My husband and I are arriving in Paris on May 15th and had planned to take the night train to Rome that night. Online it says there are no more reservations available for that night. We have a Eurorail Select Pass. Is there a way for us to have regular seats so we can make that trip? What if we showed up at the station? On the website it says: This train requires the passholder to purchase a seat reservation; however the passholder fares are unavailable or sold out at this time. You can still travel on this train with a regular ticket.
Would traveling with a regular ticket mean sitting in a "regular" seat? I'm so confused on all this train stuff!!! Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!
Posted by
Lakewood, Colorado
19275 posts
Nowhere on the TGV Europe site do I see a place to buy pass holder reservations. If you've given up on using the rail pass and just want a full fare ticket, TGV-Europe might work.
Another option, although German Rail doesn't sell tickets and reservations online for travel outside of Germany, they do sell them at ticket counters. I believe you can purchase anything in the European system, including pass holder reservations, if still available, by phone from German Rail at (49) 1805 996633. I believe they will usually have someone available to speak English, but you will be calling international long distance.
Posted by
Lakewood, Colorado
19275 posts
This is one of the dirty little secrets that you are not told about rail passes before you buy them.
Night train tickets consist of a rail part and an accommodation part. Full fare ticket include both parts. Although, because of your rail pass, you are already entitled to "ride", you still must pay for the accommodations on the train (seat, bunk in a couchette, bed in a sleeper). This additional supplement is sometimes called a "reservation" because it includes the reservation for a specific compartment, seat, etc.
Night train companies don't like you, so they limit the number of "reservations" for pass holders to something less than the total number of accommodations. Here, apparently, all of the passholder reservations are already sold. The train might still have accommodations available but they want to sell them as full tickets.
So, go to the ticket section of RailEurope, see if you can get a full fare ticket with accommodations, save a day of your railpass, and, in the future, before leaping for a rail pass, look at how you are going to get reservations. Everyone advises to book night trains early. You are trying for a reservation only 2 weeks ahead and on a popular train on a popular night. You might not even find any full fare tickets still available.
Lastly, that might only be RailEurope's allotment of reservations that are sold out. You might see if you can get them through Euraide (www.euraide.com). Call them in Massachusetts (their number is on the website). If there are still reservations available to Europeans, they can write them from their terminal in Germany and send them to you for a $50 service charge.
Posted by
Minneapolis, MN, USA
8700 posts
I'm afraid that you are learning the hard way that railpasses aren't always a good deal.
There are no seats on this train, only couchettes and sleepers. In this case "regular" means buying full fare tickets for either couchette bunks or sleeper beds.
If you don't want to spring for full fare tickets, you can spend the night in Paris and leave in the morning for Rome. You still can buy reservations at raileurope.com for a daytime route that requires a connection in Milan.
However, Lee's idea of seeing if you can get reservations through Euraide is certainly worth trying!
Posted by
Lakewood, Colorado
19275 posts
That Paris-Rome train is an Artesia train. Artesia has a website at www.artesia.eu. However, everytime I try to access the booking process on that website, it asks for the country, and, no matter what country I put in, I get an error message. Worse, I suspect that if the function worked, it would tell me to go to Rail Europe.
You might see if you can get "reservations" on the night train from Paris to Munich on the German Rail website. Then, since you are using the second day of your rail pass (the 16th), anyway, try to get on one of the day trains from Munich to Italy. EC85 goes from Munich (9:31) to Bologna (16:36). From Bologna there are ESs to Rome. EC81, at 11:31, goes only to Verona, from which you can take a ES to Rome.
Lastly, you could leave early-afternoon from Paris on the ICE connection to Munich and get there in time to catch the CNL night train to Rome. Both trains are reservable for passholders on the Bahn website. This route would require two days of your railpass.
Posted by
Boston
4132 posts
If Euraide doesn't work out, I would not go to Rail Europe for a ticket. Use TGV Europe instead (but say you are from Great Britain) and pick up your tickets in Paris. You can buy a ticket for whatever kinds of seats and berths are available.
Hopefully Euraide will be able to help instead!
Posted by
Boston
4132 posts
Lee, I was suggesting that Meagan use TGV Europe for tickets, not pass reservations, in the unhappy event that she needs to buy tickets.
Hopefully she won't need to do that. But if she does, she's better off at TGV Europe, with the "I'm-from-the-UK" routine, than at Rail Europe, where prices are higher and choices are more limited.