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!