1st Class Rail Europe train ticket from BudaPest to Munich Border Delays?

Posted by Kathy (Atlanta, GA, USA) on 09/26/15 07:50 PM

We repurchased first class train tickets for travel from BudaPest to Munich on November 15th. Obviously we have well over a month but I want to follow any fellow travelers who are taking or have taken this same route with Rail Europe to develop a back up plan.

Our river cruise begins in Germany and ends in BudaPest and I plan to spend 5 nights to explore this wonderful city. My traveling friends are very concerned about the current conditions in BudaPest and the train being cancelled.

Rail Europe does not have any alerts on their site and I have talked to our hotel and they say the train is fine and can get us to Munich but they also advise things can change of course. I also have a friend that just got back from BudaPest and said they saw no issues and observed the camps. But they flew from BudaPest to Vienna and then after a few nights, flew back to Atlanta.

Any information will be so appreciated from those that live in BudaPest or Munich and in between. Thank you and I hope for the best for the displaced refugees.

Kathy

Posted by Mr É...............(Пан E ►)

Magyarország / Rep of Texas

09/26/15 08:34 PM

20159 posts

First, Rail Europe is a ticket reseller. Might be good to check the MAV site as well http://elvira.mav-start.hu/elvira.dll .

Then since this is something no one can predict a plan B might be a good idea. A car and driver if there are 4 of you might not cost more than those rail tickets you purchased through the reseller.

Transfer options:
http://www.silverwings.hu/

http://transferbudapesthungary.com/

http://www.guideinbudapest.com/

Silverwings is the most professional, transferbudapesthungary is also very reliable. The last one is a guide with a car. Excellent gentleman, excellent guide, but probably the most expensive of the bunch, but he can make it an informative trip. He can also probably recommend some other drivers.

I have been in Budapest the last 10 days and right now, today, at this moment all is moving smoothly. I also have a local business that relies to some extent to people arriving on the trains so I get updates every couple days, if I am here or not.

I fly to the states in about 8 hours, I change planes in Munich, so I know an air connection to Munich is easy and not terribly expensive. I don't do train rides in excess of 4 hours if I can find a flight.

Posted by Nigel

Northamptonshire, England

09/26/15 08:35 PM

33810 posts

Rail Europe just sell the tickets - they are just a broker - they don't operate any trains or have anything to do with the running of the trains. I don't know if that is where I would look for bulletins.

I'd be looking at the website of the Hungarian railway, OeBB, the Austrian railway, and especially I would be keeping an eye on the DB website of the German railways who will likely have some of the best information...

Have a great trip...

Posted by Lo

Tucson

09/26/15 09:28 PM

4183 posts

Rail Europe does not operate trains. They are a North American distributer of European rail products. They just sell tickets, usually at higher prices and with fewer options to choose from than if you bought directly from the company/organization that operates the trains.

Check your tickets to see who that is and start monitoring what their website says. Hopefully Rail Europe will keep up with the current situation, but nothing beats getting the info from the train operators themselves which seems to be Hungarian Railways.

Go to www.mavcsoport.hu to see a red box with updates in Hungarian followed by an English translation. The website has English as an option, so exploring it for other info should be fairly easy.

The DB Bahn website at www.bahn.de also has an English option. The home page has a box with an exclamation point for info on current disruptions and links for more details.