European Sleeper Reviews 

We travelled from Brussels to Berlin on the evening of the 17/08/26. My family of 4 would have been more comfortable in a 1950s jail cell than travelling in our private cabin that we had paid hundreds of pounds for. At least the jail cell would’ve had a lock on the door! Our cabin had been used before we arrived, dirty sheets and pillows, someone’s clothes on the top bunk, cigarette packet and butts also on the top bunk, curtains hanging off. The train arrived late and we were all texted to say that they were getting the train ready for us which must’ve been a lie. The toilets were all absolutely disgusting. The train is so rickety and noisy - this would’ve been charming if the cabin had been clean and semi-comfortable. Since it wasn’t, it just added to the nightmare. The only saving grace for us was that they put on a rail replacement service from Brussels to the Netherlands which meant we had 3 hours less on the train from hell and were on a nice coach instead. What’s making me even more annoyed about the whole thing is that my complaint (emailed at 2am on 18/08/26 while enduring the journey from hell) is being completely ignored. I want refunded for this awful experience!

It give you heads up when something changed. It came on time and the private couchette is comfortable and roomy.I slept comfortably. The only thing that I complain is that the pillow is way too thin to give your head support.

They're not perfect but they crush every other railway company by comparison with their thoughtfulness and their attention to detail.
The just care.

Update 18/9: We have still not received any money and they have stopped responding to our emails (again). We should have received our money two months ago at the latest, according to EU law...

Original review: Horrible company. Our train carriage was cancelled only a few hours before departure. This happened 10 weeks ago and we still have not received any compensation from them, instead they have stopped responding to our emails. Please avoid this company if you can!

The trains are very old but have not been refurbished adequately. Our outward journey from Brussels to Hamburg on August 18th /19th had no ladder, only one functional toilet for the whole coach. The return on Aug 27th there was only one functional toilet and hardly any toilet paper with stick instructions not to put anything other than toilet paper down the toilet. On neither journey did any staff visit our coach. Sleeping was difficult because the whole compartment rattled constantly. It was one of the most miserable experiences of my life.There seems to be no concern for the customer at all. zI met a lady from Belgium who was in tears over it. Disgraceful!

Really exciting and different way to travel! Lovely to be able to see the landscape that you are travelling through. We travelled overnight from Paris to Berlin and then back again a week later. We had a private cabin (comfort sleeper) for a family. You need to have realistic expectations about the fact that it will be noisy and there will be movement and tannoy announcements and you will be sharing a toilet / washbasin with the other people in your carriage - this is not like a hotel on wheels - think more like a train with beds! It was great fun though! Bring your own food/drink as well as a book/games to keep you amused on the journey. Unfortunately our departure/arrival stations and times were changed slightly due to engineering works a week before we travelled which then meant we had to change our connecting Eurostar, incurring charges. We were able to claim for this on our travel insurance but that is something to be aware of if you are connecting with a different service.

Der Schlafwagon war leider ein älteres Model. Innen trotzdem gemütlich aber nichts für Menschen mit leichtem Schlaf.
Haben leider keinen erholsamen schlaf gehabt, trotzt Hilfsmittel.
Service war sehr gut und Betten waren auch in Ordnung.

Unfortunately, the sleeping car was an older model. It was cozy inside, though, but not suitable for light sleepers.
Sadly, we didn't get a restful sleep, despite using sleep aids.
The service was very good, and the beds were fine, too.

On 19th May I purchased tickets for the sleeper from Berlin HBF to Paris on 28th August at 18:31. It was not until we arrived at Berlin HBF that we were informed that the sleeper had left from a different station in Berlin at about 17:25. At no point in the three months since purchasing my ticket had this company ever tried to inform me of this change! My child and I have had a miserable journey trying to get to Paris, including being in danger sitting on a platform for about 3 hours in the middle if the night.

From Amersfoort to Dresden we suffered a forced downgrade AND an 8 hour delay costing us a full day of our holiday. On the way home we suffered a 3 hour delay and were not even granted refreshments even though European regulation states that if the delay is over 60 minutes you are entitled to refreshments. We will never travel with the European sleeper again.

Poor facilities and overpriced

It was a fun day experience with a lot of room for improvements. Kids really loved it.

There was an issue at the beginning of our journey which underlined the very nice, helpful but understaffed personnel. There was also a lack of information about compensation related to the delay of 6 hours and half.

