NO doubt the pass will save you quite a bundle-just check yourself, if you can find some time, what IF booked now (when possible, it may not even yet be possible for all) what advance fares (reduced already) would cost. That is -IF you can also find the required space on exactly those days- €* and the Night train just before Xmas are in the superbusy travel time. DO, DO NOW RES this €*-superbusy time and quota-limited-go only as far as BRU if nothing found for AMS and use onward local train.

@6: can also use overnight, if so wished: the snälltaget (other comp) from STO to Berlin also stops in a suburban CPH station.

3,7,8 are only optional RES-but advisable if it is too frightening to perhaps not sit all close together-and easiest to do via bahn.com (I dk if there is an upper limit in the nr one can do in 1 time), cost 4,50/pp.

You stay quite a long time for the tipical norte-americano in these cities, 1 week in each.

FRA is not a tipical touristy stop, perhaps you have some special reason, but to glimpse that part of DE: change to Heidelberg or perhaps Wiesbaden-or somewhere along the Rhine.

The huge advantage of using a pass rather than standard tickets is their inherent flexibility. Most pre-purchased tickets are non refundable and non-exchangeable and for specific trains only. Turn up and go prices are extortionately expensive, especially at busy times.

Trains get delayed and cancelled so the flexibility to travel on earlier/later trains is paramount.

For such a large group it will be a challenge to keep together on many trains, but always book the maximum number allowed in a booking (different operators have varying limits of how many can be booked in one go). Then they will try to put the group together.

AS previous post you will need to check Eurostar availability for at least 4 hours after your plane arrival. You may find you have to pay for that as pass seats are limited and that is a very busy time. It may even be necessary to source a flight or ferry to Amsterdam.

Snalltaget night train Hamburg - Stockholm runs Dec 18-21 but not Dec 22, can be booked on their website but not yes as those dates are not currently available for booking.

https://www.snalltaget.se/en/berlin

Wow, thanks for all these answers, this is very useful. Very glad I wrote here!

@AnnaB , I forgot to write that the plan was to leave London on Dec 20th from London to Amsterdam. Can you tell me if there are pass holder seats available on that day? I cannot find the information from https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass#TravelWish since I still do not have a Eurail pass.

Will try to spend some time tonight (Montreal/ET time) calculating how much money the passes will save us and will write it back here for those interested. Still not sure if it will be the best way to go. At some point in the trip there will be 7 of us traveling together, so managing 7 mobile passes and lots of reservations might be confusing (Activation, all of us with a different pass cover number, each with our own reservations, etc.)

Thanks again!

 

You don't need to have a pass to check availability on that website. Just fill in the form.

You will save a lot of money with Eurail for these trips. And you only need one reservation per journey, or maybe 2 two if you can't make a reservation for 7 at the same time. If you don't use Eurail you will anyway need to buy the tickets for the trains and you will be much less flexible if there would be changes in your plans.

For the Eurostar you can make reservations for 9 at the same time. 

Again, thanks for the help.

@Al_G , oh, thanks for the https://www.snalltaget.se/en/berlin link. We will move our trip from the 22nd to the 21th to go from Hamburg to Stockholm then, if of course we manage to get a night train for that date..

@AnnaB and @rvdborgt , you are totally right (of course), we can check availability on https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass#TravelWish without a pass. Thanks.

@AnnaB , wow, what you wrote here is very useful : “You only need one pass cover number to make all reservations. “ I was afraid we would all need to make our reservations individually. So if I understand correctly, let’s say I make a reservation for 7 people on bahn.com. To do so, I will enter one of our Pass Cover Number to get a 7 people reservation from bahn.com. Then I guess that each of us 7 will need to enter the reservation number in our Eurail Mobile Pass? 

@mcadv and @AnnaB , you were right about the prices. I looked at the sites mentionned above (Eurostar, sj.se and bahn.com) to check an estimate of the individual prices of tickets, and the total would be something around 700-800 USD. Our 328 USD Eurail pass (7 days of travel for a 1 month pass) is Waaaaaay cheaper. I know we will have some fees to pay for the seat reservations, but still….

Even thinking about getting us 1st class passes. They are 109 USD more, you think it is worth it for the 7 trips we have to make? Thniking about my 2 elderly parents right now... 

All of this is somehow stressful though. I understand that we do not need to Activate the card to begin the reservations, but we still need to buy the passes to get the Pass Cover Number needed to make the reservations. Oh, but am I right to think that I can begin by buying only one pass, using this pass Cover Number to make the reservations, and then later buy the 6 remaining Eurail passes once all the reservations are done?

