When are you travelling?

Best book these via the company itself, (Rhätische Bahn - RhB). I tried to look now, but the website seems to be down for maintenance so I can’t check for you at the moment. Both for the timetable of the Express, or the seat reservations.

Anyway, I would advice you to even avoid the Bernina express, and use the hourly regional trains. Same views, same route, minus the cost of a seat reservation, and much more flexibility to get on or off where you want to. :)

Thanks for the quick response. We will be travelling during the first week of May. I was able to find the Bernina Express in the Eurail timetable. As for the regional trains. Are you saying the parametric views are not worth the extra cost (~$25.00/per person)? That is the only reason we are considering this train. 

The view from the regional trains on the Bernina Express route are the same as on the Bernina Express. If you are travelling in May, depending on the weather, there might even be an open car on the regional train where you have an excellent view. 

There are also reservation free cars on the Bernina Express trains and those cars are usually less crowded than the panorama cars with reservation 

Oh, yay… I was just asking a similar question… believing that the Bernina Express had a route of its very own, and nothing else covered the same tracks! 

I took the Bernina Express last month with an Interrail pass and just sat in the first carriage where the seats don’t require reservations. It’s a modern carriage with wide windows, tables, toilet etc. The carriages which require reservations have taller windows but - for the journey I took - were more crowded.

The train stops for 30mins in the middle at a view point with a café which is when I saw the other carriages.