We are planning to get 7 day in 1 month Eurail pass for family of 4 , 2 adults and 2 youth starting in Vienna, first day of travel 26 from Vienna. We have not full exact dates yet.
Vienna
Salzburg 26
Zurich 27
Paris 28
London 2 Jan
Brighton UK
York
Edinburgh
London
this is our first time travelling this way so your advice much appreciated
Regards
Richard
+4
On the route you outline you'll only need compulsory reservations between Zürich and Paris and between Paris and London.
All other routes you list don't require reservations, but some do have optional ones.
Is there a risk if we buy the Eurail pass in the next couple of weeks that we could miss out on our preferred day and time of travel ie 11 am on 2nd Jan?. How do we know if 4 seats are available before we buy the Eurail pass?
Regards
Richard
For Eurostar check here : https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass#TravelWish
For all other trains check whether tickets are still available through the railway company. Trains cannot sell out in the UK, Austria, Switzerland,...
Eurostar should be booked soon but all other trains can wait. It's likely that you can't book them right now anyway with the big 2024 timetable change.
Thanks so much to the Eurail community for your help so far. I am sure I will reach out again and from Australia first time travelling to Europe during winter and at Christmas with family is going to be an adventure.
Richard
I assume b-rail is the booking agent for the euro star? It would appear the cost for 4 of us is $120 Euro in addition to the Eurail pass at our preferred time . Does that sound correct? And same booking fee for adult or youth?
B-Europe is the reseller of the Belgian Railways. They add 4€ fee per order compared to 2€ per person per train on eurail.com. It is often cheaper to book elsewhere than Eurail due to extra fees + more expensive optional reservations. More info :
https://www.seat61.com/interrail-and-eurail-reservations.htm
https://community.eurail.com/train-connections-reservations-47/how-to-get-reservations-105
For example : Salzburg - Zurich (optional but recommende reservation) costs 3€ on ÖBB but 8€ on Eurail. Seat reservations in the UK are optional and free of charge.
Eurostar is expensive yes (but there's no other rail alternative...) : 30€ per person from France/Belgium, 35€ from the Netherlands.
Seat reservations generally cost the same whether for an adult or a child.
+4
For the UK trains:
London-Brighton can’t be reserved, just turn up. Avoid rush hour and you shouldn’t have a problem getting a seat.
London-York-Edinburgh-London - assuming you are travelling on LNER (the main operator on that line) you can make seat reservations free of charge on https://www.lner.co.uk/travel-information/make-a-reservation/. Reservations aren’t really necessary, but since you’re travelling around the post-Christmas period, it can’t hurt to have a reserved seat. You can still jump on an earlier or later train if you want.
(You can make reservations for any reservable UK train at gwr.com, but you may as well use LNER if you’re travelling with them.)
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