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Can you look at this train schedule please?

Hi there, I'm trying to navigate my family from Paris - Europa Park on August 3rd and schedules have recently been released on int.bahn. I know there's 1 direct train from Paris Est - Europa Park, but it runs late in the evening and we'd like to arrive before 8pm, so earlier trains require multiple transfers.

I found a route on Trainline.com that is only $182 for the 5 of us from Paris Est to Ringsheim/Europa Park station (transferring at Strasbourg and Offenburg). From Ringsheim, we'd take the Bus 7231 to Europa Park entrance. Trainline won't offer an option to get us straight to Rust/Europa Park entrance (at least, I'm not seeing it come up in the station options).

Here's where I'm confused. If I put in Paris to Rust, Europa Park on the int.bahn website to try and purchase it there and get a through journey ticket, the price is 350-432 Euros and only gives me the option of TGV or ICE trains. The Trainline website has us on a Grand Vitesse for the Paris - Strasburg portion, hence the lower price I'm sure. We don't need a fancy train, I just want to get to where we need to go, so the Grand Vitesse is fine (we're already taking one another portion in our trip). So the huge price difference leads me to book on Trainline.com - is it legit? ETA: Trainline also has us transferring in Offenburg with a 4 minute layover - is this feasible? It would be moving from platform 4 to 2 (I know it could change as it's far out). Hopefully we could catch the next one if we miss the connection?

Also, as I'm price comparing Trainline to booking direct, if I book just the Paris - Strasbourg portion on SNCF Connect and then look for the remainder of the trip on int.bahn (Strasbourg to Rust, Europa Park), it's not offering me the same train times that Trainline does. The train we want to take from Strasbourg leaves at 12:53p, but that option is no longer viewable on int.bahn when I try to get a through ticket to Rust, which would include our bus ticket. Can someone help me figure this out as I'm kind of going crazy! I'd rather purchase our ticket through to the Europa Park entrance if possible.

Thank you kindly for any assistance in this!

Posted by
8021 posts

You are concerned about transfers, which is understandable. In your shoes, (and with the understanding that fewer transfers with bags is better than more transfers!) I'd break up the trip looking for journeys as follows at the sites you are using. Only the Paris > Strasbourg leg will need to be pre-purchased.

Aug 3:
1) Paris > Strasbourg (direct, pre-purchase tickets)
2) 1 Transfer to local train for Strasbourg > Offenburg (Special day ticket, "Europass 24h Family"... 16.60 for all of you, no pre-purchase... just buy at Strasbourg station.)

https://www.ortenaulinie.de/,Lde/startseite/fahrkarten/europass.html (choose "en" for English.)

Spend the night in Offenburg.

Aug 4:

With your bags in Offenburg, you can now travel to Europapark without them.

Train to Ringsheim + bus to the park as previously planned This trip takes 30-35 minutes (8:36 - 9:07 for example.) You can travel round trip from and back to Offenburg on a day pass called the "Baden-Württemberg ticket" if traveling after 9 am, OR at any hour on two one-way tickets (BW-Einfach fare.) Buy these using the DB app or buy at the station; both train and bus are covered with either option. Either way, your round trip fare will be somewhere around €40, depending on the ages of kids (under 15 travel free with parents.)

Spend the night in Offenburg again.

Offenburg is a rail hub town with the basic services travelers need and and a nice enough place for overnight.

Posted by
89 posts

Thanks for the reply Russ. We do have accommodations and park tickets booked already on site at Europa Park so stopping over in Offenburg won't be an option. For the family day ticket you linked, is that valid for our travel from Strasbourg all the way to Europa Park, including regional trains and local bus we'll need? I saw a pass on the dbregiobus website but I didn't realize it is valid for the trains as well? That would be a great deal if that is the case.

ETA: I'm not seeing the option for the 24 hour Europass anywhere in the DB Navigator app. I'm looking at routes from Strasbourg to Ringsheim/Europa Park and have also checked Strasbourg to Rust and I don't see it in any of the offers. I've checked for tomorrow (since it has to be purchased 24 hours in advance) as well as a few other dates. What am I missing?

Posted by
3770 posts

Trainline should show the same trains as Bahn, and the train you assume to be "Grand Vitesse" is the TGV. That is what the G and V in TGV stand for :-)

But if Trainline is cheaper (maybe because they dip in the SNCF fare buckets and not the Bahn fare buckets) by all means buy it there. Transferring in 4 minutes is perfectly feasible. But if you miss your connection you just get on the next one...

Posted by
8021 posts

"I'm not seeing the option for the 24 hour Europass anywhere in the DB Navigator app."

No worries.

This pass is offered by TGO, the local transport authority in Germany, and by CTS, the local authority in Strasbourg that cooperates with TGO on this special ticket.... and sometimes these local options do not show up on the DB app. This ticket does NOT need to be purchased 24 hours in advance; it is valid for 24 hours beginning at the time of purchase and can be bought at the last minute in Strasbourg (or in one of the TGO towns in Germany, like Offenburg, for anyone going the other direction.)

Here is the CTS site which offers the Europass on the Strasbourg end of this cross-border journey...
https://www.cts-strasbourg.eu/en/buy/our-tickets/occasional-tickets/europass-mini-24h/

TGO/CTS tickets will not cover you all the way to Ringsheim, which lies outside the TGO zone. So, with a pre-purchased ticket for Paris > Strasbourg, you would add on as follows:

  • TGO 24 h Europass Family "MINI" (€12.80) - covers Strasbourg > Kehl (border town in Germany) on any regional train.

  • Then either the a) BW Einfach ticket (one way to Ringsheim) or the b) Baden-Württemberg ticket for the Kehl > Ringsheim > Europapark segment by train + bus.

With a) you must buy the ticket from Kehl all the way to Europapark in order to include the final bus trip from Ringsheim.
With b) every inch of your travel from Kehl onward is covered.

When you travel Strasbourg > Ringsheim on the first ticket, the train will travel to Kehl and continue after a stop there to Offenburg (where you change.) Your Europass ticket ends in Kehl, but you stay on the train in Kehl - which means that in order to have a valid ticket for the Kehl > Offenburg segment, you will need to have purchased the 2nd add-on ticket from DB on your phone and have it available for viewing prior to the train's departure from Kehl.

I am not checking all the possible fares from Paris to Europapark at all the different sites for you, which I think you have already done... I'm just informing you of these relatively cheap add-on tickets that can be used for the regional trains and buses you will need from Strasbourg onward.

Hope I hit all your concerns here. If not, re-post!

Posted by
36540 posts

just a little more about the name of the train from Paris.

It is the high speed train in France - the name describes what it does. TGV is "Train à Grande Vitesse" in French, it literally means Train of High Speed. The speed is indeed high - up to 320 km/h.