Ljubljana to vienna

We rode the train from Ljubljana to Vienna a few months ago, in September. It was a pleasant and scenic journey. There is one train change, in Villach, and you can board the first train at Lesce-Bled rather than going to Ljubljana. That would make the total travel time 5.5 hours.

I bought our tickets well in advance to get the Sparpreis ( discount tickets). First class was around €40 each. I just checked and the Sparpreis for Standard class is only €9 for the 10:03 train (boarding time at Lesce-Bled). That is for a date in March, 2+ months from now.

I would take the train. There is a direct train as well from Ljubljana to Vienna. Look at this link for very good info on this route - https://www.seat61.com/international-trains/trains-from-Croatia.htm#Zagreb-Vienna. The train does pass through some lovely scenery.

a 50-minute trip
Plus the time it takes to get to and from airport, for the check-in and waiting at the luggage belt, makes flying no faster than the train.

I think sunset is around 7:30 pm on Sept. 1st. We could leave early in the morning but I would rather take an afternoon train from Bled or Ljubljana if possible. If the prettiest part of this train ride is in the first half of the ride, it would still be light out but if closer to Vienna, I doubt if we would see the beautiful scenery. Or maybe the entire route is pretty? When I looked at the schedule from Ljujljana, I was confused. There seem to be several stations there? Which one would we want to take to go to Wien HbF (isn’t that what the main station in Vienna would be called?). Thanks for any help you can give me.

Maybe I didn’t look at the correct schedule but what I saw showed the train trip around 8 hours or more.

Where did you look for the schedule? The reliable and easy to use pan-European timetable of the German railways gives 10.03 for departure from Lesce-Bled and arrival in Vienna at 15.35, making 5,5 hours.
The main station in Ljubljana is given as »Ljubljana«.

What website are you using for schedules? You appear to be getting wrong information. (I hope it is not Rail Europe). You can use bahn.de for the schedules; very user-friendly and comprehensive. to buy tickets in advance you would need to use OeBB, the Austrian train site. They are a bit fussy about credit cards but AmEx works well.

That 10:03 train from Lesce-Bled referenced above is the same one I found and mentioned in my first post. It arrives in Vienna (main station, or Hauptbahnhof) in mid-afternoon, so no travel in the dark is involved. No need to travel to Ljubljana; just board the train at Bled when it passes through. You will have to get yourselves to the station (Lesce-Bled) which is several kilometres from the town of Bled. Taxi there is around 10 euros. The bus was on strike the day we made that journey.

This is a link to the website of the Austrian railways to buy your tickets. It's is terribly user-unfriendly, but very much worth the trouble. Bought at the day itself at the station a ticket costs you over EUR 60 instead of the amazingly cheap »Sparpreis« of EUR 9.

So it’s lesce-bled to Vienna main station, right? How far in advance can I purchase tickets? Apparently they are not available now per the OBB site I was directed to cause when I put in my dates, it said ticket not available. How would I get one of these cheap tickets mentioned above? What are they called? Can anybody get them?

It's much too early to buy a ticket for September. Two months in advance should be alright.
The cheap tickets show automatically. They are called »Sparschiene ticket«. They are available for everyone.

Using Trainline EU, I see the Bled Lesce to Wien one way ticket at 40 euros, $56.59 leaving at 10:03. Is this the price for two people if I put in two people? Is this a good price? It seems good to me, especially if it is for two people. I don’t know that it is the sparschiene ticket price (cause posts above say you can get those for as cheap as $9). It doesn’t say that it is but I guess it is because that is the same price I saw for an earlier train and the price for that ticket was the same and it did say sparschiene Slowenien. Should I buy these tickets now for Sept. 1st departure?

I also saw some posts about a driving service that was cheap but can’t remember the name of that service, I think it was opti something? It’s some kind of charter bus I think. It initially gives you a broad timeframe of 4-5 hrs to pick you up and you don’t know the exact pickup time until a day or so before your departure. What do you think about this?

As I mentioned above, we paid €40 each for first class Sparschiene tickets for September ttravel.

The €9 Sparschiene tickets in 2d class for this September are probably gone, or were not offered for high season travel. The ones I saw were for March, when I looked in December.

Using Trainline EU, I see the Bled Lesce to Wien one way ticket at 40 euros, $56.59 leaving at 10:03. Is this the price for two people if I put in two people? Is this a good price?

I can see a price of €24 pp for the 10:03 train at both trainline.eu and OEBB.at, so $56.59 seems to be the price for two. Considering the distance to cover, it's a good price. Book asap, since Sparschiene fares will sell out.