How important are seat reservations on train journeys across Europe that dont require bookings? We are travelling during December and given the AUD to Euro exchange rate id like to avoid unnecessary expenses.
Having said that, I also dont want to take silly risks as our schedule is tight. Eg; We are travelling Nuremberg to Prague and Stuttgart to Munich, both which dont require a reservation.
The problem you hit with mixed reservations is that they are mixed. If it is a longer journey, A-D, you may find an open seat at A but it is reserved from B to C or C to D and you have move or find another open seat. If it is a short trip, maybe an hour or so, it doesn't make much difference if you have to find a couple of seats. However, during a longer, multi-hours, trip then the reservation may be preferred. There is no firm answer to the question.
If I were doing these two rides, I would get the seat reservations, unless you want to take chance standing or get bumped, having occupied an empty seat and some one comes along showing you the seat is his/her. What about your luggage on the rack just above the seat you had to vacate?
Stuttgart to Munich is on the ICE ?...I would get a seat reservation .
What you can do is have a look at how full a train is. The reservation system allows you to pick a seat on a seating chart, and will show what is already taken. So that should allow you to get an idea how likely trains are to fill up.
There is no need to reserve months in advance. You can wait till a week or so before your trip.
You are traveling at peak time during the Christmas markets. Do you want to stand? If reservations are available, even if optional, I would pay for them. All the trains we traveled on during our market trip were FULL.
I would buy the tickets asap if they are before 14 December.
I looked at your Nuremberg to Prague trip and at the end of October the cheap tickets were already gone and the some of the trains were nearly 100 euro. In late november they were 40-somethng euro. As for the seat assignments, there is no guarantee. Do you feel lucky?
Just a heads up on Nuremberg to Prague. There are 2 ways, the easiest and fastest is a regional train to Schwandorf connecting to a regional train to Prague. Regional trains do not have seat reservations.
The other way is to Pegnitz, then a regional train to Cheb, CK, then an Czech IC train to Prague. Only the Czech IC train has seat reservations. Nuremberg to Pegnitz is by replacement bus as the rail line has several bridges that failed inspection and need repaired and this closure is indeterminate, at least as far as the current schedule to Dec 14.
Edit: You apparently can purchase seat reservations for Schwandorf to Prague from Ceske Drahy, the Czech rail company who jointly operate this train with Die Laenderbahn. Available from 30 days prior to departure and you can pick seats from a seat map.
https://www.cd.cz/en/
Cost for 2 is 149 CZK. As long as you are going to that site, you will also get a better price for the tickets for that train.
Thank you so much everyone. I really appreciate your advice, especially the route options. We travel on Dec 16. So hopefully we will still be able to book seats.
Don't worry. On trains where reservation is a possibility you will be able to book seats. Trains do not sell out months in advance. If they did, they would be useless. I would expect reservations for the 16th to be even available on the 16th itself, maybe not for every train, but in Germany it does not happen that all trains on a route are booked out. DB wants to make money after all.
The main reason for buying tickets in advance is not to "secure a seat", but to save money. I travel to Germany a lot for business. It is always last minute, and I never have trouble buying a ticket or getting a seat. Of course, last minute tickets are expensive, but on a business trip I am not paying :-)
Bookings for Germany should open on October 14, so end of this month you can get your train tickets.
