EURO RAILWAYS.COM Appalling Service, Worst Travel Experience Ever!
 

Don't ever make the mistake of booking with Euro Railways (eurorailways.com) as we did. Poor service, terrible train experience, arrogant crew, appalling service to international customers. Don't ever take the Artesia train from Paris to Rome. Don't even take any trains run by Artesia! Poor value, they just want your cash!

We took the overnight train from Paris to Rome. First of all their computer system wasn't working so the automated booths couldn't generate the train tickets and we had to wait in the long queue to get our train tickets. Secondly we were told there was going to be a delay of the departure time for an hour which eventually turned out to be two hours and a half! Thirdly the "First Class" cabins are nothing like the ones advertised on the website. They're more like third world economy class cabins so you definitely don't get the service and quality you expect from the amount you pay.

Fourth, once boarded we were informed there was no "power" in the kitchen so they couldn't serve hot nor cold beverages or food, only packed food and bottled drinks. So for almost twenty hours straight we had nothing but packaged biscuits and muffins and warm bottled water. We had no proper food nor drinks for the whole trip! Fifth we weren't informed that during the night there was a two hour stop in Bologna which meant our arrival time was delayed for another two hours! We were never told of the reason and all the crew didn't even care, they were all unapologetic, extremely rude and appallingly arrogant. Sixth the toilets stunk and was terribly "messy", and some of the cabins smelled. I even took pictures of the mess in the kitchen and toilets as proof. The whole train was poorly maintained with dirty toilets and walkways. It was not a First Class experience at all.

Lastly we arrived Rome more than five hours late, starving and frustrated. To make things worse we never received a single apology and now Euro Railways won't even acknowledge our emails on this terrible experience. They want to blame Artesia or someone else.

Don't ever make the mistake of making any purchase with EURO RAILWAYS! Worst customer service ever - especially for international travellers. ZERO CONSIDERATION for travellers. They only want your cash!

There is no train run by Eurorailways. You are talking about a reseller (same as if you booked with Expedia, Orbitz, etc.), not an actual train. The reseller has nothing to do with the quality of a train or the staff on board. The reseller does nothing but sell tickets and really has no other obligation.

Thanks for your response kybourbon. I am very much aware of that. As far as I'm concerned I paid Eurorailways so my contract is with them. I expect a service provided by them commensurate to the marketing materials and online information provided to me. Thanks.

"<i> I expect a service provided by them . . . </i>"

You did get exactly the service they provide. They sell tickets. That's it. They do not control ticket machines. They do not operate trains. They do not run the dining car.

They sell tickets . . .

Eurorailways does not actually own or operate a single train as far as I know. I believe that your complaints should be directed at Trenitalia (the Italian train company), who operate the line in question. Eurorailways has no control over conditions on the train.

Having said that, and acknowledging I have never looked at Eurorailways website, in general booking agencies are usually not worth bothering with. Just book directly with the company that offers the route.

Not that this would have helped you any, but in general.

>>>As far as I'm concerned I paid Eurorailways so my contract is with them.<<<

Agree with janis. Your contract was to purchase a ticket from them for x amount of dollars. You paid for a ticket and you got it. End of contract. Just like Expedia does not operate Delta or United. Expedia can only sell you a ticket, they can not tell Delta or United how to run their airlines or decide how their staff should act.

Each country in Europe has their own trains that they operate. Your problems with machines/delays in France are with the French train company SNCF. Just as it would not be Expedia's fault if a Delta flight were delayed. They are resellers of tickets, they do not operate the transport.

http://www.voyages-sncf.com/

While Artesia has a website with much info about the trains, I don't think you can book through their site. I think you have to go to the French site listed above.
http://www.artesia.eu/

>>>>Artesia, the firm

A joint venture of the SNCF and Trenitalia, ARTESIA has the mission of designing services and managing trains between France and Italy.
Based in Paris with an office Rome, it brings together some twenty workers, French and Italian.<<<<

I must say that booking rail tickets in Europe via an agency based in Florida is quite a courageous step ...

In any case, how long should an overnight train from Paris to Rome actually take, if all went well?

