October 2 End of the cruise

October 02, 2022

Edge docked at Civitavecchia by 5:30 a.m. Today at 7 a.m. the temperature was 18°C and clear sky as the sun started to rise.

We had breakfast in the Cosmopolitan restaurant on Deck 4. We had a good breakfast – coffee, a fruit plate (with one slice each of honeydew melon, cantaloupe, watermelon, pineapple, orange, a blackberry and a few red grapes). Larry had Eggs Benedict and I had an omelet. As Elite Loyalty program members and/or Concierge category passengers, we could wait in the Tuscan restaurant on Deck 3, with less than 100 other passengers. There was complimentary pastries and coffee/tea, rather than in Eden garden & lounge on deck 5 to wait with hundreds of people for our exit number. The ship’s Wi-Fi for passengers stopped at 8:30 a.m. For further access to emails, we had to wait until we got to the airport. Once our exit number was announced we swiped our Seapass card for the last time as we exited the ship on Deck 5 and walked down the zigzag ramps to the cruise terminal to collect our luggage in the cruise terminal. From departure lounge to bus was less than ten minutes. Also at Civitavecchia cruise terminal today the other ships in port were the larger MSC Seaside (capacity 4,134-5,336); the smaller Regent Seven Seas Voyager (capacity 706-777); the much smaller Ritz-Carlton Evrima Voyager (capacity 214 -298) and the even smaller Sea Dream Yacht Club Sea Dream II Voyager (capacity 94 -112). The Edge’s capacity is 2,918 -3,521), but there were only a total of 1,200 passengers for our voyage of which 220 were in Concierge category staterooms. The next cruise departing this evening is full.

Passengers could start leaving the ship at 6:30 a.m. We had a late afternoon flight. Our ship arranged shuttle busses to Rome Fiumicino / Leonardo da Vinci airport and to Rome centre. We were among the final group to leave the ship at 9:30. There were two 45 person busses going to the airport. The bus unloaded everyone at terminal 3. Those of us with flights out of terminal 1 had a short five minute walk in the sunshine. Our flight itinerary stated that we had a British Airways flight, however, when checking at the airport Information desk, near the bottom of the paper in small print was the note that the flight was “Operated by Vueling Airways S.A.” I did know this from researching flights from Rome to London Gatwick. We had entered the terminal at one end and the Vueling agents were at the other end, so our step count was adding up. There was a short line at the Vueling check-in. Our suitcases weighed 17.6 Kg and 17.1 kg (both under 40 lb.) Our travel agent had booked the flights with baggage and carry-on fees already paid. Vueling Airways is now the parent company of British Airways. We had over six hours to wait for our flight. In my research this summer, when most of the world’s airports were in chaos, it was suggested to get to FCO no less than four hours in advance. We were checked in and through security, including the walk from terminal 3, within 40 minutes. A lovely surprise of efficiency compared to the horror reports that I read on Cruise Critic and Facebook. So far, the flight is on time, not delayed or cancelled as we experienced in May in Newark and June in Fort Lauderdale. We still had five hours to wait for the gate number to be posted, but we knew to go to section “E”, which the international non-EU flights use for departures. Our step count was already 5,458 for the day.

Next we wandered through the post security departure areas through section “A” with its 83 gates and lots of stores and a separate “Eataly” food court. There was a gelato counter there. For section “E” we had to go through passport control, so we delayed exploring it until closer to the flight time. We passed one of the Expresso kiosks which showcased an impressive 1912 copper expresso maker, by La Victoria Arduino. One of our friends would be impressed, but it might be too big for his renovated kitchen coffee bar. We saw at least two nice pianos with signs inviting people to play. There was a good pianist at one of them. There are also well ventilated Smoking areas the size of a bus shelter, that were be used by smokers. You could not detect smoke as you walked past them. By gates 1 to 10, there were about a dozen charging stations with six different of kinds plugs.

Around noon we stopped at a coffee kiosk to select a turkey, mozzarella cheese and tomato bagel to share of lunch and coffees. We have not been able to find water fountains to fill our empty water bottles. We found an area with only a few dozen seats in a less busy zone to sit down and write up the blog, post photos from the past few days and read Saturday’s newspaper online. We had added almost more 4,100 steps to our step count (9,692).

The departure board just shows that our flight will be in Section E and the gate number shown after 16:35. To enter section E, which we did after 2 p.m., there is a passport control area where your passport is stamped for exiting Italy. On a meander around section “E” there were several marble sculptures. We chose to photograph Sam Falls 2019 “Monument of Time, Air” made of a slab of marble being held by two rectangles of brass, which are embedded in concrete.

This is the end of this segment of the trip. There will be another blog starting today for the cruises from Southampton, England.

Total steps 13,311

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