My AWFUL Journey on Europe’s Newest Night Train!
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Tonight I’m taking you onboard European Sleeper’s new night train route from Berlin to Paris, trying out their innovative and unique Comfort Standard carriages, which are honestly pretty cool. But apart from that, pretty much everything that could go wrong did go wrong on this trip. So join me in this video to see why I probably would not take European Sleeper again.
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Route: Berlin – Brussels – Mons – (Paris)
Train: ES 474
Distance: 1234km
Journey time: 16h57
Average speed: 73 km/h
Price: Too Much (Often 250+ euro)
00:00 Intro
00:48 The First Problems
01:42 Berlin Hauptbahnhof
03:37 Boarding Chaos
05:15 Departure (Whoops Emergency Stop)
06:28 Route Map
07:06 Room Number CHAOS
08:27 Finally settled in
08:45 The Slow Journey…
09:38 Compartment Tour
11:35 Lack of Service and Staff…
12:10 Comfort Standard is actually cool!
12:45 Awful Toilet Situation
13:23 More problems…
13:42 Sponsored Segment
14:58 Goodnight!
15:08 Liege
15:40 The bed is actually good!
16:20 How to aviod the bus
16:47 Brussels
17:37 Cancelation Speculation
18:09 Arrival Mons (Not Paris)
18:50 Final Thoughts and Pricing
20:20 The Alternatives are Sadly better…
20:50 Paris
#Travel #Trains #TripReport
30 Comments
That price is DIOBOLICAL bro..
You can't rely on DB!!!
Although European Sleeper is to blame for much of what went wrong with the journey, it seems that both DB and SNCF are trying everything in their power (without being too obvious) to get rid of private competition. Those old companies would rather lose out to airlines than face competition. And may I add Dutch competition, which gives them one more reason to hinder European Sleeper’s operation.
10 times the price of flying with 10 times less comfort. It is a shame.
Before 2014, Deutsche Bahn had nice night trains. Many sleeper trains were brand new. This meant that we could take an early train from Norway to Hamburg and then DB City Night Line to Italy.
After 2014, it took much longer for such a trip. Austrian Railway started a night train service, but when we arrived in Hamburg, that train had already left the city. (Well, Austria was looking for their own needs).
Talk about moving "backwards".
P.S. We are not tempted to use this new European Sleeper
Quite outdated, even historic carriages they have found for their start up. When i remember my only sleep carriage trip as a kid from Hamburg to Innsbruck, that were golden times. Unwatched train experience so far.
Oh no! I'm sorry you had a negative experience. I actually wanted to use the ES to travel to Paris from Berlin in the same room type, but this experience makes me second guess. This doesn't seem like an unpredicted incident, but like something that might happen again due to further scheduling conflicts.
Were you offered to refund your ticket for another date once it was clear there would be connecting busses instead? Was there any compensation for the inconvenience of that, and of the compartment mix-up, such as free drinks (not including the replacement water bottle in the washroom) or a voucher? I feel like a good customer service and some tiny gestures of apology might have gone a long way there.
They really, really need to up their game if they are to compete with busses, cars and flights. It's more like a train for hardcore train fans.
Rather than a convenient cheap efficient train it is more of a money grab and a scam.
Over 600 euros this is a fucking joke 😂😂😂 its just simply a rip off who pays that kind of money for a fucking trian
The private couchette has been around for years. I've been using that many times on NightJet from Hamburg to Vienna. But you often have to book at least 3 months in advance or the private couchette will be sold out, and you will be stuck on a shared one. They are although being replaced by the new mini cabin's which I DON'T like at all. They are too claustrophobic for me.
Recently found your channel, Simon.
Really enjoying your content 😀
This is just frustrating. It’s yet another example of why sleeper trains still aren't viable. For them to work, we need a easy airline style booking process, reliable services, and a guarantee that passengers actually get what they paid for. Otherwise it will never work..
Gare de Mons🤣😂🤣
That's why I'll never take night trains with sleeping cars, but only night trains with seats, and I'll save a lot of money on them.
600€ for that? No way
I'm still happy that I canceled ES in 2024, it's just Desaster not more
What a mess during that boarding😮Train driver forgot to press alerter button too🤣
When will Thibault and his new sleeper service start ?
I wonder how many of the issues are actually things ES can effect? The lack of a Paris storage space is most likely a RFN issues. Pathing and the emergency stops are DB Infrastructure issues. I don't know if ES does the maintenance on its stock itself or is contracted out but no water and no curtains are the responsibility of the depot. The sending of two coaches of people crashing into each other as they swap carriages are ES's responsibility! The national rail networks in German and especially France don't like these independent operators and seem to make it as difficult for them as they can.
Love the concept of European sleeper, but also had issues from Berlin to Amsterdam last year, my sleeper cabin got downgraded the night before to a couchette and then the train was 4 hours late. Whilst I did get a 50% refund for the downgrade and another 25% off for the delay it took 3 months and multiple emails back and forth to get the money back 🙁
With prices like that you might just drive there with your own car…
4:17 WHAT ON EARTH WERE THEY THINKING?
600€ is wild… i can fly 2 times to paris and back for that money…
A sleeper service really needs to have some realiability to it. Most people travel with a purpose. I guess the thing we have to remember is that flights are late all the time and rarely get commented on. I really hate air travel now the whole experience is objectly shit and carefully managed to be shit.
I just wish that rail could be just able to do the basics better. Especially DB.
They said SJ Euronight was bad, and THIS terrible operator is taking over???? Bro RDC Euronight Berlin Hbf to Stockholm C will be more of a disaster than SJ Euronight, given how shitty your ride was.
My wife and I were on one of the first European Sleeper trains supposedly going from Venice to Brussels. It didn't start in Venice it was late everywhere and we stopped for hours in Frankfurt breakfast didn't arrive by the time we had arrived in Cologne and we got off as we were not going to reach Brussels in time to catch our Eurostar back to the UK. The carriage we were in rattled and creaked all night long so we won't use them again.
Thanks for the great review. How the company responds to this is more important than your negatives in this video. What truly matters if the company's ability to take note of reviews and how they implement improvements – hopefully sooner than later.
Sometimes I think it would be a great idea to restore direct Russian train service from Moscow to Paris via Berlin. European union could pay Russian Railways extra for running this train at least 3 times per week. It had perfect timetable, shower in each car, restaurant and individual climate control in each compartment. This train had the brand new cars and could be really popular for passengers. 😢
thought this was gonna be about the new LeoExpress Frankfurt-Bohumin line
I miss the citynightline so much – the T3 compartments were the greatest format. The rolling stock and operations with öbb nightjet on that route were pretty bad – I’m sad to see that european sleeper managed to somehow make it worse