Yellow Fang
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This is not actually about cycle touring, but I was hoping someone might know anyway. What's the best way to get to Hamburg if you don't want to fly.
Getting to Hamburg
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Not sure if it still runs but when I used to live in Hamburg in the late 90's there was a twice a week ferry direct from the UK, I think it went from Harwich, might have been Hull.
Other option is Harwich to Esberg in Denmark and then about 1 hour on the train
Other option is Harwich to Esberg in Denmark and then about 1 hour on the train
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Yellow Fang
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Frustratingly, the direct ferry from Harwich to Hamburg doesn't seem to run any more. It might have been Harwich to Coxhaven, but that doesn't run either. If the train from Esberg only takes an hour then I might go that way. Otherwise, I was thinking Harwich to somewhere in The Netherlands and then a train. The journey via Eurotunnel seems very complicated.
No, neither the Hamburg or Cuxhaven ferry runs now. Going down the river into Hamburg was a favourite ferry trip, though the ferry itself was old. I've done the train from the Netherlands, it might be different now but it was a long slow journey. The Rotterdam ferry is modern with a decent passage length that allows a civilised sleep. I've never got the train from Rotterdam though.
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Yellow Fang
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Well the ferry to Esbjerg is out. It's way too expensive. Flybe the greenest airline I know and they're relatively cheap and quick too. Otherwise it looks like I could get a rail ticket for £153 return from London, so I might do that.
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Yellow Fang
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Just an update for anyone who's interested, and a recommendation never to do any business with Deutche Bahn, chisseling robbers.
I looked up the www.seat61.com website, which gives advice on train travel in foreign countries, which pointed me in the direction of the Deutche Bahn website. The Deutche Bahn website wouldn't actually state any prices, so I kept filling in the details of my journey and pressing next, hoping it would tell me. Unfortunately I pressed next once too many times and bought the ticket
When the tickets arrived, I was shocked to find they'd cost 406 flipping euros
Flybe would have cost about £80. I decided I didn't want to go to this thing in Hamburg anyway, so I canceled my tickets. They've now sent me an e-mail to say they've reimbursed me 296 euros. They reckon only 320 euros was refundable (why?) and they also charged my 24 euros for the cancellation as well as not refunding the 4 euros for the seat reservation. So they have charged me more for canceling my tickets than Flybe would have charged me for flying me there and back. None of these cancellation charges are explained on their website. How is this justifiable? If anyone knows who I can complain to, I would appreciate it.
I looked up the www.seat61.com website, which gives advice on train travel in foreign countries, which pointed me in the direction of the Deutche Bahn website. The Deutche Bahn website wouldn't actually state any prices, so I kept filling in the details of my journey and pressing next, hoping it would tell me. Unfortunately I pressed next once too many times and bought the ticket
When the tickets arrived, I was shocked to find they'd cost 406 flipping euros
Flybe would have cost about £80. I decided I didn't want to go to this thing in Hamburg anyway, so I canceled my tickets. They've now sent me an e-mail to say they've reimbursed me 296 euros. They reckon only 320 euros was refundable (why?) and they also charged my 24 euros for the cancellation as well as not refunding the 4 euros for the seat reservation. So they have charged me more for canceling my tickets than Flybe would have charged me for flying me there and back. None of these cancellation charges are explained on their website. How is this justifiable? If anyone knows who I can complain to, I would appreciate it.
SavageHoutkop
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Never had any issues with Deutsche Bahn myself, arranged a trip all round Europe with their site (although you can only book if the journey starts or ends in Germany). However they have details of all the other trains in Europe (pretty much) on that site complete with platform numbers which is vastly better than the local sites! So I was gleefully looking up the timetables in the DB site and buying tickets (if I could) on the local sites.
How did you manage to buy a ticket?? Surely you must have entered credit card details at some point, and that's a stupid thing to do without knowing how much the thing costs.
You probably managed to buy a full price ticket (looking at the price, although why it'd not be fully refunded in that case I dunno) rather than a cheap advance one. Peak hours?
How did you manage to buy a ticket?? Surely you must have entered credit card details at some point, and that's a stupid thing to do without knowing how much the thing costs.
You probably managed to buy a full price ticket (looking at the price, although why it'd not be fully refunded in that case I dunno) rather than a cheap advance one. Peak hours?
Auntie Helen
Ich bin Powerfrau!
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I've had very good experiences with Deutsche Bahn so I'm sorry to hear, Yellow Fang, that you had such troubles.
They don't always list ticket prices if they are a long way in advance.
Like SavageHoutkop, I'm surprised you didn't realise you were buying tickets when entering your credit card details!
They don't always list ticket prices if they are a long way in advance.
Like SavageHoutkop, I'm surprised you didn't realise you were buying tickets when entering your credit card details!
Best way to travel from the southern UK to Hamburg would be to take the Harwich to Hook of Holland ferry, and then take the train to Hamburg. Both legs should be dead cheap if you buy the right tickets. The ferry has superapex tickets, and Deutsche Bahn also have various super super low price options (many times cheaper than anything in the UK). So I am not sure what went wrong. I buy my European train tickets from a specialised Dutch travel agent: www.treinreiswinkel.nl They only do trains.
Willem
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CopperBrompton
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I too am bemused why you thought you were entering your credit card details if not to buy tickets?!
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Yellow Fang
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I did put in my bank details, but I was still planning to cancel it unless it told me the price. I thought if I did put all the details it might work out the price before accepting payment. It was silly, but I was getting frustrated. I only found what the price of the tickets were when they arrived, and I still don't understand a) why they could not display their ticket prices, why they cost so much, and c) how they can justify not refunding over €100. Their website did not mention these charges when I looked up canceling tickets. I'm pretty sure their website didn't mention prices even for the near future neither (though I'll have to check), and I couldn't find any of these 'special offers' that I saw mentioned on the seat61 website.
