Pizza, Pasta and Prosecco - Rome October 2021 Pre Trip and Travel Day

[Goldia]

Welcome to our half term city break in Rome. Lots of tasty Italian food and drink, plus quite a lot of sightseeing. We enjoy a city break at this time of year having previously been to Prague, Bruges, Athens, Salzburg, Berlin, Boston and Washington DC.

Who are we?

We are a family of four, I’m Abby, my DH is Dave. We have two children Max 17 and Kate who is 14.

The last city break we did was to Washington DC in October 2019.

The kids will moan a bit about the amount of walking, they have mastered the art of walking at speed through any museum and I’m always the one who is trailing behind. Expect lots of photos just like this of them up ahead!

Where to?

Our trip to Toronto and Niagara in October 2020 was cancelled and I’d have loved to have tried to re-create this but entry requirements for Canada meant that it was not to be…

Undeterred, well slightly miffed, but not completely stalled I began checking out entry requirements for other countries. We had 3 BA Amex 241 vouchers, two of which were going to expire in early 2022 so October half term was our last chance to use them. I know some people feel using the vouchers for short haul flights is a waste, but as they were going to expire I figured Club Europe flights were a better use than not using them at all.

In the end I settled for Rome. I’ve only ever been to Italy when I was a very small child, I think I was 3 or 4 when my parents took us to Venice. Dave and the kids have never been to Italy and everyone seemed to think it was a great city.

There are some restrictions in Rome – they are using the Green Pass for entry to museums, attractions and to eat inside at restaurants. This means we would have to show vaccine certificates or a negative LFT taken within 48 hours. Masks are required in doors in public spaces, so walking around the hotel, in bars and restaurants when not seated at a table, in museums etc.

Flights

I booked BA club Europe tickets using the vouchers from Sunday 24th October returning Thursday 28th October. These cost us £50 each (plus the Avios), a cash booking would have been £1960.88 so I felt like we had a bargain as we would also be able to use the BA lounge at T5.

I tried to explain to the kids that this time the Club seats wouldn't be like the beds we had when we went to DC.

Hotel

The hotel I booked was a bargain too…I turned £60 of Tesco clubcard vouchers into hotels.com vouchers and bagged a hotel that was half price.

The Grand Hotel Olympic in a former papal palace seemed perfect as it was central and family rooms had three beds, a must now as the kids cannot share any longer. Plus breakfast was included.

The full price of the hotel was £601 but as this had been reduced by 60% all I paid was the vouchers and £27.56 cash, the balance of 96 Euros city tax was due at the hotel.

Thus far the trip had cost £227.56 for the flights and hotel for the four of us. Yes, I was feeling pretty smug.

Tickets, tests and other bits

I made sure to go back and re-read Rescuer’s excellent Rome trip report. This was really helpful and it was fun to be inspired in the run up to the trip.

The weekend before the flights I figured I had to sort out all the other bits and bobs.

LFT pre-departure test – I used Chronomics, these cost £18.80 each with a small discount through BA. They were delivered on 20th October and I decided we would take them the morning before going to the airport. My reasoning for leaving it until travel day was that this would give us 48 hours of a negative test to use for the kids in Rome. Also, there was no way for us to isolate or minimise contact with others prior to the trip - Dave works at a college, I’m a teacher and the kids are all at school. I wanted to do our tests last minute in case we did catch COVID in the run up to the trip. If this happened I wanted to know while we were still in the UK and not find out when we were abroad and had unknowingly infected other people.

Vaccine Certificates – me and Dave already had the NHS app and downloaded our certificates without a fuss. I’d read on the UK government website that in Italy 1 vaccine would count for the green pass, so I made Max download his certificate as he’d had his first dose in August. He was pretty stroppy doing this. First he struggled to download the app, then he was cross that they wanted a photo of his passport and that wouldn’t upload, then he had to do a video of himself saying numbers so they could verify his identity! He wasn’t particularly looking forward to the trip and I think he felt like this was all just a hassle he could do without as he’d have much more fun staying home with his friends.

LHR parking – I booked a meet and greet at T5 so we could just stroll into the check in desks and enjoy the lounge. This was pretty reasonable at £44.99. Spoiler – sadly they didn’t actually meet or greet us at the airport and this led to a considerable amount of stress.

Transfers – our flight was due to land at 10pm and the return was an early morning flight, so I figured I’d just book private transfers in a mini-van. This cost 134 Euros for the return trip.

Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel – this was a must for me and as our hotel was west of the river on the same side as the Vatican I booked this for day 1 at 11.30am. There are no walk-ups allowed and no on the day booking. The tickets cost £55 for all of us and we needed to bring ID and our green passes.

Colosseum, Forum and Palatine Hill – another must and this was booked for day 2 and cost £64.52.

Passenger locator forms – these had to be completed prior to flying to Italy and I printed them out as I wanted to have everything as a hard copy as well as on my phone.

Pre Travel Day

I painted my nails – a very important part of the pre trip excitement and build up!

We got the cases down from the loft. But as we only had 4 days we didn’t bother packing.

I figured a pre travel day cocktail was essential though and made a Backscratcher (from ‘Ohana) yummy!

Travel Day

I can’t say I slept particularly well, but then I rarely sleep well before the flight. In the end I got up at 4.30am. I drank multiple cups of tea and waited impatiently for the others to wake up.

We did our packing, did our COVID tests – all negative, hurrah!

And we were in the car by 1pm. This was pretty good, the roads were clear a small hold up on the M25 but there always is and so this was anticipated.

For the meet and greet parking we had to phone when we were 30 minutes away and the driver would be waiting at the short stay car park at T5. Well, we phoned and phoned and then phoned again. There was no answer and no chance to leave a message as the answerphone was full. We decided to continue the drive to the meeting point but I was starting to get a sinking feeling.

We parked up and of course there was no driver there to meet us. There was another couple in the same situation as us who had just forked out £180 cash for one of the other meet and greet companies to take their car. I figured there was little point in trying to phone again and so I booked up Purple Parking at £95. We got back in the car and drove round to Bath Road with me saying things like “this is why I always book an airport hotel the night before” but with a fair amount of swearing thrown in for good measure. I did reflect to Dave that it could have been worse - we could have been returning home and phoning for them to bring our car to the terminal and not being able to get through, I'm not sure what I would have done in that situation.

We arrived at Purple Parking leapt out of the car, deposited the keys in reception and ran onto the bus that was waiting. We were rushing, but actually we weren’t at risk of missing the flight as I’d allowed extra journey time and had planned to be at LHR 3 hours before the flight left, but it was not the relaxing lounge experience that we had been looking forward to.

At the BA check in desk I breathed a sigh of relief and was getting all the vaccine certificates, negative tests and passenger locator forms out, but there was no need to show any of this which I was really surprised at. Just our passports and we were through to the fast track security.
This was super speedy and we went to the Galleries North lounge.

This is set up really well, with the bar and drinks all self service, but instead of having a buffet where you collect your own food each table and pair of chairs can order food from a QR code menu on the table.

I decided a G&T was essential.

Dave had a glass of wine and the kids helped themselves to the cans. We ordered a selection of plates. I fancied the afternoon tea, but when this arrived the bread was very dry, disappointing, but I wasn’t that hungry so I left it. The kids had pasta.

The chocolate brownies were very good.

I think I look way more relaxed here than I actually felt! I'm trying really hard to not be stressed.

I figured a glass of Bailey's would be calming, plus I was busy telling people on what's app about the meet and greet fail.

Max ordered more food on the app - he didn't think the sandwiches were dry.

When the gate showed up on the screens we walked through and onto the plane.

I was seated with Max, Dave and Kate were behind us.

The service on the plane was excellent, given it was just a 2 hour flight they managed to fit in a round of drinks and then a full dinner service in Club.

I ordered champagne. It was lovely and even better we were now in the air.

The dinner was a choice between pasta or chicken, both were delicious.

Max didn't like the chicken pie so I swapped my pasta with him. He didn't like the pasta either, but I was happy with the pie, it was lovely.

There was an announcement on the plane that we needed to complete another form for entry to Italy and that this was in addition to the PLF we’d already done so they brought around a form, one per person, no families couldn’t all go on the same form.

It was a short flight and I watched a Freddie Mercury documentary I’d downloaded from Amazon Prime. We landed at Rome and as we were at the front of the plane we were among the first off.

I feared passport control would be heaving as I assumed they would do all the vaccine, negative test and PLF checks there. But no – just the passports, that was it and we were through.

We didn’t have any luggage to collect so we were straight through to arrivals and fortunately the transfer driver was there ready and waiting for us with our name on a sign. Phew, I was panicking this would go wrong too.

