They will reply with a link (what they call a “custom price quote”), you click on it, review the item and proceed to pay if it’s correct. When you “check out” the item in their cart, you should choose an appropriate shipping option for their ticket, i.e. shipping cost is not included in the price they quote you. Can consider the normal (and therefore cheapest) shipping option which cost you an extra 30 PLN.

They can only generate the tickets 60 days before your travel, so if you ‘purchase’ the tickets any earlier, they’ll just give you an estimate of when they’ll mail it out. E.g. “Polish Rail tickets can be issued starting 60 days before travel. Therefore the estimated shipping date for your order is 22 April. You will receive an e-mail update when you order has shipped.”

You can cover these 3 places in 3 days but i wouldnt recommend it as you wont get to see anything with just 1 day in each. Instead i suggest skipping Slovakia and maybe set aside an extra day for Budapest (if you only have 3 days to play with).

thanks!

I am planning to make this same trip with my wife in the first week of November. My first concern is of course safety in the overnight train. I would probably get a first class bed compartment for two people which I believe would be safer. My concern is being in the low season the trains might be empty. Should that be a concern based on your experience?

Also, I would be in Krakow for 2 days, so the earliest I can buy this train ticket while I am there is a day before. Would that be sufficient time or should I look for some other way to get them?

Thanks,
Raj

I’m a Singaporean and see a lot of useful info in your blog. Im going to take this route coming september. You mentioned International Train Line counter, is it inside the train station and easy to locate? I read from some wesites that this route only operate for certain period, do you happen to know if it will still be running in September?

I am traveling on the train from Budapest to Krakow tonight. Could you tell me if there was outlets available to power a laptop? And is there Wifi? Thanks,

Cam

Thanks for the brilliant post. My wife and I took the night train recently from Krakow to Budapest and your post was really helpful. We took the sleeper berth and it was really comfy and safe (the door can be locked from inside) and there’s a peep hole on the door as well.

We even got a wake up call from the conductor half hour before arrival in Budapest. There was no border checks whatsover, I slept like a baby and didn’t even realise when the ‘train’ split happened. (I believe the original train head goes to Prague).

Since we had rail passes, we bought the sleeper reservation for EUR21 per person a few days before we travelled.

Thanks again for your wonderful post.

Cheers,
Simon.