Cruise Port Civitavecchia with Kids

The Cruise Port of Civitavecchia, Italy provides access to Rome. We arrived into port at 7:30am well ahead of the 9am scheduled arrival. Although we were early the wind was howling and the rain was pouring down. We spent breakfast watching the sea break over the breakwaters and discussed our plan.

This was my sister’s first visit to Rome so she and my mom went with an MSC excursion. They booked the Walking Tour of Rome which lasted 7.5 hours. They made the 1.5 hour trip to Rome by bus and then went on an intense walking tour that took them to the Colosseum, The Roman Forum, The Piazza di Spangna, the Pantheon and ended at the Piazza Navona. They came home soaked but they got to see much of Rome.

We toyed with taking the train into Rome. The public bus runs to the Civitavecchia Train Station where you can catch a 1.5 hour train ride to Rome Termini Station. This was our plan when we woke up in port, but upon seeing the weather, we bailed. The idea of having three wet kids in downtown Rome was more than we wanted to handle.

Instead, we rode the city bus to the Civitavecchia Archeological Museum. The museum is free and the bus stop is right out front. The museum is small – two floors – but has some lovely pieces of Roman pottery and statues. 

Even just on this small outing we got soaked.

We took the city bus back to the port and the port bus back to the boat and spent the remainder of our day on the boat.

Am I sad we missed a day in Rome ? Yes. Rome is a city I fell in love with and would love to return. However, I also know that spending a day with little kids in wet shoes would have put us all in a bad mood. Sometimes traveling with kids means calling it and having a quiet day of naps, coloring and swimming in the rain.