Eurorail pass or no Eurorail pass?

Your 5-day saver pass is going to cost roughly $1500, right? My research at the German Rail website says you can get advance sale tickets for your whole family from Paris to Cochem for 116 Euros total and ticktets for Cochem to Munich for 89 Euros total. You can travel to Salzburg for 29 Euros total on a Bayern ticket. Same for Salzburg to MUC. That's 263 Euros total, roughly $350. Getting these individual tickets is not so much extra work that it's worth $1150 for railpasses. Try your travel dates and times here; get the tickets 92 days in advance to ensure availability and the lowest prices. You can print them out at home. http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en BTW: The cruise boat from Bingen (not the ferry, which goes to Rüdesheim) will not be covered on these tickets - you'll buy them on the docks. And I would steal a day from Salzburg to spend one night on the Rhine after your cruise, if possible; that way you can see Marksburg or just enjoy one of the villages instead of cramming in a long train ride to Munich on that same day.

Do I read the table correctly? A 5 day 3 country saver pass is $390 per person. That's $78/day or €57/day at today's exch. rate. Cochem to Bingen is €33 for all five of you with a Rheinland-Pfalz-Ticket. You could do Bingen to Munich for €66 with regional trains. Alternatively, you could use advance purchase Sparpreis tickets from Bingen to Munich, as low as €89 for the four of you (the 14 yo would be free if listed on the ticket). Out to Dachau by S-Bahn and bus, then to Salzburg would be completely covered by a €29 Bayern-Ticket for all of you (a rail pass would not cover the bus from Dachau Bhf to the Memorial). It looks like you are giving up so much money on most of the legs I don't see how the Paris-Cochem leg can make up for it (and with advance purchase you can get 4 adults on that leg for €29 + 3 x €20 and the 14 yo is free). Although your K-D boat trip will not be free as with a railpass, if you show them the rail ticket that got you to Bingen, you should get a 20% discount. And, BTW, there are two stations in Bingen, Bingen Hbf and Bingen Stadt. The smaller station, Bingen Stadt, is near the boat dock; the larger station, Bingen Hbf is a long walk or a bus ride away. Don't get off at the wrong station.

If you figure which train you will take to Bingen, and therefore which boat and which train back, you can figure a stopover time in Bingen. If you build that into your Sparpreis ticket, Cochem to Bingen to Munich in the same day could all be as low as €89. If you do it as two separate tickets it will be more.

Lynette, no they aren't insane - you really don't want to spend THAT much for the 'convenience' of a pass. More on that later...I'll vouch for them - their quotes are accurate! Depending on the train chosen, you may end up paying a supplement on a given train itinerery; that = more money, and less convenience. And that pass gets less and less convenient. Since you're staying mostly in Germany, definitely take advantage of their great ticket schemes (as spelled out by Russ and Lee). Unless I missed it, you don't say WHEN you'll be there; that would make alot of difference in the availability of the great fares in France...You'd want to order those tickets ASAP online, but it's not too difficult - we can coach you through it. You'd 'probably' get an e-ticket confirmation that you'd print at home and take to a ticket counter at any French train station; they'd give you your tickets. I've done it before. Easy peasy. (seriously - easy-peasy!) So, when exactly are you going?

Wow. Thanks everybody! When I was shopping for train rates, I think I was multiplying them by 5. I guess I thought it was too good to be true that it could be so much less than a rail pass. Who knows what I was looking at. I could have been on some rip-off site. I'm on it now! I will do it, since it's easy-peasy. We're going in late July. It's almost unbelievable to me that the savings are that substantial. Wunderbar! More money to blow on food in Paris. It's easy peasy to spend money there. Thanks for your expertise and encouragement. I may need a bit more help. This trip has become an obsession. Lynette

Nail down your travel days and record the 92-days-out dates on your calendar so that you have the best chance of getting those low prices on advance-sale tickets.