Not that I would do it, mind you.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience, but I wouldn't even have contemplated an overnight train. Most people tend to anticipate/expect an old-world, romantic experience, but as you sadly learned there are just too many ways things can go bad.

>>>In any case, how long should an overnight train from Paris to Rome actually take, if all went well? <<<

It appear to take about 15 hours.
http://www.artesia.eu/english/train-...-schedules.php

ky: I found that website so obtuse that I gave up on the timing search. You have more patience than I.

The Artesia site actually has some virtual tours of the inside of the trains so you can see what the different accommodations look like.

Best option - Easy Jet from Paris Orly to Rome. Travel time 2 hours with flights as cheap as 30€.
http://www.easyjet.com/asp/en/book/index.asp?lang=en

According to bahn.com, Paris to Rome is anywhere from 13 to 18 hours.

The Euronight train that does not require a change of trains departs Paris at 7pm and arrives Rome at 10am, making it a 15 hour journey - presumably sleeping on a bunk bed and not sitting up all night.

Sounds like the OP had an unpleasant experience - we have taken the reverse trip, Rome to Paris, and we enjoyed it. We take our own food on board and found the accommodations not luxurious but satisfactory - for part of the trip you are sitting up, later the porter makes up a bunk. I do know from experience not all Italian trains run on time but the journey of the OP did get a bit long!

The SNCF refunds tickets for any train more than 2 hours late. In fact, you can get a partial refund for any train that is more than 30 minutes late. I took a train to Montpellier a couple of months ago that was 33 minutes late and I filed the form and received 25% credit on my fare.

You have 2 months to send in your ticket with the completed form.

Hi

Talk about the train from hell >:-)

I note KY's post in particular "ARTESIA has the mission of designing services and managing trains between France and Italy". Quite apart from getting your ticket refunded (this focuses on time issues only) you may want to notify Artesia of the "Poor service, terrible train experience, arrogant crew". After all these are management issues.

Classic trollish "Grudge Post" incorrectly defaming a

poor company that resold you a ticket simply doing their job

That has nothing to do with your "terrible" experience.

Direct complaints would be appropriate.

Slandering the wrong company on a public travel forum

without grounds is not.

Seems like Eurorailways guilt here is simply being inaccessible to answer complaints and explain why it was not their fault.

LutherJim, surely you are not serious. Are you honestly saying that if you went on line and booked a hotel room -- let's say at a Holiday Inn -- through Hotels.Com and you found the hotel dirty and the service lousy, you would be telling people not to book a hotel through Hotels.Com as the dirty room and horrible service was THEIR fault and not the fault of the hotel itself? You're kidding right?

As we've informed in previous email, we sent you claim to Artesia, the railway company responsible for your transportation. Therefore we did not receive a reply yet.
You can send you complaint direct to Artesia using the form:
http://www.artesia.eu/english/eng_se...rticuliers.php

LutherJim is way out of order IMO - he has a fundamental misunderstanding of what he purchased - a ticket from Artesia, a joint venture of French and Italian Railways I believe - and this is not the first time I have heard of horrible experiences on Artesia trains - my friends went once in a hot summer and the AC failed and they thought they were going to suffocate as the windows could not even open. a train ride from Hell they said.

This train once was billed as a hotel train but agents selling it, like EuroRailways got a message from RailEurope, who wholesales these tickets in the U.S. to stop billing it as a hotel train but just a regular night train.

kybourbon, I did see all those nifty configurations on the Artesia website. What I couldn't find was an easy to access timetable or information on how long various journeys were. I did think it a not very useful website, unless one wants to see exactly what kind of fairly awful way one will be traveling.

Night trains are not for me. Just wanted to know what "normal" time would be.

Normal time and night train times have little correlation often as night trains may not even take the same route as day trains and typically IME of hundreds of night trains, stop a lot, ofter for mysteriously long periods - perhaps being timed to arrive at a decent hour and not 4am

Thanks for your response kybourbon. I am very much aware of that. As far as I'm concerned I paid Eurorailways so my contract is with them.>

You need to read the contract next time before spouting nonsense IMO - does your 'contract' say the agent is responsible for the actual service or does it indeed have the usual disclaimer about the seller only being an agent.

