Zürich Travel Forum

Hello all,

I am rather confused in regards to the Pau Casals night train which travels from Zurich to Barcelona.

On the elipsos site, it states we can have our child (aged 6) share a double room in the sleeper with us, for a small supplement.

Here in Australia the rail agents do not know a thing and are saying I cannot do this, and I have to book out a T4 compartment, saying I have two adults and two children travelleing. They also say the T4 is a single sex compartment (?!) and therefore we cannot have our family travelling together. Basically they are trying to sell us a double room club class, and a first class single room.

My question is has anyone travelled on an overnight train betweem ZUR and BAR for 2 adults and 1 child and did you book out a whole T4 sleeper room? Or were you able to use the double class and have your child share in there with you?

We are also doing another overnight train from Barcelona to Paris, so need the same info for that trip.

I must admit the train sites are not very helpful here in Oz!

Thanks for your help.

In general: Please do not trust any overseas rail agent. They are honesty-challenged. Their job is to provide you THEIR solution, not give you the solution optimal for you.

I have the worst experiences with overseas agents like raileurope.com and the rest. Here we made a case study - resulting saving about a $1000 for a couple.

http://forum.virtualtourist.com/answer.php?q=404935

I suggest to use elipsos web site. If they refuse to do so because they say you are in Australia just try to pretend, you are in a smaller country of EU like Latvia. There is no residence check and Latvian citizens can have Australian-issued credit cards.
That should work and they have no rights to refuse.

Elipsos web site is the correct, by the way.

You can often have a child share a bed with you for small supplement, that is true. So you could book a two bed compartment. But then you will have to share a bed. Go to www.elipsos.biz for all the possible fares and their conditions. In your case you could book a two bed compartment, and have your child share a bed.
You can also book a whole T4 bed compartment, but for this you would have to buy four tickets.

thanks for your assistance. I'm not sure if I can do that, say we are from Latvia, because they want the postal address to send the tickets to.

Anyway I'm glad you agree - they are honesty challenged and they really are not reading up on what the actual train site says! I send them another email with all the info I had found online re this.

After reading a lot of sites, some people suggest I book on the swiss rail site, or the spanish rail site directly. Do you recommend this at all?

Thanks for your help.

thanks KVB, I'm very sure I can do this, they were quoting me AUD1000-1200 ONE WAY between ZUR and BAR!!! and then another the same price between BAR and PAR!! crazy.

I am not that familiar with ellipsos site but in many cases you have the option to receive the tickets electronically as PDF file and just print them out. The "Latvian" or "Estonian" option is excellent in that case: the countries are small enough that no one would set up an elaborate distributor network (i.e. you do not need to pay for middleman and their unprofessionality), it's in E.U. and they are not connected to Spanish ticketing system.

Try it out. If it works the only issue is, you need to have the same credit card what you booked with.

The Swiss ticketing system is doubtless much better than Spanish but IMHO still not as good as German. You may give it a try. Spanish and French are among the least easy to deal with.

You may take note, the prices could be different if you say you are from Estonia/Lithuania/Latvia/Kazakhstan/etc. than if you say you are from Australia or USA.
Guess, which is higher? ;)

A "mini" fare would be EURO 104 pp, in a double. Add 60 for the child. This is a fare that you need to book sufficiently in advance though. That would be 268 for the three of you.
A site with good information on how to buy tickets, and how to avoid being overcharged if you're from Australia is www.seat61.com. This site is a real treasure trove of information. Go to the site and click on "how to buy european train tickets"

Be aware that there are two types of double compartments: with and without bathroom.

thanks all for your assistance. I've finally made some progress with an agent here who says:

"I understand your question fully but we can not offer the supplement as you
need pay this directly to the train company in Europe at the train station.
We can only book the double sleeper for you two and the child supplement
must be paid in Europe.

As we do not book the supplement we can not guarantee a hassle free
arrangement.

We were given the information by our Head Office in France to advise
customers to book the supplement at the station as this is the procedure. We
had not complaints so far and this is not the 1st case we have.

Yes you can book the double sleeper with us and the child is allowed in the
double cabin as long the child is under 12 years old."

So my questions are, if anyone can assist me:

- what is the supplement for a 6 yr old (thereabouts - was the EUR60 mentioned above by K_V_B the price for the supplement?)
- am I able to book 2 adults through this agent I've mentioned in Australia, and know for certain I am able to add my child when I get to Europe? ie. there won't be any hassles with having her onboard when we depart Zurich?

Thanks for your help.

Try to go to http://www.sbb.ch/en/index.htm chose your train/class, send the inquiry by e-mail and see what happens.

Hi there

As an option you might want to consider flying out of Basel (1h trainride from Zurich)to Barcelona. Fares start at about 50 CHF per person one way
check: www.easyjet.com . They fly daily normally at 13:00 The same airline gets you from Barcelona to Paris (about same price) Daily flights in the afternoon.

Easyjet is a bit like the Aussie Virgin Blue
Kind regards and happy travels
Ueli

Thank you very much for your help. We're really excited about the train and coming all the way from Australia that would be a blessing ;) Thanks for your advice. We finally got the answers we wanted regarding the trains from the train themselves so woohoo here we come!