Hi,

I'm looking to book train tickets from Budapest to Prague (haven't decided if we are going to Vienna yet or not) and looking for recommendation on the site to book the tickets. I've used Rail Europe in the past to book tickets for London/Paris. This is the first time to Budapest, Prague and potentially Vienna and not sure of if it's better to book directly from the National Railways for the country or stick with Rail Europe. If from a National Railway, which would you suggest?

Through my research it looks like the stations would be Budapest (Nyugati, although I thought that Keleti Pu was the main station) to Prague (Praha hl.n)

Thanks!

The website Seat61 is fantastic, you'll find everything you want to know about train travel. It's not a site to book tickets but will explain the options for booking, depending on which country you're travelling from/to.

raileurope would be my last choice
trainline might be good
I normally use the national rail company

MAV is the Hungarian railway, and cd.cz the Czech site. Seat61 gives great info on how to use those sites.

https://www.seat61.com/websites/mav-start.htm
https://www.seat61.com/websites/cd-eshop.htm

It looks like MAV doesn't show every train, only those that have discounted advance fares. For ages my go-to site for europe wide schedules (but not necessarily tickets) has been bahn.de.

Keep in mind that if you are trying to look at schedules or book tickets more than a few months in advance the schedules may not be uploaded to the systems yet. In my experience train schedules vary very little over the course of the year, so if you don't see trains out in the in future you can give yourself a better idea of complete schedules by looking at dates in the next month or so.

I agree that the Man in Seat 61 is a good place to look for train tickets. We traveled from Budapest to Prague in December and had planned to take the train but changed to a car service as we wanted to make a stop to see Bratislava. A quick google search took me to Side Trip Tours which offered van service for up to 10 passengers with stops in Gyor, Bratislava and Lednice Palace. Unfortunately, they only did private transfers on Wednesdays which was our travel day.

We decided to splurge and take their private car option. The driver picked us up at our hotel and made the same stops as the group tour; we enjoyed all three. Our driver was very interesting and gave a great tour of each of the stops. My husband and I agreed that the added cost was well worth it. I highly recommend you take a look at their webpage. It’s a long day whether you take the train or a car; the added benefit of seeing places along the way definitely tipped the balance away from the train.

Seat61 site will have links to the railways of each country. Then visit each site and price it out. They are both cheaper than 3rd parties but 1 will be cheaper than the other. I normally go with the cheapest if all you care about is getting from point A to B.

I ended up buying from Rail Europe as the fares didn't differ much from the different sites. For our leg from Vienna to Prague, I purchased business class seats on Regio Jet and was able to secure a seat assignment. However, from Budapest to Vienna, I purchased first class seats on Railjet Express (business class was much more expensive), but without a seat assignment as it wasn't an option on this class of service.

We are traveling the first week of Sept. Is there cause for concern that we don't have assigned seats for Budapest to Vienna? Should we go to the station and reserve seats in person and if so, how far in advance as we are only there for 2.5 days before we go to Prague. Or should we show up to the station early the day of travel? If the latter, how early would you recommend getting to station.

Also, any feedback on Regio Jet and Railjet? What I've read online hasn't been great so far. At the end of the day, we want to get from point A to B, but it would be nice that paying a little extra is worth it.

Thanks so much!

just make sure you are at the right Budapest station. We waited over an hour for a train that didnt come because we were at the wrong Budapest station -consequently had to stay an extra night

Railjet in business class is the best train experience I have ever had by far and I have been on quite a few trains in Europe. I am sure first class is good too.

Regio is nothing to write home about but there is nothing wrong with it.

Thanks for the info on the different experiences.

For our leg from Budapest to Vienna we have first class tickets, but no reserved seat assignments. Should we be worried about this for travel the first week of Sept? Can we arrive 30 min before our train departure to get on the train and and grab a seats or should we go early to actually book seats at the ticket office in the station before we depart?

Also, I don't know how many cars are in the train and how we would actually identify the first class car. I assume there will be an employee on board, but I thought I'd ask in case there was another way to identify the specific train car.

Thanks!

In general terms, there is usually a number 1 or 2 painted on the outside of each carriage. If you can find out which end of the train is first class, you can wait on the platform in roughly the right place. We've also seen electronic signage on the platform which shows each carriage number opposite a marked area on the platform.

You are overthinking it. I almost never reserve a seat everytime I use it. there will be plenty of available seats.

I wonder, rohani: Have you actually read the information on seat61.com? It seems to me that most of the information you've sought is right there....
https://www.seat61.com/trains-and-ro...t-by-train.htm

A ticket bought actually at OeBB for the random date of Sept 10th costs 14 - 19 EUR iin second class and 41 to 52 EUR in first class.
Trains run every hr, always from Keleti with an intermediate stop at Kelenföld.

I did read the information. My initial question was about the seat reservation which is recommended, but I stated that I wasn't able to do it online and to get people's experiences who choose to reply to this thread. If I look at another site, both of the rail systems get an F with horrible reviews. It's all relative.

Thank you! I appreciate the additional info here.

Thank you! I think you're right, I am overthinking it.

It would seem, then, that you found it's information about seat reservations and the location of first class cars inadequate. But it seems you now have the information you sought -- that's the main thing!