What does your contract say - the 'my contract' as you put it? Read it!

Thirdly the "First Class" cabins are nothing like the ones advertised on the website. They're more like third world economy class cabins so you definitely don't get the service and quality you expect from the amount you pay.>

You were the victim of a strike of train cleaning personnel in Italy - a strike that is not expected to be resolved until December or so - basically there are two different unions that clean the first-class private compartments and 2nd class ones and the other union cleaning the couchette cars - this one is not on strike but the former is

As a result all Italian night trains I understand, including Artesia ones, have eliminated sleeper cars - the private compartments and have substituted couchette wagons in their place and thus private doubles now are really couchette compartments with just two beds made up - thus they are not the much more luxurious private compartments normally used and presumably pictured in EuroRailways web site - perhaps the OP bought the tickets before the strike started - RailEurope indeed now posts on their site the current info about couchette cars being used to dim expectations.

And the other service snafus OP describes is probably also a result of the strike of cleaning personnel and operating personnel.

Anyone taking an overnight train in Italy currently should expect many problems arising from this union action of strikes and slow downs in services.

<i>Are you honestly saying that if you went on line and booked a hotel room -- let's say at a Holiday Inn -- through Hotels.Com and you found the hotel dirty and the service lousy, you would be telling people not to book a hotel through Hotels.Com as the dirty room and horrible service was THEIR fault and not the fault of the hotel itself?</i>

Most of the blame lies with the hotel. However, the broker gets money either from the price paid by the client or by getting a fee from the listed hotels, or even indirectly from the ads that appear on its web site--and the more listings, the more fees collected one way or the other. It has in my mind a certain responsibility in the condition of the rooms and the quality of service.

So in other words, Michael, I guess you're saying NO ONE should EVER book with any agency, since every agency can and will represent hotels that will have rooms and service that will disappoint? Or can you suggest an agency that will not represent any hotel with inadequate service or occasional dirty rooms?

I honestly think you are being naive to suggest that there is anything a booking agency can do to guarantee the condition of rooms in the hotels in books. If they removed every hotel that ever had a complaint about the rooms, they would no longer represent any hotels at all.

NeoPatrick,

I had bad luck with hotels.com in Italy, and will try other options before resorting to their services; and I will try to avoid general booking services. Orbitz is not responsible for flight schedules, but will send upgrade notices of flight changes or delays. Gites de France apparently keeps a tight rein on the B&Bs on its list. I do not think that one should let brokers off the hook that easily.

This totally reminds me of an overnight train some 15 years ago between Paris and Rome. We were travelling with our 4 year old and had been old that there would be a "play lounge" on the train, a restaurant, etc. Friends in Paris actually went down to the station and made our reservations for us so there was no failure to communicate. We got on to six plastic bunkbeds already pulled down and four being occupied. No "play lounge", no restaurant, no vending machines. Halfway through the trip, no water. Over 20 hours, no AC (this was in July). The four year old survived on a little bottled water and the kindness of strangers offering him food they had brought on board at various stations along the way. I remember that we finally arrived in Rome and quickly blew our budget by getting in a cab and taking it to the Hilton Hotel where there was a swimming pool.

Michael, I didn't mean to imply that brokers shouldn't try to do something if there is a problem, and people should be particularly grateful when a broker does step forward and offer to make amends.

But the point remains that if a train ride is bad, has rude service, and is a total bust -- it is really the train, and not the person who sold you the ticket who is to blame. The same with hotels. It just seems to me that the OP should have been suggesting never to take this train -- not 'never to use the broker than sold him the ticket for it'. Sorry, but the original complaint just seemed totally misdirected to me.

Michael needs to take Contracts 101 in Law School to understand very basic ideas of what an agent is and what an agent, with the ubiquitous disclaimer, is responsible for and which the buyer agrees to when buying.

I'm too old to take contract law, I'll just take my business elsewhere. As I already pointed out, some brokers do follow up.