Germany Train Travel Rhine/Mosel and Bavaria Tips Please

According to the local transit authority, RMV, the cost of a ticket for one adult from Frankfurt Flughafen (Regionalbf) to Bacharach is 11.95€/adult. Where do you find 22,40€ for two (11,20€ pP)?

The Meridian Guten-Tag-Ticket is valid for the train from Munich Hbf or Ostbahnhof. It is not valid for use of the conveyance of MVV (S-/U-Bahn, etc) in Munich to get to those stations; a Bayern-Ticket is valid. As long as you are within walking distance of one of those two stations, the Guten-Tag-Ticket will work. If you need to use the MVV to get to the Meridian train, the Bayern-Ticket is better.

Aying is on the border between the second and third zones, so you would need a ticket for the inner two zones, a Muenchen XXL ticket.

The transportation in Germany is wonderful. My husband and I walked up to the train window (one person ahead of us) at the Frankfurt Airport and purchase two passes that could be utilized over several days in a certain time period for all of Germany. This was not off season. Reservation for Munich at that window. First Class. We also utilized the long distance bus a couple times. In Berlin, we had to take a number and wait to get a reservation to Frankfurt but continued to use the pass. Rhine and Mosel area, no reservations. Now, when I skipped over by bus to Prague, I utilized the train to go north of Prague with no problems, I did end up messing up for the trip into Dresden because I was buying Czech rail tickets to the border from a small town. I do not have Czech language skills and signing did not work at the train station near the border. I was upset with myself till I did my math, it was a cheap mistake!
I preferred the pass! I knew what train routes I was utilizing in a 24 hour period and only the two long distance routes required reservations! Is it time or money you wish to save? Do you wish to have a fixed or flexible schedule?

"Another day we plan to travel from Bacharach to Wierschem, Burg Eltz, with a Rhineland-Palatinate Day pass @29 Eu for two people."

That will work on Saturday but not on Friday (when the Burgenbus / Castle Bus isn't running.) On weekdays you need to catch a train to Moselkern and walk from there.

"We expect to use the Bayern Ticket also for a group of 4 to travel to Fussen @ 43 Eu. And we'll use the Bayern Ticket for the 4 of us to travel to Bamberg too."

Are you intending to do these day trips after arriving in Munich? The day trip to Neuschwanstein Castle and Hohenschwangau Castle and back (neither of which are actually castles) from Munich requires nearly 5 hours on regional trains and buses. Bamberg from Munich will require 7 hours or so round trip - you cannot use the high-speed/long-distance trains to travel to Bamberg on the Bayern Ticket. The day trip to Bamberg from Rothenburg would be better but you're still looking at around 5 hours round trip.

The Happy Weekend ticket for Bacharach - Rothenburg has the same restriction (regional trains) as the Bayern Ticket, btw.

All these day passes also have an "after-9:00-a.m." restriction on weekdays.

If you haven't already done so, you should check all your journeys to assess the actual travel time involved, the number of trains you must use (often a higher number with the day passes,) etc. The itinerary search page will default to the faster trains unless you check the "only local transport" box under "Connections" - doing this will bring up the right trains for your day passes.

http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en

It is possible that with longer travel times you will want to overnight in some places rather than try to make a day trip out of it. Or perhaps you would see value in the pre-purchase of a "saver fare" which includes the faster trains for some trips.

I doubt that you will find a rail pass comes close to being economical.

I've spent 21 weeks on 10 trips to Germany in about 15 years. On the first trip, in 2000, not knowing any better, I bought a five day rail pass. Considering the trains I actually used, I just about broke even vs point-point tickets, but in retrospect, I could have used different trains, with point-point tickets, without spending a whole lot more time, and saved money. At that time, the only regional pass was the Schönes-Wochenende-Ticket and the SparPreis Ticket, then called "seasonal tickets" were only available about half the year. Since then, advance purchase tickets for long distance trains and day passes for regional trains have become much more common. For each of my subsequent trips, I have compared transit costs using these reduced price tickets with a pass, and a pass has never come close to being economical.

With a three-day, 2nd class Twin pass, each day will cost about 108€. If you do Munich to Bamberg as a one day trip, you should probably use long distance trains (ICE/IC/EC) since it is less than two hours each way, about 3½ hrs round trip vs 7 hours round trip by regional train. If you commit to specific trains, the Saving Fare round trip will be about 100€, round trip.

Thank you for the assistance.

Regarding the RMV, I was able to look into that further and see that they have a ticket from Frankfurt Airport to Bacharach for 11.95 Euros. I'm not able to determine if there is a special fare for a second traveler. Will we need 2 separate adult tickets at 11.95 each?

Thank you for assistance regarding the regional train routes and lengths and special rules (days of the week and times).

We will be traveling on Saturday to Burg Eltz so that we can take the castle bus.

Our trip to Rothenburg from Bacharach will be on a weekend. I saw that there were several train changes which does concern me a bit. I certainly hope we are able to make all of our connections.

We will be staying over for several days in Munich and doing day trips to Fussen, Salzburg, Aying, etc. on separate days.

The ride to Bamberg will include an overnight stay there on our way to Berlin. This also sets it up so that our trip to Berlin is on a weekend.

Now the train to Prague from Berlin is another issue.

Thank you for your assistance regarding the Rail Pass costs. Originally I was going in that direction until I dug a little further to find the special 'Lander' tickets and less expensive regional fares. I agree that the pass doesn't work out for us to be economical however having the fare prepaid and open ended is a plus, but still we will skip it on this trip.