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Train travel near Easter

Posted by (Seattle) on

We will be in Germany, traveling by train on and near holidays in April (the day before Good Friday, April 17, from Munich to Dresden, and the day after Easter on April 21- which is an official holiday, from Dresden to Berlin).

Looking at the DB App, the Apr 17 offers morning trains- one is a completely Regional option and another combines ICE with two regional trains. The idea is to secure seats and make sure we’re covered at this holiday- busy time, so I’d choose the ICE combo even though it’s twice as expensive- but then I’m wondering if we could still have issues since we cannot reserve seats on the regional portion of that travel?

Also, the APR 21 travel only offers Regional trains from Dresden to Berlin. From my reading I didn’t think you could reserve seats on Regional trains- that it was best to just get Regional tickets the day of travel at the station and grab the next train heading to your destination. So this kind of defeats the purpose of trying to secure seats during a busy time.

Also, on another note, the regional trains only have an eight minute connection time, which seems really tight to me. If you pre-book a regional train through the DB app then my understanding is if that train is canceled or missed you’re out of luck. Whereas if you buy a ticket the day of travel, it would be good for any of those trains going that day.

So, what would be the advice here? Does it make the most sense to just show up on both April 17 and April 21 and book regional trains on the spot? Do you think traveling on the 17th and 21st around Easter will be very difficult using regional trains?

Some friends that were traveling in Germany recently used Flixbus a lot. Is that a better option during the holidays (the bus might be an option from Dresden to Berlin, but it is way too long from Munich to Dresden).

Thanks for any advice!

Tracy

Posted by
3477 posts

I see bookable IC and EC connections from Dresden to Berlin on Apr. 21.

One maintenance event around Easter is the closing of the North-South axis of tracks from Berlin Central (Berlin Hbf).
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/germany/berlin-hbf-central-planned-closings-of-tracks-feb-17-apr-22

Therefore it might be clever to address one of the other 4 major long-distance train stations in Berlin as destination or a S-Bahn station.

Where do you want to travel to in Berlin?

Posted by
7226 posts

the Apr 17 offers morning trains- one is a completely Regional option and another combines ICE with two regional trains.

I see a 9:44 with two RE trains. I see nothing with one ICE plus two regional trains.

You want reservations. So do not book anything with regional trains (which are non-reservable.) To exclude regional trains from your journey selections, just look under mode of transport and select "long-distance travel only." I just did that and found two departures (8:47 and 10:49) which require only one connection - one is ICE > ICE, the other ICE > IC. There's a 9:46 and an 11:13 as well, but those require 2 connections.

If you pre-book a regional train through the DB app then my understanding is if that train is canceled or missed you’re out of luck.

This is not true. Regional-only tickets from DB can be used at any hour of the day for the same journey. There is no reason to pre-purchase regional-only travel. No discount applies, tickets cannot sell out, and the ticket can be bought just before departure.

If you have a ICE + regional combo ticket, you can still travel at any hour on any regional train you wish for the same journey; the must-use train that cannot be missed is the ICE (or other long-distance train.)

Posted by
132 posts

Russ - thanks so much. Great tip to filter by "long distance only". I'm on the DB App on my phone and see a bunch of options from Dresden Hbf to Berlin Hbf on April 17 on ICE and IC trains direct! So, I can easily choose one of those, but I do wonder why I'm not seeing any of the same departure times you listed?

I see a 9:30 -11:32 on IC2270 and a 11:26-13:33 IC 2178, for instance. There's also an EC176 with an exclamation point at 10:55 (I assume that's either not available or not a good option).

Just seems strange that I'm getting different options that you?? Any idea why?

BTW, our apartment is in the Kollwitzkiez neighborhood - looks like the Berlin Hbf is the closest train station.

Thankyou,
Tracy

Posted by
19341 posts

I don't know about Apps. Apps are mostly just a poor substitutes for websites on poor substitutes for computers. On the Bahn website, https://int.bahn.de, I'm seeing ECs about ever 2 hours plus ICs in between basically all day long from Dresden to Berlin on April 17 and 21.

And according to the website, the ! for the 10:55 EC on 4/17 is because the train goes to Berlin Ostbahnhof instead of Berlin Hbf.

Posted by
7226 posts

You say that you "...see a bunch of options from Dresden Hbf to Berlin Hbf on April 17 on ICE and IC trains direct! So, I can easily choose one of those, but I do wonder why I'm not seeing any of the same departure times you listed?"

I responded to your original post where you said that you plan to travel on ..."April 17, from Munich to Dresden..." So if it's really Dresden > Berlin on the 17th, that explains our different results.

Posted by
132 posts

Ohhhh....yes, I mixed up the dates - my original post was correct. Thanks for all your help!

Tracy

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