The boarding at Berlin Gessundbrunnen was stressful because we didn’t know where our carriage would have been and there was a lot of people waiting in the same situation.

So far I have used ES 8 times (7 times Prague-Brussels route, 1 time Paris-Berlin). I have been so far generally satisfied.
The puncuality was adequate (5 times on time or almost on time = up to 20 minutes delay), once delay of approx. 70 minutes in Brussels and two times a delay of approx. 4-5 hours however caused by significant external problems on the railroad (once the accident on already re-routed route, once closed line between Germany and Belgium resolved by substituting bus transport from Paris to Brussels, however slower; yes, substituting Eurostar would be better but the key point is that ES even in case of problems did not left us on our own). German railways currently under significant construction works are unpredictable. I have experienced both a decrease of the delay by almost one hour as well as the increase by one hour just due to trafiic in Germany. Journey via Germany (not only with ES, but DB or FlixTrain as well) is a lottery...
The rolling stock is older, however good. Sleepers are more spacy than the newer ones of ČD or ÖBB. Nevertheless, they lack air-condition.
Couchettes are standard, and they are air-conditioned, therefore during summer I prefer these (which is among other cheaper...).
Sleepers have larger beds, nevertheless I had good sleeping in both of them.
I have never tried a seating cars, make no sense for a night train to me.
Quite good breakfast, just the hot beverages are soooooo little (150 mL max, I am used to drinking at least half-liter in the morning).
High credits to the staff speaking at least three languages (Dutch, English, German, on the Paris line also French, no Czech yet, maybe later).
I am going to use ES further however it is good to have some time reserve since delays or problems in three- or four-countires journey can arrise on many places.

We paid £400 for a private cabin for four. What we got looked like a crime scene, minus the police tape, plus a slightly worrying smell. Before I write this review, if I could give this a negative 100, I would.

The sheets weren't folded, they weren't even on the bed, they were just dumped in a pile like whoever slept there before us had legged it in a hurry. Honestly I think I'd have needed actual solar eclipse glasses just to look at that bed without frying my retinas. At one point I genuinely weighed up whether going blind on the spot would be less painful than continuing to look at it. Someone floated just turning all the lights off so we didn't have to see the cabin anymore, and that wasn't even a joke, that was a real plan someone actually suggested. There was also a cigarette packet tucked in the corner of the top bunk, on a train that's meant to be completely non-smoking, and nobody in our cabin smokes, so whoever left that behind, we'd like a word.

The toilet deserves its own award ceremony, and not a good one. It barely flushed, and when it did attempt to flush, it did so with the enthusiasm of someone doing you a massive favour they didn't want to do. We actually walked the entire length of the train looking for one that worked properly. We found one eventually, and it was still in a state, just a slightly less offensive state than the last four we'd tried. That's not a win, that's just relative disappointment.

Then there's the door. It didn't lock. On an overnight train. Where you're meant to sleep with your bags, your stuff, and your entire unconscious body just lying there for anyone to deal with. We spent the whole night with one eye open, less "scared", more "alert like you'd be if you fell asleep in a shopping centre."

Here's what really got me though, the whole thing felt exactly like being locked in a prison cell, except somehow with worse food and no yard time. You can't get off, you can't leave, you're just stuck in a small dirty box speeding through Germany at 2 in the morning. Every time the train slowed down at a stop, all four of us would look at each other like we were about to pull an Alcatraz-style escape. Except Alcatraz had freezing shark-infested water and armed guards, and we just had a door that didn't even lock when the train is moving and we still didn't leave. That's not loyalty to the ticket, that's just how done we were by hour six.

We didn't get off, mainly because we'd already paid £400 and didn't want to throw that away, and partly because we were morbidly curious how much worse it could actually get. Spoiler: it kept finding new ways.

For £400 I expected a bed and got a biohazard with a train ticket stapled to it, a lock that was more of a suggestion than a feature, and a toilet situation that took a full expedition down the train just to find something barely usable. Ten out of ten if you're trying to make prison sound appealing by comparison. Zero out of ten for literally everything else.

Honestly the whole experience has ruined our expectations in the best way. Nothing since has come close to being that bad, so now every single thing on this trip feels amazing by comparison. A slightly late train feels like a triumph. A clean toilet feels like a five star upgrade. We've been recalibrated.

