First and foremost, I am aware that Reservations are not included with the Pass. The question is, what benefits of having the Eurail Global Pass if 4 out of the 5 cities I am traveling to needs reservations?
I’m traveling from Zurich to Paris
Paris to Brussels
Brussels to London
London to Amsterdam
and lastly, Amsterdam to Berlin.
Suggestions and tips on how I can go about this will be highly appreciated. Thank you.
If you know when you'll be travelling and don't need to be flexible, then you can make a comparison between pass + reservations and normal tickets.
First and foremost, I am aware that Reservations are not included with the Pass. The question is, what benefits of having the Eurail Global Pass if 4 out of the 5 cities I am traveling to needs reservations?
I’m traveling from Zurich to Paris
Paris to Brussels
Brussels to London
London to Amsterdam
and lastly, Amsterdam to Berlin.
Suggestions and tips on how I can go about this will be highly appreciated. Thank you.
You can easily see for yourself via the websites of example DB BAHN and SBB, whether you can make the journeys you want to make without a high-speed train.
You can make all connections without reservation costs, except to and from London. Provided you have enough time!
The main benefit is the flexibility! You can decide 1-2 days before (or even just on the spot if it is not high season etc.) where you wanna go. Get a reservation (if neccessary) and hop on. For me the Interrail pass pays off almost always. But if you have such a fixed mainstream schedule, then you can also try it with normal tickets, might be cheaper if you know the exact dates of traveling, but will limit your flexibility - if you like one place a lot and wanna stay longer, you will (depending on what kind of ticket you booked) not be able to change it without a lot of extra costs…. same goes for if you don’t like a place and wanna leave it as soon as possible.
at least AMS-Berlin is with voluntary REServation-with the risk of having to stand a short distance if all is full by reserved seats.
Other sectors CAN be made, but much slower and with more changes, by unreserved local trains.
You have simply chosen a routing where this problem is quite big-Spain (which you avoid), then France with its TGV then EuroStar are the main culprits. Be flexible, discover EUrope and choose other routings! As rian explains-if you want to stick to that, maybe advance fixed bookings are a better choice.
You can also save a bundle by using long-distance BUses instead, f.e. the ever present Flix. Often their fare is lower as only the extra REservation on EU/InterRail
This is also confusing to me because when you reserve seats for leg 2 of the trip, but leg 1 doesn’t need reservations...there seems no way to be sure you’ll be able to get on to leg 1 with your pass...it might be full...and then you miss your leg 2 paid reservation? :(
+14
This is also confusing to me because when you reserve seats for leg 2 of the trip, but leg 1 doesn’t need reservations...there seems no way to be sure you’ll be able to get on to leg 1 with your pass...it might be full...and then you miss your leg 2 paid reservation? :(
It all depends on the route and the trains.
If you ask in this community with few details the experienced travelers may have a good advice for you.
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