European Sleeper experience

[kaspertron]

I'm planning to travel with European Sleeper soon to make the most of my 25% discount as an investor, so have been reading this thread with interest.

On their contact page it says that customer service are available in a chat until 1am six days a week, and the phone line is open 4pm until midnight "on travel days". Seems like pretty good service for a small railway company, but do they actually answer?

 

[superalbs]

Currently stood in Brussels South Station, awaiting the European Sleeper to Milan. It was meant to leave one hour ago. The service to Prague is currently showing as 2.5 hours late.

Once again, this is quite a reliable service, and I can't see why anyone would be negative about this experience.

 

[DanielB]

According to other forums, it was expected to arrive in Brussels with a three hour delay from Milan. So it will have arrived at approximately the scheduled departure time.

 

[superalbs]

If you're talking about the Milan, it came in 121 late, which obviously does reduce the turnaround time as you say, but only down to around 3.5 hours

 

[DanielB]

Yes I was, it still was delayed 180 minutes at the moment a screenshot of the delay was posted elsewhere. That screenshot also displayed a planned arrival in Brussels at 14.01, so an hour before your time of posting hence my conclusion it arrived at departure time.

 

[superalbs]

We eventually left 166 minutes late. The Prague train was showing as over 3 hours late. Good stuff!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Oct 2026 ==

Despite having an opportunity to make up to 2hr of delay, we have made up just 20 minutes. Could be worse, as the Prague train is running about 5hr late. Deeply unserious mess.

 

[Jealgu]

Why do you keep taking this train of you are so unhappy with it.

 

[BRX]

Why do you keep taking this train of you are so unhappy with it.

There's currently a whole YouTube genre of "I took X sleeper train and it was the worst thing in human history".

 

[popeter45]

There's currently a whole YouTube genre of "I took X sleeper train and it was the worst thing in human history".

Especially when immediately following by a "look how great this Chinese trains most expensive ticket is"

 

[doc7austin]

Despite having an opportunity to make up to 2hr of delay, we have made up just 20 minutes. Could be worse, as the Prague train is running about 5hr late. Deeply unserious mess.

At least you get 50% of the fare back - theoretically only ofc. A partial refund will be promised in 3 months after the travel date - and you only get it if you don't forget about the claim and push ES multiple times.

 

[Krokodil]

There's currently a whole YouTube genre of "I took X sleeper train and it was the worst thing in human history".

It was quite a refreshing change to see Joel and Emilia's trip on Caledonian Sleeper. They were woken early at Edinburgh and told that they would need to go forward on a Scotrail service - which meant missing the connection to Wick.

They were very understanding (despite the tiredness), given that the issue was outside of the operator's control.

 

[doc7austin]

It was quite a refreshing change to see Joel and Emilia's trip on Caledonian Sleeper. They were woken early at Edinburgh and told that they would need to go forward on a Scotrail service - which meant missing the connection to Wick.

Well, I think this is the difference between ES and Caledonian Sleeper:
Why didn't the London-Inverness section just run through Aberdeen that Morning ? And why where the passengers not reaccommodated on the London-Aberdeen section ? Anyway, terminating a train at 04:45 at night is something we are well used with Caledonian.
ES may have experience significant delays, but at least ES tries to run the main overnight segment at all costs.

 

[superalbs]

Why do you keep taking this train of you are so unhappy with it.

New route, so thought I'd give them a second chance.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Oct 2026 ==

There's currently a whole YouTube genre of "I took X sleeper train and it was the worst thing in human history".

There's currently a whole YouTube genre of going on a train and explaining what happens with emotive storytelling, rather than just describing everything that happened in the exact order in which it happened, like a robot.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Oct 2026 ==

Especially when immediately following by a "look how great this Chinese trains most expensive ticket is"

Okay, and? Pay a lot of money to receive a bad experience, pay a lot of money to receive a good experience. Hardly going to be shouting from the hilltops how good the bad one was, am I?

