Has anyone done a European Sleeper Train?

[Citrusandginger]

Inspired by a newspaper article, I have just been googling and have found a sleeper train from Paris to Vienna where a family compartment would be in a similar price bracket to flying.

Has anyone got any experience - are the cabins comfortable? and do you actually get much sleep? What do I need to know and should I even be thinking about this?

https://www.nightjet.com/en/reiseziele/oesterreich/wien

We did Istanbul to Sofia a few years ago. Great fun, except for having to get off in the middle of the night to get our passports stamped.

We went all the way across Europe by train ending up in Venice, but the others were day time trains. I used Seat 61 to plan the journey, a really useful resource.

We also went coast to coast in the US by train about ten years ago, which took three days and nights. A brilliant adventure.

We used to go on holidays this way when I was a kid (mum hated flying). I have many happy memories. I like the rocking feeling of a train when going to sleep. We used to peek through the curtain to see what station we were at in the middle of the night . It is best if you have a cabin to yourself - there were 5 of us so sometimes we were joined by a stranger which spoilt things a bit but not completely.

I did Hook of Holland to Hamburg ( or maybe Hannover) never again.

I did once. Budapest to Prague. It stopped in Vienna. I didn't arrive refreshed as if I'd slept in a hotel. I did want to sleep but was also excited about it and it felt surreal somewhat. I'll do it again cos it was fun but not if I already need to catch up on sleep.

We did an overnight sleeper from Helsinki to Santa’s village. I got an ok amount of sleep, considering that I was sharing a bunk with DD (10). As a family of 5 we decided to squeeze into 2 rather than get 3. Dd and I are both quite small, and she routinely comes into my bed through the night anyway and likes to cuddle up to me. I quite enjoyed the experience and would definitely do it again.

We did Brussels to Vienna on night jet last summer. 6 bed cabin for the 4 of us in the family. It was a rather old train and rattled around a lot in the night but we got there and it was a good experience.

We booked in January to get tickets for July because they sell out fast.

We once took the sleeper from Paris to Venice in February (unfortunately they no longer do that route), woke up when the the train had stopped at about 3 in the morning. Opened the blind to look outside - Switzerland in the snow!

We travelled across Europe to Slovenia and back last year as a family of four, including several sleeper trains and absolutely loved it
I would challenge what a pp said about the private seating carriages being ok to sleep in. The seats do have foot rests that come up and meet in the middle, but that means a carriage of six becomes three not very flat beds. We ended up doing this for one night because we missed the sleeper booking (opened and fully booked within 6 hours, be warned!), but the reality was two kids had flattish beds and DH and I sat in the remaining two opposing seats. I did not sleep a wink. Having said that, getting out of the train in Venice at 8am stopped me being in too much of a bad mood! It's a magical way to travel overall, and we're planning a similar trip to Spain for next year

I hate sleeping on trains although maybe I've only done it in Asia. It's noisy, bumpy, the trains keep stopping and starting and I get no sleep. It's definitely not something I'd do for fun and definitely not something I do over flying. Fly somewhere and then travel around by train - much better.

Vienna to Cologne on OBB Nightjet. En-suite berth - got some sleep, woken up when stopped to change engines when crossing from Austria into Germany other than that fine. I travelled with 2 dogs too in the berth, they slept the whole journey.

The Nightjets are currently updating/adding new trains - Seat61 has photographs of them.

I think you have to accept you will not have huge amounts of space and it will not be 100% peaceful but for me, having breakfast delivered after some sleep and seeing the sun rise over the Rhine was a lovely experience.

Not in Europe but DH and I went to Canada for Silver Wedding trip last September, with Great Rail (fabulous company), and it was amazing. 4 days/3 nights on The Canadian going from Jasper to Toronto, but you can also join it in Vancouver for an extra day/night. And also 2 days, 1 night on The Ocean from Toronto to Halifax.

