I am buying a 10 day German Twin Rail Pass for my trip this fall. I know I can use my rail pass for the KD Rhine River cruise, but it uses one of my rail pass days. I will be using the German Rail pass to get to Bingen on the same day. My question is does the use of the rail pass for both trains and Rhine cruise on the same day count for two days of the ten day pass?
Posted by
Lakewood, Colorado
19274 posts
I believe that the K-D ship is treated the same as any rail link. You can use the ship for travel as long as the pass is activated (dated) for that day. I don't think it requires an additional day. However, the pass can only be used for one way travel, not for a round trip, on the ship.
Posted by
Lakewood, Colorado
19274 posts
On the German side of the K-D website (www.k-d.de), under Preisbestimmungen (price regulations):
"5.2 Railpässe (Eurail, Savers, German Rail und German Rail Youth) sowie Netzfahrscheine “EURO DOMINO” für DBStrecken berechtigen zur kostenfreien Benutzung der Ausflugsschiffe (Rundfahrten ausgenommen)." Approx. translation, ...entitle free use of the excursion ships (Rundfahrten excepted). Note, that is excepted, not accepted.
K-D does offer packaged round-trip tours, which they call "Rundfahrten", and translate on their site as round-trip tours. I think that is to what they are referring, not just using two legs of the scheduled routes to go "round trip".
Posted by
Myrtle Beach, USA
12314 posts
Lee is right. As long as your pass is activated on that day the KD ship is included. I'm not sure about the round trip. I haven't tried to use it round trip, I just hop off the boat and use the train again.
Posted by
Houston
86 posts
We were able to use our rail pass to get on and off the KD boat repeatedly while only using one day. We wrote the date on the pass while on the train, and then just showed our pass to the conductor at the gang way and rode from Koblenz to St. Goar. We checked into our hotel and then when we were ready to head to dinner in Bacharach, we just showed it again and then hopped a train back from Bacharach to St. Goar. This was in mid-May so it's been about six weeks.
That was a good use of a rail day.