Rome Early Morning Flight

There are no cheap hotels at Rome airport; I did stay at a nice hotel in Fiumicino town - cost about Euro 90 per night.

If you are flying home and your first leg will be non-stop from Rome to some point in the US, you will leave from Terminal 5 and the standard recommendation is to be there a full three hours before your scheduled departure time, However, with an early morning departure you probably would be safe getting there two hours ahead of schedule. If you're flying home with a connection somewhere in Europe, you won't have to use Terminal 5 and two hours certainly would be enough lead time. There is a fixed rate of €48 for a taxi from anywhere within the Aurelian Walls to FCO. In the wee hours of the morning the ride won't take more than 30 minutes.

Here is Ron In Rome's very thorough answer to your question: http://tinyurl.com/3jr3b8z

Thank you so much for all your help. Let me fill you all in on our plans so you can better help me figure this out. We will be staying in the heart Rome for two nights, what I was wondering was should we stay our third night in Rome or get a hotel closer to the airport since our flight is at 7am. We are flying to Paris, not flying back to the States. So, what I'm gathering is 2 hours before would be enough time to get through security? I think we are worried about getting to the airport in enough time to make our flight if we stay our third night in Rome, so thinking closer to the airport would be a good idea?
There are no busses that run that early in the morning? I found this bus line, COTRAL, does this run from Rome to the airport early enough? Thanks again for all your wonderful suggestions.

I would not bother to change hotels just for the last night. You should suck it up and get a taxi early morning. It's only 30 min. drive that early in the morning. The price is ~ 50 euro. Hotels near the airport aren't cheap and I would not trade an evening in Rome for an evening in freaking Fiumicino or Ostia Lido. Besides even from Fiumicino or Ostia, you are still looking at 10-15 min taxi drive. So all you will be saving is 15-20 min. Not worth it. That early in the mornining it's certainly a EU Schengen flight, not to the US. As such 75-90 min. prior to departure is sufficient. Your bags must be checked in 45 min. prior to departure. Leave your hotel in Rome at about 5 to 5:15 am and you'll have plenty of time to make the flight.

When booking flights, I always avoid the early morning flight departures. It's difficult enough to sleep the night before leaving, but getting up at 3:00 a.m., taking a taxi to the airport, flying 1-2 hours and sitting around 3-4 hours prior to a 8 hour ride to the U.S. makes for a very long day.
I like to fly out after 10:00 a.m., and then flights are often direct back to the U.S.

I found it interesting that when we flew Rome to Munich in 2008 we arrived two hours early, went through security and when we went to check in, no one was around, counter closed, etc. I think it was about an hour before the flight that they opened and passengers arrived. It was also an early morning flight. We were really surprised...not like the USA!

Renee, my wife and daughter are in Siena right now. They will be departing Rome-FCO at 6:30am to go to Frankfurt to come home. This is all quite normal. The hotels in Fiumicino are not anything special. They know why you are there. The best advice is to spend your last evening in Rome. Have an nice and memorable early dinner. Your hotel can arrange to have a taxi at the hotel at any time you wish. The fare to the airport is fixed by law. The last I heard, it was 48Euro. I'll know the latest shortly as my wife will be doing this early taxi run. I expect they will leave the hotel about 4:00am for the 30-minute ride to the airport. Not much different from Sacramento where Super Shuttle picks us up about 3:45am for our 6:00am beginning flights to Europe.