Again, thanks all.

Jonathan

Not all sites require pass numbers, b-europe is the main one.

The requirement is not to link the reservations to a pass but more a gatekeeper to stop non-passholders buying reservations when they are not entitled to it

There is no linking reservations and pass, they are separate. Pass is your ticket, this is needed to be valid for all travel and you need both pas and reservation on reservation compulsory trains but they do not get linked.

Reservations for Snälltåget are possible until April 23 on their website. 

@JonathanV 

Right now there is room in chouchettes in Snälltåget from Hamburg to Stockholm on the 21st of Dec, but you should make your reservations rather soon. If there are 7 of you travelling I would suggest that you book 2 private compartments, instead of having 6 of in one compartment and 1 of you sharing with others.

The compartments are rather small and there is not that much space for luggage.  The beds are rather hard so you might not get that much sleep unless you are used to sleeping under such conditions. 

I think that you should consider the possibility  to travel from Hamburg to Copenhagen during the day of the 21st, then spend a night in Copenhagen and take a day train from Copenhagen to Stockholm on the 22nd. 

Any travels that you plan to make in Sweden around Christmas and New Year you need to make reservations for on the 9th of November when the reservations are released. You don't need a Pass Cover Number as you can enter E and and 8 digits as PCN at sj.se 

Re First Class - For the small premium on your total budget it is worth every penny. More space and relative quiet on most trains. Almost all have a 2.1 seating plan and more storage space for luggage. In the UK and Austria you can use  most first class lounges.

In some countries and on Eurostar you get refreshments at your seat (some payable). 

Hi, again, thanks for all the help. With all your explanations, it now seems less complicated than I previously thought. We all will be buying mobile Eurail passes for this trip then.

I thought there was only one company offering night trains from Hamburg to Stockholm (https://www.sj.se/en/travel-info/sj-euronight.html) but I understand  now that there is also https://www.snalltaget.se/en/berlin by reading carefully the message from @mcadv message. From what I can see though on https://www.snalltaget.se/en/berlin is that Dec 20th 2022 is the last train before Christmas, so it would not work out for us. From what I understand, https://www.sj.se/en/travel-info/sj-euronight.html is our last chance for a night train on Dec 22, that we can only book starting Nov 9th at sj.se . Am I missing something here?

Talked to my parents this morning (Montreal time), and 1st class seat it will be! Thanks @Yorkie 

Thanks for the help about the differences between the pass and the reservations.

So here is my plan, please tell me if I am missing something:

• I will buy only 1 (mine) Mobile Pass in the next 2-3 days (The other 6 can be bought in a few weeks, when I am confident that all is working fine with the seat reservations)
• With my own Mobile Pass, I will retrieve a Pass Cover Number at https://community.eurail.com/news-and-announcements-39/pass-cover-number-generator-is-live-5653
• I will begin making the reservations for us 7 (Some Adults, some seniors and some students), and quickly for the TGV Eurostar from London to Amsterdam on Dec 20. Hum, 40 euros fee per seating, does that seem right to you?
• On Nov 9, book our night train for Hamburg to Stockholm on sj.se
• At that time, I should be confident that all is working fine with the plan, so I could buy the remaining 6 Eurail Mobile Pass for the rest of the family.
• A few days before beginning our trip (December), we could all activate our passes (7 of them) from our 7 mobile phones.

Does it all make sense to you as a plan?  

Thanks again!

Jonathan

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 

Thanks a lot @AnnaB , very useful.

As you suggested above, looks like the Plan A is now traveling by day, and not take a night train.

Our initial/OLD plan mentioned in my first post (above) was the following:

1. From Montreal(Canada) to London(UK), arriving in London on Dec 17th 2022 (plane tickets already bought)
2. From London to Amsterdam with Eurostar here. (Dec 20th)
3. From Amsterdam to Hamburg on Dec 22nd
4. From Hamburg to Stockholm on Dec 22nd too (night train with SJ, info here)

Here is the latest plan then between London and Stockholm.

1. From Montreal(Canada) to London(UK), arriving in London on Dec 17th 2022 (plane tickets already bought) - SAME as before
2. From London to Amsterdam with Eurostar here. (Dec 20th) - SAME as before
3. Whole day spent in Amsterdam (Dec 21th)
4. From Amsterdam  to Copenhaguen  on Dec 22nd. Looks like a long whole day trip. Found on Bahn.  Spend the night in Copenhaguen  
5. From Copenhaguen  to Stochholm (about 5 hours, high speed train form sj.se) on Dec 23rd

We want to be in Stockholm at the latest on Dec 23rd since part of the family will arrive the day before in Stockholm. Ideally it would have been on the 22nd, but we want to have a few days to visit London and Amsterdam.

