Getting to the plane on time?
 

We're planning to be in Budapest for the last leg of our journey in June. Our return flight to the states, however, is out of Vienna (7:30pm departure). Is it crazy to travel from Budapest to Vienna that same day, or should we head back to Vienna the day prior to our departure? ie: Do the trains usually run reliably and on time? I sort of hate to lose time in Budapest...

Thanks!

I have never taken the train from Budapest to Vienna but I can tell you that European trains are generally extremely reliable. I would spend the morning in Budapest, then go to Vienna.

I checked the DB train site and there are several trains a day from Budapest to Vienna. The trip takes about 3 hours. Below is the link to the DB train site.

http://www.bahn.de/p/view/internatio...l_guests.shtml

Why not take the hydrofoil?

Hi Mo,

For a 19:30 departure, you want to be at the airport at 16:30, which mean that you want to arrive in Vienna by about 15:00.

You'll want either the 11:10 or the 11:45 out of Budapest.

>I sort of hate to lose time in Budapest..

Trains are sometimes delayed.

I make it a rule to be in the city from which I am departing the night before.

What's wrong with a day in Vienna?

((I))

I traveled around Hungary, plus to and from Vienna, by train for 2 weeks last year, I am afraid the trains not always on time. Once, from Eger to Sopron via Budapest, they cancelled one completely, I had to wait more than 3 hours at Fuzesabony.

Train in Europe is easy, convenient and reliable; but better not count on it to be always ontime, even with the famous german trains, I encountered more than 10 delays(from 5 to 30 minutes) last year.

If you like to spend the last night in Budapest, perhaps it would be better to take early morning train; btw, you probably know that already, there are half-hourly airport bus from Wien Westbahnhof (where Budapest train arrives)to Vienna airport (35 minutes).

"I make it a rule to be in the city from which I am departing the night before."

...Or at least have a backup method of getting to the departure airport. There are too many things that can go wrong to rely on a single mode of transport.

Just last month, we were first delayed and then re-routed from Köln to Bonn-Beuel instead of Bonn because of some unspecified calamity up the line at Remagen. If we had been on the way to an airport, we would have missed the flight.

The link provided earlier for the German Rail website will get you general information. To get schedules, go directly to the English language query page at http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en.

Thanks everyone for all the great feedback. I think your advice is right, it's probably not worth the stress of not staying over in Vienna the night prior to our departure.

Ira, nothing's wrong with a day in Vienna...we'll be spending 3 days there at the start of our trip!

biloburgler, I looked into the hydrofoil option...while my husband would probably love it, I suffer terribly from seasickness, so unfortunately that option is out. Thanks, though!

Sshepard, thanks for the link, I'll check it out!

And Judy C, thanks for the airport trans info. Acutally, I didn't know all that. We're "doing" 6 countries in 22 days and frankly I'm a bit overwhelmed!

If you are "doing" 6 countries in 22 days you have more issues than just getting to the plane on time. From your other posts it looks like you are hitting everywhere from Barcelona to Budapest - that's crazy IMHO.

Janisj,

Actually, we won't be racing around that much...we'll have 3 overnights in each of the larger cities we're visiting: Vienna, Budapest, Prague and Krakow and about 10 days inbetween to "tour" some cites within Czech. I'm being careful to note travel times and build in rests. Thanks for your concerns, though. I'd be happy to consider any suggestions you'd like to make...

Mo

Oh, and it's not Barcelona, it's Madrid. Because we're flying on Iberia, we have an overnight layover in Madrid on the way back to the US...inconvenient, but unavoidable.

Oh - that is much better - from your other thread I thought you were visiting Spain too.

Your plan for Austria, etc is fine . . . .