London - Prague

[72C]

Hoping to travel from London to Prague, before Christmas, using City Night Line sleeper service. Any tips or advice would be very welcome as this will be a first.

Thanks

 

[Railjet]

What route do you want to travel on?

 

[72C]

Hi. Thanks for your response. I'm open to suggestions, but would like to use the sleeper service, to see what it is like, and limit rushed connections. Seat 61 + DB routed via Brussels, into Germany then sleeper to Prague. However I've an open mind.

Thanks again.

 

[valedave]

London-Brussels on the Eurostar
Brussels-Cologne on the Thalys or ICE
Cologne-Prague City Night Line sleeper.

If you do Bruxelles to Cologne by avoiding the Thalys (in other words, using a cross-border German ICE), you can pay as little as €49 for London-Cologne with time for lunch in Brussels and dinner in Cologne before catching the sleeper to Prague.

Edit: the cheap London Special fare is hard to find for the London-Germany direction, but with a bit of fiddling you can avoid the timetable automatically putting you on the Thalys. Go on the DB website and search London-Köln, taking the 08:27 E* from London to Brussels and adding "via Bruxelles-Midi" and a stopover of around 2 hours (could be 1:45) to get the cheap fare to show up.

 

[Railjet]

Or you can leave London at 14:34, connecting nicely into the ICE at Brussels and giving over two hours to connect into the sleeper at Cologne.

After the timetable change in December, although there will be an extra ICE each way between Cologne and Brussels, the morning connections with Eurostar will get worse. You can either leave London at the unearthly hour of 06:19, to connect with the 10:25 ICE ex-Brussels; or you can leave London at 08:27, which gives you nearly 3 hours to kill in Brussels until the next ICE.

 

[valedave]

14:34 Eurostar is a better idea.

I just like Brussels

 

[odol]

I used this connection 2 weeks ago but I've been traveling from London to Warsaw, and everything was fine, Eurostar delayed just 16 minutes , then change in Brussels with no problem. The german ICE was the best train on my way by the way. Cologne is great, I think is enough time for a good dinner and for get a good look of around the station area.
Night sleeper to Warsaw, Moscow, Prague and somewhere else (train having a split in Hannover I think) was delayed 45 mins in Cologne (in german they said it was becouse the problem with passport controls , in english didnt say enything like that) I dont know what was happened during the way but finally in Warsaw I've been 110 mins later.

 

[gordonthemoron]

odol, are you sure they said something about passport control? The usual reason for a delay on a train coming from the netherlands is 'hand over' whatever that means

 

[odol]

Hmm never can be sure couse my german is not perfect, but I heard something like:
Pass Kontroll, verzogert, funf und dreisig
and then the same in english, but only about 35 mins delayed (finally 45) I was thinking is some problem with passport controll (strange couse its Schenghen anyway).
When I've travelled few times directly from Amsterdam, there was always couple of German Police man, whos been checking our passport and lagguage sometimes, so when I heard that at Cologne station, just was thinking it was some problem with some passengers and that made this delay.

 

[gordonthemoron]

I supose they may have heightened security due to the current threat against germany and so be checking passports. However all that seems to have changed at Munich Hbf is that some of the entrances have been shut, there's not been any increase in security staff

 

[Railjet]

However all that seems to have changed at Munich Hbf is that some of the entrances have been shut, there's not been any increase in security staff

When I passed through there on Friday, there were loads of armed police skulking around.

 

[gordonthemoron]

When I passed through there on Friday, there were loads of armed police skulking around.

that's not unusual, but they come and go as they please