Railbookers

Many of us here, who have traveled a great deal, suggest you stick with booking direct rather than using a third party.

If all that's available are the aisle seats, go for them. Both of these trains have larger than normal windows so you won't miss much from either side. of the train.

Don't use third party vendors- too much can go wrong.
You can ride the regional trains that run on the exact same tracks and don't require seat reservations. It's the trains the locals use. We rode the regionals and loved it! These trains aren't crowded, the windows open, which is great for taking pix, and you usually can jump across the aisles as the scenery changes.
Enjoy this beautiful country!

Please do some searches for reviews on Railbookers, which is a travel agency. There are quite a few threads across Trip Advisor with stories of terrible service with this company. I do not have personal experience with them.

Why use a third party at all? And as was said, the "normal" priced trains run on the same tracks and see the same things.

We took this trip in May, 2025. Get a travel agent if you want to have someone plan you travel by train in Europe. We started in Naples to Sorrento, then Sicily. The only thing they did right was picking Taormina, Sicily and even that was a fiasco. First, they didn't include transports to and from all of our locations and when I asked why, they said it would be less expensive to catch a taxi than to book a transport service, which is fine, but why did I need to ask? Next they gave us vouchers for the train rides without any explanation that we had to turn them in for tickets or that we would need to transfer trains in Sicily to get to Taormina. We ended up on the west side of the island before we realized that we needed to transfer to get the east (Taormina) side. When we got off we discovered it would take 4-5 hours to get back to Taormina by train due to the schedule. We paid 150 euro for a taxi so we could get to our destination in a little over an hour and Railbookers refused to pay for that mistake. Finally, we decided not to go on the excursion to Mt Etna because I was feeling motion sick from all of the other transports we had been taking and the voucher from the excursion company said we could cancel for a refund within 24 hours and we canceled with over a 48 hour notice. Railbookers refused to issue the refund that they got back from the excursion. What an awful company!

We did the Glacier Express last August. We were a party of six and four of us had aisle seats. The windows are huge and I don’t remember any complaints about not being able to see.

Just finished a Railbookers/Amtrack Vacations trip. TERRIBLE Customer service, TERRIBLE TERRIBLE value.

I dont mind paying for the convenience but I hate feeling ripped off. Best I can tell we paid a ? 70 percent upcharge to have them force me to waist countless hours trying to get customer service. Which we only received after getting home.

Booked 1 day car rental. Dollar Rental "THIS MAKES NO SENSE." Picked car up 8 p.m. returned 7 p.m. the next night. 175 for 23 hr rental.. Railbookers.com booked it as 2 separated days. Dollar could not figure out how they were able to even schedule it that way. Cost me well over 375 dollars for 1 day. Dollar assured us they gave Railbooker.com a refund, of aprox 200 dollars. I have the written receipts.

Day before leaving on the train we opened the train tickets and NO tickets. Multiple calls and we were able to finally get the tickets. If we had waited just an hour or two later to open the attachments we would have missed the trip.

The Grouse hotel "top of the line" 500/night but in reality it is more like a nice 3 star hotel. It was listed online for 285/night for the nights we stayed there.. Grouse handed us our statement on leaving 309/night plus taxes. "Dont Worry" Railbooker gets a big discount.

"Food excellent" 60 bucks for breakfast that everyone else at the hotel was paying 40 bucks for. Breakfast at the Grouse "Think hospital cafeteria breakfast". Simple scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages and a couple rolls. 60 bucks for something I would have not paid 30 bucks for. Roads Scholar travel group had a much nicer breakfast the same morning. Seriously this was a buffet that I would have passed on if it was 10 dollars a piece.

All add on trips all looked like over 50% mark up. Can not tell since still have not received a break down. Railbookers refuses to send

The worst thing was just trying to get someone on the phone." TERMINAL" HOLD CUSTOMER SERVICE.
Emails it says will be answered in 24 hrs. Still waiting 5 days later.

East Glacier lodge, one of the managers was talking to another Railbookers/Amtrack Vacation victim. PROBLEMS AND COMPLAINTS 8/10 ARE ABOUT Railbookers/Amtrak vacations. Double booked rides, no reservations, wrong day. He HATES them.
Recommend BOOK YOUR SELF.

Grouse front desk stated that the advertised 285 dollar/night room that I believe I paid 500/night is purchased by Railbooker/Amtrak Vacations in blocks. So they pay aprox 30% less than the 285. That by the way is what I would value that room at. 200 to max 250. It appears that They are pushing people into these hotels that they have blocks at. So you are not directed to the best deal/best hotel but to the hotel with the largest profit margin. Only my speculation and that of one of the front desk employees. He can not understand why people use them.

Best I can tell I paid 6k for a vacation that I could have purchased for around 3.5k. ? less. I turned a refundable trip into a nonrefundable one with little to NO customer service. I wasted hours of my vacation trying to get simple answers to simple problems.

The following was brought over from Reditt :As someone who used to work at this company, do not use their products. They act as a middleman up charging heavily on rides, excursions, etc. Ask the sales folks for an itinerary and book each segment of the trip yourself, do not pay them to do this.

If you ever need a refund or cancellation because of a hiccup on your trip, they will not issue refunds, even if it was their fault.

Terrible terrible company.

The problem with the Glacier Express is that Tour Operators snatch up all the seats as soon as available. So often you are out of luck if you want to do it on your own.

But there is an alternative: Just use normal service trains over the same route. These trains are often less crowded, so that you can switch from side to side depending on the scenery. And often they still have windows that open.

@Brian - Welcome to the Rick Steves forum and your first post. So sorry you didn’t do your google search for reviews before you booked. You’ve no doubt discovered a plethora of threads all over the internet discussing terrible service from this travel agent. I see you have also found the long thread on the Trip Advisor Train Travel forum and posted a couple of times.

Sadly the folks who get taken by 3rd party bookers don’t seem to find the warning threads before they book.