Train reservation fees!

Only reserve on the trains that require reservations. What is your route? Each train will have a separate fee, so you can minimize that by minimizing the transfers. Also, you can generally make your reservations a few days ahead of time in Europe, and avoid the higher Rail Europe fees.

Hello Lola, Thank you for the info. Our route is from Interlaken to Barcelona with one transfer in Bern. Reservations are required. Again, thanks for the tip.

Tim, where are you getting this information? There are few direct trains from Bern to Barcelona; you will most likely have to change somewhere along the way. The most common route goes Interlaken to Bern to Geneve to Monpellier to Figueres to Barcelona-Sants. Reservations are not required on the section from Interlaken to Bern, and not on most trains between Bern and Geneve either. After that you are on TGV trains through France and these have compulsory reservations. That is 2 trains. I'm not sure about the last one, in Spain. Or you could go from Bern to Paris and then a night train to Barcelona but that doesn't sound like what you are doing.

I went to www.raileurope.com. We are traveling from Interlaken to Madrid (transfer Basel). In Baecelona we get another train to Madrid. I thought that was the way to go until I saw the reservation fees! I assumed the max charged on reservation fees was around $35.00.

Well, apparently there is a night train that goes direct, the "Elipsos Pau Casals". It runs from Zurich to Barcelona but only a few times per week. And for that you would probably want beds in a couchette for your family. There may be a day train as well, and I just looked at the wrong day of the week. but if you aren't changing trains after Bern then that reservation fee does indeed seem way too high!

And I think the reservation fee for passholders on that AVE train from Barcelona to Madrid might be particularly high. Are you sure you want to go all the way from Interlaken to Madrid in one journey, no stops along the way?

Thanks for all the help. I think I'll give this more thought and break up the journey from Switzerland to Madrid. Thank you!

Tim, Another option you might consider would be a short flight from (for example) Zurich to Barcelona. There are several airlines to choose from and the flight is ~1H:40M. IMHO that's preferable to a 12-hour+ train journey either by night train or during the day. Adult fares on Vueling are currently as low as €69 (all inclusive). Cheers!

I second what Ken has suggested. Have you considered looking into what the budget airlines may offer. It most likely will be quicker and cheaper. Just make sure you Google exactly where the airports are before committing to the ticket. Try this website to see if it would work for you: http://www.whichbudget.com/.