Trips in Slovakia and Poland

That's the idea. I can't think of any exceptions to that rule anywhere in Europe.

I've now found how you can get an IC reservation: you have to select "International ticket/Rail pass” as a discount:

Bratislava - Košice is then 10€.

I generally use the DB planner (or DB Navigator app). The most up to date though will be the national planners.

I just noticed that the IC trains on this route do have mandatory reservation in second class. The reservation for it seems to default to a normal ticket though. The fast trains (R - Rýchlik) don't, as I wrote before.

The best way to get correct information about train is to look for information yourself on the websites of the different train companies and to ask here in the community. 

Customer Support will not give priority to questions where you have the possibility to find the answers yourself. 

Ah OK so a reservation is only mandatory for IR pass holders in the same circumstances that it’s mandatory for someone buying an ordinary ticket? 

The IC and R trains on the above route are reservable through the SK website, but only for the upcoming few days, I have now discovered. After that they are “sold out” (which I take to mean “not on sale yet”).

The R train reservation works as expected: 1 EUR for a reservation only, 18 EUR for a ticket with (free?) reservation. The IC train is the same price (24 EUR) for *either* a ticket complete with reservation *or* a reservation which is only valid with an accompanying paid-for ticket, which seems a bit counter-intuitive. This sounds like a programming error -- maybe it only applies to the English version of the site as you would expect a Slovak traveller to have picked it up…

Anyway thanks for your support; and to Seewulf and Anna and the others, for helping us neophytes out in your own time. It seems odd that Interrail/Eurail appear to treat the support offered by you guys as part of their business model, when they are (I suppose) a for-profit business concern. As far as I’m concerned, though, that makes your contribution all the more valuable.

Interrail was once not really a profit business it was the idea from some european countries to create a ticket that let young people explore the different Countries and Cultures in Europe (because of that it was first only possible for youths to buy this ticket). And the office of Interrail was more or less staffed with personel from the different railcompanies. At somepoint Eurail B.V. was created (Company according Dutch law with office in Utrecht) they manage now the Eurail,Interrail & German Railpass and are a own company and try to improve the network like adding the Baltic few years ago & keep Companies in the network (Like RailDeliveryGroup from the UK tried to leave with all British railcompanies but luckily they decided to stay) or provide nice pass benefits arround the trips.

Customer Service was usually always still with the railcompanies. And in my opinion it´s still the bestway to get help in case you have a oldstyle paperpass. The most problems i noticed came up with the new digitalpass as only Eurail can change errors or mistakes. And not all Conductor are well trained for Railpasses (Example in Germany they just say there are some Railpasses but it´s not trained in details how it works. This bad training with quite a lot changes causes sometimes problems if a new Railpassuser comes with a new rule that the conductor is not aware of. For example they changed back in 2019 the Nighttrain rule. Somecompanies still didn´t notice that (Caledonian Sleeper). Other conductors assume that the outbound journey have to be taken at the first travelday and the inbound journey on the lastone (this is even not true as these journey can be taken in any order at anytime within pass validity).  As iam traveling quite often on branchlines with less passenger and even less Railpass user i have quite often the problem that the conductor doesnt know Interrail/Eurail or doesn´t know what todo :D

If i want for my Holidays a full service i vist a travelagency and let them arrange everything and sort everything out. Eurail is even active here and offer these “Railpass Packages” but this is not my prefered kind of traveling as iam usally travel flexible or atleast half flexible. (In my experience these Railpackages are to expensive for what you get.) But yes here is everything organised.

1. NO RES needed-but can do, if insist on, locally at counter in B-lava. PLUS that its only as far as Poprad-there you change to UNreserved tiny local train. Nice area BTW
2. cannot do online, too early (only 30 days advance), and do locally at counter again-PKP. There are much faster direct BUSes from Tatra to Krakowa-or even more via border/walk over-minibus-Zakopane.

Thank you very much for response. Are you saying that reservation is not required while it is clearly mentioned that reservation is required to board.

What i understood from your reply reservation opens 30 days in advance, is this correct? Are those buses from TATRA to Krakow are included in the pass or we have to buy the tickets by ourselves. Any recommended bus service?

Hi Abdul,
reservations for domestic trains open 30 days in advance in Poland, for international 60-90 days.
For Slovakia maybe similar. You can check on their website - slovakrail . sk
About buses: Suppose they are the same (or actually there is only one? At least some years ago was like that). I did this trip by hitchhiking a few years ago (Zakopane to High Tatra).

Took train from Krakow to Zakopane, then minibus in direction to Morskie Oko. Walk across the border by foot and then started hitchhiking on Slovak side. Was pretty straightforward. From High Tatra I took then a train to Poprad. In opposite direction should work as well, but direct bus is of course more convenient. 

Will you travel on the Intercity in Slovakia you will need a reservation and a surcharge price together is about 9€ :)
If you take the Rychlik service that is reservation optional (if you want you can reserve for 1€)
on the way to Strebske Pleso you have to change in Strba or Poprad :)

So you need a reservation just to one of these stations as the Railservice in the mountains is a regionalone and no reservations are possible.

I want to go from Bratislava to Kosice on the 13th July but it says “prices unavailable” (same message as Abdul is getting). I have also tried to purchase “reservation only” on the Slovak railway site -- it says the reservations are only 1 euro (or in one case an eye-watering 24 EUR!), but they are all sold out. This seems unlikely, since there are 3 weeks to go and I see from @mcadv ‘s post above that the reservations only open 30 days ahead i.e. last week. In fact, there are no seats available on any date I try, including 29 and 30 days from today. There’s actually an “occupancy” tab which shows that there are no seats, no places for bikes, no nothing!

The Eurail reservation system (though not the SK rail website) shows some connections which don’t require reservations, but these take almost 12 hours to complete the journey -- double the time of the direct service.

So should I just put the itinerary on my pass, get on the direct train and assume that reservations aren’t really needed? Or will I be able to purchase the reservation for 1 euro at the station when I get there?

Unless you're travelling 1st class, reservations are optional on the fast trains Bratislava - Košice. The app is wrong (again). Please don't use it to plan.

It shouldn't be a problem to get a reservation for these fast trains a day in advance.

Thanks -- that’s very helpful :)

I understand that the app and the Interrail reservation website are not the right places to get up-to-date timetable info. But where should one go to find out if a reservation is necessary for a given journey (other than this useful board)?

Dear All

Is there any way to reach customer service where correct information can be obtained. Whenever i try for customer service it is answered by robot which provides useless information, when robot was not able to answer then it was mentioned that information is passed to customer service but no one from customer service contacted me. It is quite disappointment from customer service point of view.

Regards

Abdul Qayyum

This is amazing to search for correct information while no one has correct information. Any ways Thank you for help and support.