cards-usa/

If you're buying tickets in person at the Bus station, cash always works so you won't have to worry about the Chip & PIN issue. If using Kiosks for train tickets, some may still be able to process the old fashioned magnetic stripes.

I'll have to rely a bit on Ken here but regarding long ticket lines, machines and whatnot….

Another option is to purchase your train tickets from a travel agency with the FS logo in the window, and they're ALL over the place in Italy. There is supposed to be one - Agenzie 365 - at the Fiumicino train station, and their website indicates that they sell train tickets. Tickets may cost a couple euros more for the service but that can be nice to have when dazed, confused and facing long lines. I'm guessing they may also be more apt to handle multiple types of credit cards but just guessing.

http://www.060608.it/en/accoglienza/utilita/viaggi-e-turismo/agenzie-365-stazione-fs-fiumicino-apt.html

These agencies can also book your tickets for other journeys throughout Italy if you know where you'll be going and when. I probably wouldn't use them for short-trip tickets on regionale trains unless the trip involves a connecting leg on a high-speed train too.

I used one when needing a creative way to get out of Florence during a train strike (ended up on a bus). The agency was right next door to S.M. Novella, the agent spoke excellent English, and it was a welcome bit of sanity when the station was chaos.

Anyway, thought I'd throw that out there. Ken, any corrections or other thoughts on this?

Another question re. the chip and PIN vs. old fashioned magnetic strip cc's: In August 2015, I purchased train tickets several times from the kiosks in the Florence Santa Maria Novella train station (main station), and each time used a magnetic stripe cc, that DOES have a chip in it, but no PIN. There was never a problem using that card. This was just 6 months ago. Perhaps those kiosks have all been replaced since Aug 2015, but right now I am hoping to use that card this coming summer when will again be planning to purchase train tickets from the Florence kiosks, and also from Orvieto and probably Venezia train station kiosk. If anyone knows with certainty that those kiosks will now require NOT ONLY a chip, but ALSO a PIN, please advise! Thank you.