Hello,
We are flying from the west coast to Rome and then want to take a flight over to Palermo.
Do any of you recommend staying in Rome for a night to adjust to jet lag before flying to Sicily? We want to maximize our time in Sicily and was wondering that time it takes to train into Rome from the airport and train back is kind of a waste of a day, rather than just sitting it out for an hour or so to hop the next flight to Palermo.
Any suggestions?
We flew from the USA to Rome and then on to Catania just — like any other international layover. Would recommend you do the same to Palermo versus going into Rome for one night.
Try to book both flights on same ticket
Then if you miss connecting flight due to delays, lines at passport control etc the airline will be responsible for getting you to next destination and your luggage will be checked thru to Palermo
Give yourself enough time between flights
( depending on when this trip is there are direct to Palermo flights from Newark on United -seasonal)
I guess I don't think a day in Rome makes any sense at all. It's a lot of wasted time and rigamarole for the briefest time in Rome. You're spending ≈$300 that could go toward a better flight.
You have lots of options, though. You're gonna have a minimum of two segments each trip; probably three. It sucks but you benefit from those direct flights to Asia so ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Option 1 - link to a direct transatlantic flight to Sicily. That means either EWR-PMO on United or JFK//YUL/EWR(seasonal)-CTA on Delta, Air Canada and I think United for the seasonal EWR flight. That gets you a nice long transatlantic if you can upgrade to business for that segment.
Option 2 (this is almost always what we do) - work backwards from either PMO or CTA. That's what you're doing by routing through FCO in your initial question but I would open your options to other European hubs. Use Flightsfrom.com to search for all of the options. FCO is there with 15+ flights per day but there are a lot others. We often route through MAD or BCN because Iberia has great business class deals and there are multiple daily discount flights to Sicily. I don't worry about flying on a single ticket. I understand the reasoning but that really limits your options and subsequently drives up cost. Discount flights are cheap and ubiquitous so I don't really worry about it.
Option 3 (admittedly this is a bit out there) - Fly into NAP, visit the archeological museum or grab a pizza as you adjust to jet lag, and then take the overnight ferry to PMO. It's the cost of a moderate hotel and it's really enjoyable.
Our trip was from the west coast to Palermo. First leg was Las Vegas to FCO with a connection through Heathrow. We arrived about 10p.m.at FCO. We had booked the Hilton at FCO, so it was about a 5 min.walk to the hotel for the night. Our next flight was the following morning and we were in Palermo by early afternoon.
I always feel it’s better to gut out additional travel on arrival if possible. It’s effective use of what is kind of a tough jet-lag day.
What is your home airport on the west coast?