The berths in our cabin were certainly small, but comfortable enough. Both cabins had a tiny loo space, where you could barely shut the door behind you. And the shower was at the end of each carriage and was very similar to the cubicles found at campsites, but satisfactory enough.

The thing to spoil it for me was that I was having menopause related digestive issues - similar to IBS - if I needed to go to the loo, I either had to return to our carriage or on the first train I could go to the ones at the end of each carriage available to all including passengers who had berths rather than cabins. Both trains were very long and the restaurant and social areas were quite a walk from our cabin. Quite nerve wracking at times!!!

Oh, the arrival in Venice (Santa Lucia) was amazing. You walk out of the station directly on the the Grand Canal, and when you're slightly hung over it's a bit of an overload!

I’ve done a few, only one with DC.

Particularly with DC, it’s worth looking at the timings of the train - often you board late and have to be up early. I found we were in a hurry to get the DC asleep as it was about 11pm when we boarded then we were off the train before 7am so there wasn’t much time to actually appreciate the experience!

I’d do it again though absolutely,

Ive done Paris-Italy three times (Milan, Florence and Rome). Each time we had a private couchette with a shower, sink and toilet. They were really comfortable, but quite expensive. Also not great that they sometimes wake you up in the middle of the night to check your passports when you cross the Swiss border.

I went from Paris to the alps a couple of times in my 20s. It was so lovely waking up to beautiful mountains in the morning. I remember it so well.

Some brilliant trips listed here. It's going to take me years if I do all of them. Would love to see Zurich, Salzburg & Vienna as a start though.

Once you go on that site you will never do anything else with your life!

It's an amazing information resource and full of fascinating traveller tales too.

omg this website is amazing! thanks so much!

I love it and will be introducing teen dd to the experience this summer.

You may not sleep that well, so if you can, it's worth planning to take it easy the next day - if you can get to your accommodation early for a shower and a nap, that will be more enjoyable than a packed day of sightseeing.

I think the experience you get on modern European sleeper trains is pretty different to the sort of train experience you got in "most" parts of Asia until very recently, though. I haven't done a sleeper in Europe myself, but people whose opinions I trust have been pretty positive on the experience.

Note: Asia is a vast place! We have mostly wonderful trains here in Japan and South Korea is pretty great too from what I've heard. S'pore of course will have an amazing metro, though obviously no sleeper services! I've taken some ghastly trains in Sri Lanka and China, although China is going gangbusters for modern HS trains right now so I've no doubt I would be amazed if I went back now. When I went to NE China in the early 2000s, I rode working steam trains on more than one occasion - my goodness, they were slow, although it was worth it just to take the photos and tell my dad (who is a huge rail fanatic) that I'd taken a working steam train, since the last UK ones were phased out in the 1970s!

My dream is the orient express…if only 😂
I would also like to do The Ghan across Australia.

Currently interrailing with DH and 2 kids. It's a brilliant way to travel. European trains tend to be more comfortable than ours in my experience. There are two types of cabin though, sleeper and couchette. Go for a sleeper as they're more comfortable.

Loving the Seat61 appreciation here. He has many YouTube vids showing him travelling with his family, so you might want to check those out too.

S'pore of course will have an amazing metro, though obviously no sleeper services!

There are sleeper services into Singapore - I've taken a sleeper into Singapore from Kuala Lumpur. Modern, fast and comfortable.

I've taken trains all the way from London to Hong Kong and down through Vietnam as well. We did the Trans-Mongolian rather than the true Trans-Sib to Vladivostok. Great fun. 🙂China has some incredibly fast, modern, slick trains internally, but the Trans-Mongolian or Trans-Manchurian are old-fashioned trains, sometimes steam, because they have to join onto the stock running through Russia.

If you want to take a steam train (not a sleeper though), pop over to the Isle of Man!

https://www.visitisleofman.com/experience/isle-of-man-steam-railway-p1291361