Italy Rail Strike 6/24 Galaxy in Civitavecchia

Has anyone taking the Galaxy 6/13-6/24 notice that the trains won't be running the day the ship disembarks in Civitavecchia? Just wanted to send out a heads-up! At least they announce their strikes in advance! :rolleyes:

Thanks for the info.

Gitte

I remember being stuck at the airport in Venice thanks to an Italian airport worker strike after a cruise on Star Princess back in 1992. It seems like they are always on strike for something.

I'm amazed that we haven't seen any strikes from United States airline employees given all the pay cuts.

We just returned Friday night from our Galaxy 5/23 Med 11-night sailing (Italy, Greece, Turkey). Last year when on the Galaxy in Livorno, a group went to Pisa independently by train. Mid-day the trains went on strike and the group did not make it back to the ship before it left for Civitavecchia for the final cruise debarkation that morning. Apparently they don't always announce their strikes or these passengers just didn’t get the news in advance.

Our Italy “drama” this time was that the day before arriving in Naples, Celebrity announced it was canceling all Pompeii and some Sorrento tours because Italian officials found WWII bombs at Pompeii and would be detonating them the day we would be in Naples. The road between Pompeii and Sorrento would be closed. Celebrity substituted some hydrofoil excursions to Sorrento and probably increased the number of Herculaneum excursions. You can imagine the disappointed passengers who were so looking forward to visiting Pompeii. Fortunately, for my husband and me, we had been to Pompeii before and were planning on going via taxi to Herculaneum, coming back for lunch, and then going to the Naples Archaeology Museum. We were able to get the taxi and had an absolutely wonderful time visiting both places.

To add to the drama, it was an Italian holiday called Republic Day. It amazed me that with a holiday and several cruise ships in port, including the Galaxy and Millennium, the Italian officials would choose that particular day to detonate the bombs. Naples has very high unemployment and the tourist traffic is instrumental, yet they had to pick this particular day.

Good news for the rest of you that the bombs should be well detonated before you get to Naples.

Strikes in Italy are almost part of the culture. I was on a train from Florence going to Venice one day and we literally stopped in the middle of some farm land. The conductor came around and calmly told us the engine crew had gone on strike. Nobody seemed particularly surprised or alarmed though it wasn't an announced strike per se. The passengers brought out cheese, wine and bread and we had a small party beside the train for a couple of hours. A supervisory crew showed up and eventually moved the train to the next town which got me close enough to get back to my car and continue my vacation. Having had several friends who have lived and, in fact, still live in Italy I've heard that strikes of all kinds are quite common. Of course on a cruise there's not much flexibility and it probably wouldn't be as "charming" as my experience.