Unless you see a problem with this part of the plan (or have better suggestions), I will buy a Mobile Pass tomorrow, generate a Pass Cover Number and book our Eurostar train from Londom to Amsterdam (mentioned above) to make sure this train is booked ASAP.

Again, thanks a lot!

This looks good. At the moment there are pass holder seats on 3 Eurostar on the 20th. 2 in the morning and 1 in the evening. 

You actually don't need to buy a mobile pass and create a Pass Cover Number for the Eurostar reservation. I just checked and you can use I11223344 as PCN, so you can make the Eurostar reservation right away. 

For making the reservation for the Swedish day train you can use the same PCN. The demand for seats on trains to Stockholm on the 23rd of Dec will be very high.

There are more trains from Malmö to Stockholm than from Copenhagen to Stockholm so if you don't get seats on a direct train from Copenhagen, there are reservation free local trains from Copenhagen to Malmö every 20-30 minutes.

Thanks a lot @AnnaB .

I reserved our Eurostar seats from London to Amsterdam as soon as I read your message this morning (Montreal). Thanks for reminding me of the urgency, I’m glad we managed to get our reservations! Got them as was recommended from https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass#TravelWish 

About this:

For making the reservation for the Swedish day train you can use the same PCN. The demand for seats on trains to Stockholm on the 23rd of Dec will be very high.

Looks like we have to wait Nov 9th to make the reservations for the high speed trains, will look from time to time though to make sure we do not miss the chance.

Will try to find some time tonight to buy the Mobile pass, get my own Pass Cover Number and book some other trains in the next few days.

Thanks!

As far as I know you don't need a PCN for any of your other reservations apart from those in Sweden.

Hi all!

Back from our 5 weeks European trip and wanted to give you an update. :-)

1. First, it was very well worth it to get the Eurail pass for us all (7). It was a 7 days pass for 30 days, and we had 7 days of trains, so it was perfect for us.
2. Taking the First Class pass was also a good idea, since it was not much more expensive and we were able to benefit from it a lot.
3. It was not as easy as expected to take the trains. There were last minute plaform changes, instructions were ot always clear and there were some delays.
4. The staff at DB were very kind and helpful.
5. It was a great trip, we visited 8 cities we never visited before, in about 5 weeks: London, Amsterdam, Copenhaguen, Stockholm, Hamburg, Berlin, Brussels and Antwerp.
6. Our trip from Amsterdam to Copenhaguen, on the same day on Dec 22nd, was not fun at all. It was supposed to be Amsterdam to Osnabrück, Osnabrück to Hamburg and Hamburg to Copenhaguen. There was an accident (on the road I think?) about 60 minutes on our way to Osnabrück so we need to leave the train at a local stop. We were left to ourselves trying to find a way to Osnabrück, so we lost a few hours swtiching from trains to trains since the local one did not go directly to Osnabrück. Anyway, once in Osnabrück a few hours later, we were helped by the kind people of DB, but to reach Copenhaguen that same day required a night train. So we spent the whole day (and night) on trains and train stations, to manage to be in Copenhaguen the morning later, so that we could take our train to Stockholm that left that same morning. 

QUESTION RELATED TO THE INCIDENT ABOVE (6): The people at DB gave us forms so that we can get reimbursed. Since we were using Eurail, I guess only our seat reservations will be reimbursed, right? We also had an hotel booked in Copenhagen for the night, that we could not use since we were on a night train going to Copenhaguen, do you think it can be reimbursed? The form to fill does not seem to allow to add explanations though...

Again, thanks a lot for all your help preparing this great trip.

 

You can apply for compensation for delay here:

https://www.eurail.com/en/help/delay-compensation

You can only use the forms you got from DB when you bought any reservation via DB that you could not use. In that case, add information that you used a pass because if not, DB will ask you where your ticket is.

You can get a refund for any reservations you could not use because of a delay by contacting the place where you booked them. If you booked them via Eurail (which would be very expensive for Amsterdam - Copenhagen: €24 for the 3 trains instead of €5.90 via DB), then you can request a refund here:

https://eurail.zendesk.com/hc/en-001/requests/new

Thank you for the update - it is always nice to hear that things went almost to plan and a good time was the result.

Can I ask - did you have a pass number when you booked your Eurostar seat reservation or did you use the made up one?

Hello @Brizzall ,

It’s been a year already, but I think we used the made up one.

That’s really helpful to hear - thanks so much for getting back to me. 
Hope you had a good trip