The drive took about 30 minutes and we were at the hotel by 10.30pm. They had a 24 hour check in and this didn’t take long.

I took a few snaps of the room, but it’s pretty dark. The ceilings were very high, about 20 ft. The room itself was quite small, with no seating area. There was a TV on the wall by our bed and then a 6ft wall separating our bed and the kids beds.

Max had a small double and Kate a single.

There was a small closet with a hanging rail, safe and fridge.

We unpacked and then climbed into bed. I was absolutely shattered as I’d been up since 4.30am. I was certain I would sleep well, ha, sadly that was not the case as our bed was rock hard. I have never slept on such a hard mattress before. It was not comfortable, but at least we were here.

Next up – day 1 The Vatican Museum, Sistene Chapel, pizza and pasta!

[Sparksy72]

This is so exciting Abby! Good to see you managed a lovely cocktail and some fancy nails prior to your travel day. The failed meet and greet must have been so stressful, top marks for booking alternate parking so swiftly. I’m sure you needed that Champagne on the plane to calm your nerves.

I’m looking forward to following along on your adventures, Rome is beautiful. 😁

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by Sparksy72

This is so exciting Abby! Good to see you managed a lovely cocktail and some fancy nails prior to your travel day. The failed meet and greet must have been so stressful, top marks for booking alternate parking so swiftly. I’m sure you needed that Champagne on the plane to calm your nerves.

I’m looking forward to following along on your adventures, Rome is beautiful. 😁

See more...

Hey Michelle

I'm sure you know me well enough by now to know the failed meet and greet was something I took in my stride and it didn't stress me out at all ha ha and is that a pig flying past the window?!

In the end all was well and it cemented in my head the need to always book an airport hotel in the future, so that this sort of thing, should it happen again, can be dealt with a day prior, even when our plane doesn't leave until 6pm.

There weren't really any hiccups the rest of the trip, minor niggles but nothing that big, so in hindsight if that's the worst that can happen and it was resolved in half an hour then it's hardly the end of the world.

Rome was beautiful, on every corner are beautiful buildings, we all loved the food. The weather was pretty good too.

[anji]

Loving your trip already! The car situation was really stressful - hope you've found out why and got your money back! Purple Parking are always great though and glad they came to your rescue.

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by anji

Loving your trip already! The car situation was really stressful - hope you've found out why and got your money back! Purple Parking are always great though and glad they came to your rescue.

See more...

I've not found out why it happened. But I have claimed through my credit card so I'm hopeful the money will be refunded. It's not even a lot of money, just £45, but it's the principle of the thing! I was hoping while we were away they would send a grovelling email apologising, explaining and refunding, but they didn't.

We did enjoy Rome, so much to see at every corner.

[Buggles94]

Fab TR - glad you got the parking sorted eventually... this is why I tell DH we have to get to the airport early! Looking forward to hearing all about Rome

[Rescuer]

Yeah, have been looking out for this and is the highlight of my day! I even got a mention 😂.

Thank you so much for laying out all the travel requirements.

Rubbish about your meet and greet but everything else looked great. I can’t wait to reminisce through your report and read all about your Roman adventure.

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by Buggles94

Fab TR - glad you got the parking sorted eventually... this is why I tell DH we have to get to the airport early! Looking forward to hearing all about Rome

See more...

Yep we were lucky I had planned for us to arrive at the airport 3.5hours before the flight. So all the hassle with the parking just meant we had less time to enjoy the lounge. We still made a fair dent in the food and drink though.

Originally Posted by Rescuer

Yeah, have been looking out for this and is the highlight of my day! I even got a mention 😂.

Thank you so much for laying out all the travel requirements.

Rubbish about your meet and greet but everything else looked great. I can’t wait to reminisce through your report and read all about your Roman adventure.

See more...

The travel requirements seem to change fairly regularly though. But I figure it's a part of our lives for the time being and maybe it's reassuring to know how other people have got on and what their experiences are...I know I'm counting on all the people off to the States reporting back on that process.

[caitlinsmummy]

So excited to read this Abby. The pre flight day drink is a must now

Such a shame about the car parking, I hope you manage to get it rectified. As you say it's the principle really, you paid for a service and you didn't receive that service.

I'm very surprised with the travel requirements and that nothing was checked. The room looks nice and clean, seems like the perfect base for a few nights Really looking forward to the rest of the trip now x

[princessnicki]

looking forward to reading this, especially for the food pics