HELP in Sorting out the Trains

Rails passes don't cover local city travel. (unless you buy a local metro pass or something like that)

Rail passes are almost always a bad deal financially especially if you book your trains in advance. If it is a fast train e.g. Paris to Munich then the cost of the reservation will be close to as much as just buying a ticket early; and there are limited slots for pass holders on fast trains so you may not get the train you want. For local trains e.g. Paris to Vernon you can just buy when you need the ticket; no reserved seating. for long haul trains with reserved seating, the cost of booking early is about a third of last minute booking.

For a regional train e.g. Vernon to Paris, the ticket takes you to whatever rail station serves that region in Paris; in this case it would be St. Lazare. From there you buy local transport tickets to wherever you are in Paris. IN France it is hard to travel between small towns e.g. Caen and Vernon. You will almost certainly have to travel to Paris and then back out to Vernon.

The best site to explain trains is:
https://www.seat61.com

The era when trail passes were a good deal ended decades ago.

Hi,

The rail pass is not good for, as you listed above: CDG to Marais area, but a two country Pas, ie the France-Germany Pass is good for all other rides listed. Take the S-Bahn #8 from Munich to the airport, the Pass is valid, if it's your last ride. If you are not overly concerned with savings that much, the Pass can be used but the rides you show can be done with point to point tickets, unless you don't want to be bothered with tickets, standing in line for tickets , and forget the SNCF ticket machines in France since they won't take your American credit card anyway, plus paying with cash is not possible either.

Your only long ride is Paris to Muincih. Going to Caen from Paris St Lazare train station is covered by the Pass. Mainly for convenience and flexibility the Pass is valuable, if you don't want to be locked in to a specific date, dep time and train, ie you sacrifice flexibility for savings.

Keep in mind that the regional trains in France and Germany you cannot reserve in advance anyway, if there are no seats , go to the next coach or you stand. The .locals do that too.

I use a Pass but with your itinerary would not, since it's all regional traveling (which I don't do) within Germany and France.

I'm no expert on French deals but CDG-Paris is a local ticket.
Paris-Caen is worth booking in advance https://www.raileurope.com/en/index.html are offering it for $20 each
Caen-Vernon, best NOT done via Paris, go for an option changing at Rouen. Try Raileurope for this as well
Vernon-Paris is only 47 minutes on an InterCity train so I'd guess no advance booking discounts but may as well try raileurope to get the compuslory reservation done.
Paris Versailles is a local ticket.

Paris-Munich can be done at a reasonable price if booked online in advance . https://www.bahn.com/en/view/index.shtml take ticket as PDF. They are offering fixed tickets for €59.99 whereas raileurope want much more for a little flexibilty.
Book as one through journey even though you'll need to change, it gives you more rights if the connection is missed.

Both Munich day trips and the ride out to the airport can be done cheaply using local multi person day tickets

So I'd say don't bother with a pass!!

I just looked at a random mid-October day and the 3 of you can buy tickets now for Paris to Munich for 150 EUR 2nd cl, or 240 EUR 1st cl. That is the total for 3 people. These are like airline tickets, you can change up to the day before you travel for a 19 EUR fee plus any price difference.

Munich to Dachau is just a local transport ticket. You can buy a group MVV day pass there. Same for the trip to the airport.
Munich to Neuschwanstein and back is a 37 EUR Bayern ticket, and that includes the bus up to the castle and back.

CDG to Marais and Paris to Versailles and back are local tickets, like 10 EUR for the airport run, and you might want to consider a fixed price taxi for 50 EUR total. 6.25 EUR per person each way for Versailles.

So spending $810 for a 3 person France-Germany 4 day Eurail pass looks like throwing money away to me.

Although it is often necessary to travel through Paris when moving between smaller regional cities, you won't need to do that when traveling from Caen to Vernon. There is a transfer, but it is in Rouen.

My guess is that, for your itinerary, a rail pass will be more expensive than point-to-point tickets. You can check actual current fares for your travel dates on the SNCF website for all except the internal German trains. Use the Deutsche Bahn site for the latter, but I think there are very good-value regional tickets you can take advantage of for those Munich side trips.

The least expensive fares for the costly Paris-Munich leg will disappear as tickets are bought by others. The bargain fares normally tie you to a specific train on a specific day, so you must be sure of your schedule before purchasing. That's a 6-1/2 hour train ride, somsome people might opt to fly. You can check airfares on skyscanner.net.

Seeing Neuschwanstein involves a train to Fussen, then a bus for the last little leg.

Edited to add: Many people on the forum prefer to avoid RailEurope for ticketing, because it sometimes offers only the most expensive trains and may also charge extra.

Two websites you may find helpful with planning your travel on trains:
www.seat61.com is useful for seeing the various types and classes of trains and the best method for buying tickets which can vary by Country.

www.rome2rio.com shows train schedules between any two cities or towns. This one is also available as an app for iPhone/iPad or Android devices.

Bon voyage!

Thank you all so much for the extremely helpful information! It sounds to me like we're better off without the pass.

We still haven't decided about train vs air for Paris to Munich. It would be nice to see the countryside, but we will be doing that at other points during the trip. Does anyone have pros or cons either way for air vs train?

Not sure if this is getting too far off track (no pun intended), but we welcome any recommendations for restaurants or local flavor beyond the standard tourist spots in these areas.

Thank you again!
Nancy

Train: 5 1/2 hour city center to city center if you take one of the ICE departures from Gare de l'Est that change in Stuttgart. Gare de l'Est is just a few Metro stops north of Marais.

Plane: 1/2 to 1 hour to the airport, check in minimum 1 1/2 hours before departure, check luggage, go through security and board the plane, 1 hour in the air, 1/2 hour to get off the plane and get to the luggage carousels. 1 hour to walk to the airport train station, buy a ticket and take the next train into Munich (or a taxi). I get an optimistic 4 1/2 hours.

From Paris to Munich, take the train unless a flight would save you considerable money. It's a hassle getting to and from airports, whereas the trains are relaxing and drop you right off in the city center in Munich.