It wasn't easy finding ticket prices from Hook of Holland to Hamburg neither.
why they cost so much, and c) how they can justify not refunding over €100. Their website did not mention these charges when I looked up canceling tickets. I'm pretty sure their website didn't mention prices even for the near future neither (though I'll have to check), and I couldn't find any of these 'special offers' that I saw mentioned on the seat61 website. It wasn't easy finding ticket prices from Hook of Holland to Hamburg neither.
CopperBrompton
Bicycle: a means of transport between cake-stops
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Card/bank details is usually the final step of making payment ...
SavageHoutkop
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Hmmm just tried to reproduce your experience. As there is more than one change, and some trips are completely outside Germany, it says 'unknown fares abroad' followed by "The Check of the offer and the fare will take place in the service center". So I think what they mean here is give us your £ and we'll do the booking for you, at whatever it costs for the bits we can't price online.
The trip I found (arbitrary date in September) was this one:
Hoek van Holland Haven Th, 17.09.09 dep 09:37
Rotterdam Centraal Th, 17.09.09 arr 10:08
Amersfoort Th, 17.09.09 arr 11:15
Osnabrück Hbf Th, 17.09.09 arr 14:06
Hamburg Hbf Th, 17.09.09 arr 16:12
The problem here seems to be that the bit inside the Netherlands can't be priced by DB. IIRC when I booked I left inter-Netherlands travel to buy on the day fares as there didn't seem to be any savings fares about, and you couldn't book more than a month in advance anyway.
If you tried to split the journey, and buy separate tickets, you could have bought the Amersfoort -> Hamburg leg (above) 'from' €39 single (and fares still available at that rate as at now) and bought the Hook of Holland -> Amersfoort leg from ns.nl for €15.80 single (which as I said IIRC is standard fare).
Like most things, train pricing never seems to work if you want to go from A to B and it involves a change. I've tried to book a ticket before to get to Edinburgh, and if I booked from city centre to city centre I could get the 'advance' tickets at a reasonable price. But add on the bit to get from city centre to suburb (never more than £2 walkup on the day...) and the price trebled.
Better luck next time...?
If you want to speak to an English person about the fares, you might give this a shot
(http://www.bahn.de/db_uk/view/index.shtml) although they might not be able to help, and of course it's one of those lovely 0870 numbers.
The trip I found (arbitrary date in September) was this one:
Hoek van Holland Haven Th, 17.09.09 dep 09:37
Rotterdam Centraal Th, 17.09.09 arr 10:08
Amersfoort Th, 17.09.09 arr 11:15
Osnabrück Hbf Th, 17.09.09 arr 14:06
Hamburg Hbf Th, 17.09.09 arr 16:12
The problem here seems to be that the bit inside the Netherlands can't be priced by DB. IIRC when I booked I left inter-Netherlands travel to buy on the day fares as there didn't seem to be any savings fares about, and you couldn't book more than a month in advance anyway.
If you tried to split the journey, and buy separate tickets, you could have bought the Amersfoort -> Hamburg leg (above) 'from' €39 single (and fares still available at that rate as at now) and bought the Hook of Holland -> Amersfoort leg from ns.nl for €15.80 single (which as I said IIRC is standard fare).
Like most things, train pricing never seems to work if you want to go from A to B and it involves a change. I've tried to book a ticket before to get to Edinburgh, and if I booked from city centre to city centre I could get the 'advance' tickets at a reasonable price. But add on the bit to get from city centre to suburb (never more than £2 walkup on the day...) and the price trebled.
Better luck next time...?
If you want to speak to an English person about the fares, you might give this a shot
(http://www.bahn.de/db_uk/view/index.shtml) although they might not be able to help, and of course it's one of those lovely 0870 numbers.
Auntie Helen
Ich bin Powerfrau!
- Location
- 47906 Kempen, Germany
Deutsche Bahn do have a UK booking centre which is very helpful - you could indeed try to ring them and see if you get any joy with your refund.
For the train travel in Holland, if you buy the Dutch Flyer ferry ticket you only pay an additional £6 for travel by train to any part of Holland after your ferry trip, it's a great bargain. I've just booked a ferry crossing for me and PippaG and then train travel from Hook of Holland to Bamberg (Bavaria) for a grand total of £85 each - that's overnight ferry with single cabin each and then trains through Holland and Germany.
For those not in the know, if you're ever travelling in Germany at the weekend it's brilliant to make use of their Schönes-Wochenende Ticket ("Happy-weekend ticket") which costs 36€ and covers up to five people. This allows you to travel anywhere on Friday and Saturday within Germany. You can't use the ICE or IC trains but can use all the other trains (RE - RegionalExpress, RB - RegionalBahn etc). So if five of you are travelling together you can travel the length and breadth of Germany for two days for just over a fiver each. Bargain!
For the train travel in Holland, if you buy the Dutch Flyer ferry ticket you only pay an additional £6 for travel by train to any part of Holland after your ferry trip, it's a great bargain. I've just booked a ferry crossing for me and PippaG and then train travel from Hook of Holland to Bamberg (Bavaria) for a grand total of £85 each - that's overnight ferry with single cabin each and then trains through Holland and Germany.
For those not in the know, if you're ever travelling in Germany at the weekend it's brilliant to make use of their Schönes-Wochenende Ticket ("Happy-weekend ticket") which costs 36€ and covers up to five people. This allows you to travel anywhere on Friday and Saturday within Germany. You can't use the ICE or IC trains but can use all the other trains (RE - RegionalExpress, RB - RegionalBahn etc). So if five of you are travelling together you can travel the length and breadth of Germany for two days for just over a fiver each. Bargain!
