Naples to Sicily boat trains not shown on Eurail site - how to get a reservation?

I had a similar problem with Italian trains recently. It seems linked to the IR planner only being updated infrequently and Trenitalia not releasing the info promptly. 

The planner is showing direct journeys early in October so be patient. 

It is also not showing on OEBB at the moment but it will appear eventually.

Have you done the boat train before? Quite an experience.

p.s. try and get seats on the right as you go down to Villa San Giovanni. The sea views are great,

Another reason may simply be that train nrs change-as trains get split and may have cars for different destinations-the system cannot understand and thus not handle that. Planes never have that-trains can. Again: forget that app and RES via other means-its cheaper too

Here is some useful information from the experienced travellers in the Community regarding both planning, reservations and activation of pass and travel days. 

 Planning

The rail planner is normally not up to date, as it only is updated once a month, so to be sure of the time table you better check the timetable and availability on the websites of the national railways. The bigger national railways, like DB (Germany) SBB (Switzerland) and ÖBB (Austria) cover several countries. 

 Reservations 

The advice from the experienced travellers in the community is to use other ways to make reservations than the Interrail/Eurail website.  You can look at the guide in the link:

https://community.eurail.com/train-connections-reservations-47/how-to-get-reservations-105

If you, after having looked at the guide, have questions about how to make specific reservation, please give your travel details (departure date, time and route) preferably in a new topic, and you will get advice.

Please note that Interrail/Eurail charges an extra fee of 2 EUR per person and train in addition to the fee for the seat reservation.

 Activation of pass

During the activation process, when you choose the start day of the validity of the pass, the first day of the validity period is automatically made a travel day, even if you don't enter a journey, the advice is therefore not to activate the pass before the first travel day as you only can deactivate the pass before 00.00 on the day the validity starts. If your travel plans change in the last moment you will loose travel days if you have activated the pass in advance.

It can be wise to make a test and activate the pass with a start date well in the future and then deactivate the pass immediately, just to see that everything works.

 Activation of travel day

The advice from the experienced travellers in the community is also never to activate a travel day, that is connect a journey to your pass and create the QR code, until just before boarding the train, otherwise you might loose a travel day if your travel plans change in a late stage  You can't delete a travel day in the past. A travel day can only be deleted until 23.59 CET the day before the travel day.

You are correct that the train splits at Messina but a search for Taormina will only pick up the correct train number. The other half goes to Palermo.

Just be patient - about 4 weeks before should see it appear. Already showing for 12 Oct on rail planner (mobile phone)

ooi - did the reverse run from Siracusa to Salerno a few weeks ago

The system can handle it, as long as the data is entered correctly. If through coaches are shown as separate trains then there are data errors.

It works well,.

For example - The system is showing a journey on Oct 1st from Naples to Sicily (both Catania and Palermo as the IC727. When it splits at Messina the IC727 continues to Catania and the Palermo section changes number to the IC729.

Already the direct journey for Week 1 October are in the planner. Be patient.

Thanks for the helpful replies,all.  So it looks like I’ll need to wait until mid Sept to make my bookings using Eurail, but I’ll also read up on the guide about making reservations direct.