macamel

I am spending six weeks in Budapest in September/October and I'm looking to buy a bargain train pass that will allow me to travel from Budapest to Vienna and Prague and one more as-yet-to-be-determined destination in eastern Europe. I have checked out the Eurail Eastern Europe pass. It seems to fit the bill. Has anyone had any experience with this pass, good or bad? Any advice on other options?
Koszonom szepen! [Thanks a lot -- I am trying to learn some basic Hungarian, just to be polite.]

yk

Are you talking about the 5 days in 1 month European East pass for $209?

IME, rail fares are fairly cheap, so you may not get your money back with the railpass, esp it's only valid for 5 days.

The trip between Budapest and Vienna, for example, costs 35 euros one way at full price. I know if you travel the other direction, Vienna -> Budapest, you can buy the discount ticket in advance via oebb.at for just 19 euros for this journey. But of course, these discount tickets are only good for one specific train; however, the 35 euros full price ticket is a walk-up fare and valid for any trains.

In any case, the pass may end up more beneficial to you. I always have trouble with the Hungarian railway website and never could figure out how much rail tickets cost within Hungary.

Daken

yk, BP-Viena-BP tourist ticket valid for 4 days costs 31 euro
Full price BP-Wien one way costs 24 euro.
macamel, I would advice you to think really before purchasing rail pass. For country like Hungary it is almost 100% useless (especially Eurail)
Try http://europetrainsguide.com it might help you to save some money

macamel

Thanks so much! For some reason, when I log onto the Canadian site for Eurail, the pass actually gives you six days, rather than five. The poor Canadian dollar may be the reason. But it sounds as though I should wait until I am in Hungary, since it doesn't look as though I would get enough value out of the pass. Thanks for the advice.
Another question: is there any advantage to buying a first-class ticket for journeys from Budapest to Vienna or Prague?

yk

The trip from Budapest to Vienna is only 3 hours. We took 2nd class in the reverse direction and it was okay. The train is a Hungarian train, so it's not as nice as the Austrian intercity trains, but 3 hours went by pretty quickly.

Daken

There are a lot of trains from BP to Wien, some of them are Hungarian, but some new Austrian Railjets or older OIC, so actually if you aren't in a hurry you can choose

Palenque

At $40/day the pass may be hard to beat it would seem if you are taking enough long train trips. and if you need more days you can add them on at $28/day (but only at time of issuance - not once in Hungary - 6-day pass $237 in 2nd class. I would even suggest that firs class, for the average tourist, may well be worth the extra money - more room for luggage - usually quite a few empty seats, etc. In 2nd class i'd suggest making advance seat reservations. Anyway for loads of great info on train travel in Eastern Europe and European in general: www.seat61.com; www.ricksteves.com and http://www.budgeteuropetravel.com/id6.html. this pass to my knowledge is not sold in europe. A value of a pass in addition to price is just being able to hop on any train anytime and if going farther into Austria than Vienna the trains then will cost more than in Eastern Europe - making the pass more viable.