We checked out early from the W Rome in order to arrive at Fiumicino with enough time for our morning departure on United. Luckily, there was food in the mostly mediocre Prime Vista lounge. We departed on time and arrived an hour early at Dulles.
Morning
Breakfast at the W Rome begins daily at 7am. Unfortunately, our 9:55am scheduled departure out of FCO for IAD meant that we would need to leave prior to breakfast. So, after waking up, we checked out and walked down to the Barberini Metro station. We took Line A (Orange) two stops to Rome Termini.

At Termini, we found the Trenitalia ticket machines to purchase tickets on the Leonardo Express to FCO. The QR code on the ticket is used to activate the entry and exit gates.

We passed by Porta Maggiore, a city gate from the 1st century just to the southeast of Termini. Overall, there wasn’t anything particularly scenic about this train ride.
FCO
Upon arriving at the airport station, we entered the terminal and checked in. After passing through security and exiting Italy, we walked over to the Prime Vista lounge. There is currently no Star Alliance lounge at FCO so United contracts with this airport lounge.
The lounge was in a weird area of the non-Schengen area of the terminal. It was at the end of a long corridor that was kind of in the middle of nowhere. It seemed like it was in the process of being renovated and had a very weird odor.

We were glad that the lounge had some hot food items. None of it was particularly good but it was no worse than what the United Club typically has available. They did have a bar so we had some caffè!

Soon, it was time to head to the gate. The terminal area near our gate had a ridiculously polished floor. It felt like the shiniest floor we’ve ever seen!

Our aircraft was one of United’s Boeing 767-400s.
FCO to IAD

We took off at around 10:20am and turned over the Mediterranean. We never left Rome during this trip and did not get to go to the sea. Maybe next time?


United’s catering in Polaris is nothing to write home about. They try too hard to come up with creative menus rather than going for things that are simple and at least taste OK.

Lately, the ice cream has been the most reliable part of meal service!

After sleeping as well as watching movies, it was time for the arrival meal. These meals tend to be more or less standard domestic first class meals.

On our way to Dulles, we flew to the south of Harrisburg, PA and Three Mile Island.

An example of a typical ski area in this region! Basically some artificial snow on a hill.
IAD
We ended up arriving about an hour early at Dulles. Unfortunately, even an early arrival means rush hour traffic and double the usual travel time compared to when it isn’t busy on the roads.
Commentary
Overall, we had a great trip. The W Rome was an extremely convenient location despite being atop a small hill compared to the Metro station and some of the nearby bus stops. Although we did take a bus a number of times and the Metro a few times, most of the places that are of interest as a tourist are easily walkable from the hotel.
The only real negative thing about the room was the lack of a tub. The bathroom was spacious enough that they could have fit one in when designing the space. We did have one of the few rooms in the hotel with a balcony, though it wasn’t of much use given the cool weather during this time of year as well as the location facing a courtyard. There are higher end rooms at the hotel with terraces though.
We were able to visit most of the places we wanted to visit. The only place we could not was the Galleria Borghese as it seemed to have decent availability for timed tickets during our visit until it didn’t! We were able to get tickets for the Colosseum and the Vatican Museums though, the only other two destinations that we could have had trouble with if we had delayed too long.
It was interesting visiting the ancient historical sites in Rome as well as churches of the Vatican. Much of western culture and society is based upon the Roman Republic and Empire, which started here.
The food that we had in Rome was generally very good and it was easy to find good restaurants, even near touristy locations. The pricing was generally pretty reasonable as well. We were also happy that the wait staff didn’t push for tips like they do in Munich, the city where we encountered the pushiest wait staff so far among the places we’ve been to in Europe.
Rome has a reputation as being overrun with scammers and thieves. Luckily, we didn’t have any problems in the city other than the sketchy Tabacchis (Tobacco Stores) which seem to only sell 3rd party stamps instead of real official stamps. Sending postcards is already unreliable, the last thing we want is to add another unreliable company into the pipeline.
We travel with bags that can be locked and never leave anything in unsecured pockets so pickpocketing wasn’t too much of a concern. Of course, vigilance is always necessary but we took all the sensible precautions that we could. We’re also more experienced with big cities than the average Americans so have no problem completely ignoring scammers and pushy restaurant hosts. Violent crime is significantly less of a problem in Europe compared to the major US cities so that was not a concern at all.
The final annoyance worth writing about is all the fake tourist destination websites out there. The easiest way to find official sites is to look it up on Turismo Roma, a Rome government webpage. Getting tickets from official sites is the only way to avoid overpaying and to avoid being scammed.