 

[danshrimp]

There's currently a whole YouTube genre of going on a train and explaining what happens with emotive storytelling, rather than just describing everything that happened in the exact order in which it happened, like a robot.

Of course, telling a story and forming a narrative is an important part of a serious review. But let's not pretend that the way YouTube works doesn't also very very heavily incentivise hyperbole and oversimplification.

In more positive news, I see that ES are now selling combined Eurostar tickets through a partnership with Choo-Choo: https://www.europeansleeper.eu/connecting-trains. A heavy asterisk (which they've made sure you won't miss) is needed on the words 'combined' and 'connecting' here though - they're not offering any additional rights or protections whatsoever, simply the convenience of being able to select London in their booking tool and have tickets to and beyond Brussels booked at the same time, based on their recommended connections. And customer support through Choo-Choo if any issues arise with the connection. It's not exactly life changing but it's still a nice little idea and will help with marketing themselves to the UK.

 

[AdamWW]

In more positive news, I see that ES are now selling combined Eurostar tickets through a partnership with Choo-Choo: https://www.europeansleeper.eu/connecting-trains. A heavy asterisk (which they've made sure you won't miss) is needed on the words 'combined' and 'connecting' here though - they're not offering any additional rights or protections whatsoever, simply the convenience of being able to select London in their booking tool and have tickets to and beyond Brussels booked at the same time, based on their recommended connections. And customer support through Choo-Choo if any issues arise with the connection. It's not exactly life changing but it's still a nice little idea and will help with marketing themselves to the UK.

They are a party to one of the agreements on helping passengers out with missed connecting trains though I think.
(A bit one-sided - if you miss the sleeper then being able to travel two or three days later if not sold out probably isn't useful to many people).

 

[AlterEgo]

Especially when immediately following by a "look how great this Chinese trains most expensive ticket is"

I suppose the idea is that if you pay lots of money for something, it ought to be very good indeed. However this standard hasn't been applied to YouTubers who bought the deluxe sleeper on ES and found it to be sorely lacking and ended up getting kicked off early and onto buses who then complained about it.

(For the record I have done the deluxe on ES and had a good trip)

 

[kaspertron]

They are a party to one of the agreements on helping passengers out with missed connecting trains though I think.
(A bit one-sided - if you miss the sleeper then being able to travel two or three days later if not sold out probably isn't useful to many people).

They're not part of Agreement on Journey Continuation or Railteam (which is only for high speed trains). Are there any other such agreements?

 

[AdamWW]

They're not part of Agreement on Journey Continuation or Railteam (which is only for high speed trains). Are there any other such agreements?

Ah I must have been thinking of this (post 83 in this thread)

European Sleeper have signed up to AJC.

Which presumably didn't actually happen, or did happen then unhappen.

 

[brooklynbound]

I looked at getting one of their combined tickets. Picking next week's Brussels - Berlin services, the shortest connection they sell leaves you with just over 4h30 in Brussels while on two days you must wait almost 10 hours there. No point in buying that way given there are no additional rights.

 

[D6130]

I looked at getting one of their combined tickets. Picking next week's Brussels - Berlin services, the shortest connection they sell leaves you with just over 4h30 in Brussels while on two days you must wait almost 10 hours there. No point in buying that way given there are no additional rights.

I don't know....the 4 hours and 30 minutes wait would give you time to enjoy a good dinner and a few excellent Belgian beers before turning in for the night!

 

[kaspertron]

Ah I must have been thinking of this (post 83 in this thread)



Which presumably didn't actually happen, or did happen then unhappen.

It would be great if they were, but so far not. Snälltåget är currently the only entirely private railway company signed up for AJC.

Agreement on Journey Continuation (AJC)

www.cer.be

 

[duesselmartin]

They must be something right or they would be out of the market.

 

[StephenHunter]

I don't know....the 4 hours and 30 minutes wait would give you time to enjoy a good dinner and a few excellent Belgian beers before turning in for the night!

Exactly. Or visit Railworld on the westbound journey.