Rail Europe vs Trenitalia Question

Tyler, big surprise. RailEurope will sell you the ticket but they won't send it to you until Trenitalia confirms the schedules. Trenitalia has not yet uploaded all of their regionale schedules so they can't give you what they themselves don't have yet. That being said, go ahead and order the train ticket from Rome to La Spezia. Get the nice discount pricing if you can. Don't fret the regionale train. Once you are at La Spezia Centrale (or even Roma-Termini), you can buy the ticket then. It's only a local train from La Spezia to Vernazza. No seat reservations on the regionale train. They can't be sold out either as you can stand. Wait until you see how packed those trains can be during the busy months in the Cinque Terre. It's all part of the experience. Regionale train tickets purchased in Italy are good for 60 days. When you get to La Spezia, just validate your ticket and get on the next regionale train to Vernazza. You won't have any problems except for the fear of uncertainty. But, that will quickly disappear once you start riding the trains.

Is there going to be any issues in terms of me booking directly through the Trenitalia website even though I do not have an Italy Address? Because now that I look at the prices the Rail Europe has increased, and the Trenitalia website is now actually cheaper.

www.seat61.com is the authority on rail travel and can explain tactics for buying and booking tickets on both the major Italian inter-city train operators.

Tyler, you can purchase tickets on the www.trenitalia.com website as a non-registered user. Here's how you do it.

1) First, contact your credit card people to let them know that you are going to make an online
international purchase. This will avoid a few problems.

2) Under Passengers, type in your name and surname. That's it. Nothing else in the other fields on that line of boxes.
3) Under Contract-Buyer, select Non-Registered User and fill in all five fields.

4) Select your payment method.
5) Accept the General Transportation Condition.

6) Select Continue and make your purchase.

The website seems confused with the email address and phone number being in two different places on the same page.

Book the reserved leg of the trip now, if you're committed to it, to get a discount. I see the $14 ticket on the 15:57 InterCity from Rome to La Spezia or $29 at 9:57 at http://ricksteves.raileurope.com/us/rail/point_to_point/triprequest.htm. It corresponds to a 9 euro fare that Trenitalia.com is showing at both 9:57and 15:57. Whichever web site you use, do it ASAP to secure that rate. There's no need to book ahead for the regional connection La Spezia-Vernazza connection, so buy that ticket in a train station for 2.40 euros.

Thanks for the advice. Got the tickets, 18 Euros for both!

RailEurope may quote you a price, but then there will be add-on fees or delivery fees or blah blah blah fees. Do yourself a favor and always try to use the national railways website from the specific country of travel.

BTW - don't have an Italian address to register with Trenitalia...just make one up. I only ever buy the print at home tickets anyway so it really doesn't matter what my mailing address is. Registering with Trenitalia before purchasing is a good idea if you ever want to go back and look at your reservations/tickets. If you misplace your printed copy of the tickets you can always log into Trenitalia and reprint them. It's not difficult.

Gold star for Tyler. Way to go. Got your tickets.