All things considered do I really need to make reservations for trains leaving at 6 AM?
Our routes will be
Nice to Paris departing at 639
Paris to Amsterdam departing at 625
Barcelona to Seville departing at 5:56
Seville to Madrid departing at 7:15
Do trains departing this early generally get full or do ya think I can I chance it?
Hi Lina,
Nice to Paris will be on a TGV.
Paris to Amsterdam is on a Thalys.
Barcelona to Seville is on an AVE.
Seville to Madrid is also on an AVE.
All of these trains have compulsory reservations, and all of them have a risk of selling out in advance. Since you know exactly when you will be travelling, and since all require advanced reservations, I see no reason to not make the reservations now.
Thank you Steven. I live in the states and apparently it is more expensive to make train reservations out here. I was trying to avoid the extra charges but I guess better to be safe than sorry
Hi Lina,
That all depends where you make the reservations from.
For your Nice to Paris trip, make the reservation at www.tgv-europe.com and select either Canada or Great Britain as your country, and select that you will pick up your ticket at the station. You can then go to a ticket booth, show your credit card, and pick up the ticket before boarding the train. As a result you will pay the same as Europeans would for the ticket, no more.
For the Paris to Amsterdam route you can use www.thalys.com to book it.
As for the two Spanish trains, I do not know off-hand but I am sure someone else can respond to that shortly. At minimum, you can reserve your Spanish train trips from a train station in France, as you can book for major routes anywhere in Europe from any major train station.
Early trains like that, depending on the time of year, will PROBABLY not be full in Spain. But you'll pay an arm and a leg for walkup tickets....say 187 Euro for Barcelona-Sevilla. Instead, go to the Spanish railway company, RENFE, and book in advance. Click on "Buy Tickets" at the top center and go from there...you can purchase up to 62 days out. If you want to leave that early, you'll get your best connections if you book Barcelona-Madrid, then Madrid-Sevilla. Advance purchases for Barcelona-Sevilla (eg.) can be as low as 121 Euro....you'll print out the tickets at home.
