I’d definitely take the pass option as the 11 y.o. child travels for free (but indeed needs a seat reservation too). Seat reservations cost the same, regardless of age :

• 30€ Eurostar London - Paris seat reservation. Limited number of seats so book well in advance (as soon as your dates are set truly)
• about 20€ for a couchette on the night train, quite popular too. To book it’s best to call SNCF (not available on eurail.com right now it seems)
• limited 10€, then 20€ Carcassone - Marseille (then it’s a reservation-free TER regional train to Nice)
• Nice - Riomaggiore is reservation-free : Nice - Ventimiglia - Genova Brignole - Riomaggiore
• Riomaggiore - Venice (a few routes but the quickest is) : Riomaggiore - Pisa - Florence (you could stop for a few hours if you’d like, that’s the great thing about the pass) + Florence - Venice 13€
• Venice - Rome direct 13€ high-speed train

Let me know for questions

Wow, thank you. That’s really helpful. I think I’m most worried that the passes will be complicated to use.

If we get the passes, do we get the reservation only on the Eurostar/Scnf/Trenitalia websites? I had heard that about the reservations being limited so that made me nervous as well. (You mention calling SNCF which would be even better - I couldn’t find a number to call Eurail.) 

 I was pricing on SNCF without passes (obviously) and I was able to get the couchette + “espace privatif” on the Intercite Nuit (so we could be alone with the 4 of us).  Hopefully we could do something similar with the pass. 

Our dates set (as long as we can get these reservations!) as to lodging and flights. 

Reservations are almost always available on eurail.com but the company adds a 2€ booking fee per person per train (it very quickly adds up !). Reservations are completely separate from the pass so it doesn’t matter where you make them. Whenever a ticket inspector comes, you show them both the pass (app) and the seat reservation (PDF or printed). There are better places to book those reservations such as :

• Eurostar : https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass#TravelWish 4€ booking fee per order. You can also easily check availability (no need to have a pass for that)
• Intercité de nuit : this one is available on eurail.com or SNCF by phone (press #85 for English, no booking fee, delivery via e-mail). That way you can ask whether it is possible to book a private compartment which obviously would be good !
• Intercité Carcassonne - Marseille either by calling SNCF or online here (4€ fee per order)
• Italy : tickets.oebb.at (no booking fee) → add Eurail as a discount and select one-way tickets.

Eurail passholder seat reservations aren’t subject to a quota except Eurostar (which is a bottleneck), Thalys and TGVs to Belgium (which don’t matter to you). As long as you can buy regular tickets, there are available seat reservations. :)

General advice :

Thanks, again, for being so very helpful! One last question: Any opinion on 1st v. 2nd class? We aren’t fancy, and I was student when I did before (so all 2nd), so I’m inclined to go with 2nd, but do you think that will complicate the reservation issue or make it harder to get places together?

I had thought of that… 1st class is often worth the extra cost (price difference is way smaller than regular tickets) but actually most trains you’ll take in Italy (except high-speed ones) won’t have 1st class seats… so I’m not sure.

With the 1st class pass you often get a few extra perks like free (optional) seat reservations in Austria, Germany, Czechia,… but that’s not the case in either France or Italy.

I’d go with 2nd class. As long as you make the reservations enough in advance you should be seated in a bay of 4 (ideal)

Remember, you will need to ”buy” a pass for your child also! So even though they travel for free, they can’t travel without a pass. When buying, add a child to your offer and you’ll get a pass for them as well. 

Hellop, I don’t know if you are still watching this conversation or not but thought I’d try because you were so very helpful!

We have eurail passes. We have run into trouble on the booking of couchette Paris-Carcassonne with eurail. The SNCF phone line cuts out when you press #85 for English (call disconnects, tried 3 times on different phones). I tried using my French it was really difficult! 

So I tried on this site, it lets me put the 4 reservations in my cart, for about 125 euro - but it does not specify that these are couchettes. We do not want to do this if it’s the regular seats which I see the train has. 

Would you agree that the reservations this site is offering me would  be just the seats? That price is what you estimated the couchettes would be but I wonder why no information is specified. 

Seats in the domestic night train are normally €10. What is your travel date?

I hadn't heard about problems to get through to SNCF's English call centre. It's the one you should use because they weirdly only accept French credit cards when you choose French, as if French isn't spoken elsewhere...

We couldn’t get SNCF in English, tried three times with two different phones. I spoke to the French lady (I actually understand fine but speak really poorly) but she ended up saying I could just buy online as she didn’t have pass fares so we went in circles. I don’t know why the #85 didn’t work. When you hit it, you just got disconnected. Same when I spoke to an operator and asked to be transferred to the English line.

Maybe because it was Sunday? I ended up just buying them here, for a different date,  because from talking with SNCF in French it seemed they were running out of pass fares.  It doesn’t say couchette but it must be. We couldn’t get the espace privatif but that will just have to part of the adventure. I may try again on a weekday to see if I can get another leg through them,.

But it would have to be the English, I don’t have a French credit card…

There are no quota for pass holders in French domestic night trains. But night trains can be busy and sell out in advance.

Well I hope that’s what is was. It was a Friday, so I figured the pass fares were gone, as the French lady was going to sell it to me for 600 euros, which I am pretty sure is full fare for 4. That was the price on sncf online. She was quoting Eurail. At that point I did it online since I was nervous about entering payment and pass info in French correctly - from what you’ve told me, though, it wouldn’t have worked anyway as I don’t have a French card.

On this site I got the day before (August 10)  for  around $100 for the 4. 

Using these passes is a lot more complicated than it was two decades ago!

If there are places available, then a pass reservation can also be booked. 600 euros for 4 persons means she did not use the correct booking code. Also, if you could book the same train on eurail.com, then pass reservations were definitely possible.

SNCF are a bit of nuisance. They stopped selling pass reservations through their app and website a few years ago. And then they have a strange credit card policy, also if you choose English (although slightly less restrictive than in French).

Well, I guess I gave up too soon! I wish there was more clarity in all that - I had read that pass fares sold out so I assumed that’s what we were facing. Should have known the rep wasn’t necessarily the end answer - I’ve certainly run into that in other places! I was nervous we’d lose out all together. I’m not really equipped to argue that was in French though, and she definitely told me that was the price with Eurailpass.

Hopefully the reservations we got here were for couchettes. Of course there’s no one I can speak with to confirm that!