A quick word for anyone thinking about booking this: here's how to prepare, just in case you ignore all of this and book it anyway.

Basically, bring everything the train was supposed to provide, because odds are it either won't be there or won't be usable. Your own sheets, your own lock, hand sanitiser, all of it, pack like the train is going to let you down before it's even left the station. Scout out a working toilet the second you board, don't wait until you actually need one, because by then it's a full search party.

Funniest part is the staff were walking around with genuinely huge bags, which means they almost certainly had fresh sheets and proper supplies on them the entire time. We actually asked and did get some replacement stuff, so credit where it's due, but a few of the "fresh" sheets still had stains on them. Surprisingly no blood though, so I suppose that's the one bar they cleared.

And if none of that convinces you: DO NOT STEP ON THIS TRAIN.

Would not recommend. Would not repeat. Would recommend exclusively to someone who's never appreciated how good a locked door and a working toilet actually are, because this trip will fix that fast.

Truly one of the most awful experiences of our travelling lives and we didn’t even end up staying on the train. Our train was supposed to depart at 22:34 but was delayed for a few hours then continued to get more and more delayed until it was finally 6 hours delayed and 4 AM. Not a single ounce of communication.

Once the train arrived it arrived on the completely wrong platform and it turns out it was missing our entire carriage. We were told our room had been “moved” (not downgraded mind you) to a different carriage.

We got comfort plus as we wanted the privacy and extra space because we had larger sized luggage from having to travel for a wedding. When we got onto the car we realized we had been placed into a car with two random men and on couchettes… not comfort.

The stewards are unfortunately helpless and should really find a new company to work for. They try their best but their best is literally useless at the end of the day.

We had to make the decision to jump off the train quickly as we wouldn’t be able to fit and were extremely uncomfortable and angry and so tired. We now had to book a last minute flight to Prague to make our plans work which was extremely expensive.

If only they had communicated that we had been downgraded we could have completely avoided this by being able to find different travel plans faster. This company will not

Do NOT and I repeat DO NOT travel with European Sleeper. Don’t think that your experience will be different - it won’t be and you’ll be awake for over 24 hours with a much lighter wallet. I hope this company realizes how horrid their entire process is and either guts itself completely to change or just stops all together

I cannot stress this enough: HORRIBLE HORRIBLE experience

I took this train twice. It was supposed to go from the Netherlands to Czechia, leaving Amsterdam around 22.34.

In both cases, the train was delayed by more than 3 hours.

No communication, no explanation. You are just at a station where everything is closed, it's past midnight, and you have no idea if it makes sense to wait or just give up and go to bed.

The first time, I traveled alone, so it was annoying but doable. The second time, I made a big mistake to try to take this train with my kids. When it was around 1AM and we watched the delay going up and the kids were super tired and it was still not clear whether the train will ever arrive, we just gave up. This turned out to be a good call - in the end, the train was delayed by more than 5 hours - I stopped following the updates after that, so it's possible that we would have been waiting whole night on the station for nothing.

Also, very good to know - this problem was not because of any externalities. They basically just have unreliable old carriages, one of which broke down on the way. This is important because it means it can repeat any time.

Please if you want to not have a completely stressful trip, do not book train rides with this company, especially not if the train would be leaving past 10pm (trains from NL). Keep in mind that it is a big difference if you wait for a three-hour delayed train during the day (when you can leave the station, go to town, have lunch or whatever) or for three hours past midnight, when everyone is tired, it's night, cold, and the station is completely closed apart from your platform.

It was all great.
Easy to book, good routes, civilised times, lovely staff on board and a special experience. A highlight of our holiday.

Train departed an hour late and arrived two hours late.

We had the misfortune of being in a cabin next to a group of 5 inter-railing boys who spent half the journey being very noisy, shouting, laughing and banging around in their cabin.

We had booked breakfast which turned up and was pretty good, but after that the steward disappeared leaving no way to get food or drinks for the last 5 hours of the journey.

Our cabin had seen better days, but everything worked as it should and the beds were as comfortable as can be expected.

Old and dirty train. Not on time and confusion because they coupled wrong the carriages 13, 12, 14 The toilets were so disgusting.

This train is a good option for young people and low budget.

12 hour delay static at Dresden with no info. Do not travel with this company.