European Sleeper Reviews 

Just fly!
No reliable service!
They downgrade you and are fare too late!
Just fly
We tried for eco reasons but this service is far below standard.
Fly!

The train was old no plugs for all 4 people but came to Milano exactly on time

Great experience. Arrived on time, pleasant host. All worked really well. Great to travel by train again!!

Never use this train company. They are scammers! First, I had to spend 3 hours at Amsterdam station because the train was supposedly delayed. Then, out of nowhere, they emailed all passengers telling them to travel to Arnhem instead. As a result, I lost €22. Because of their incompetence, I also missed my connecting train in Berlin and lost another €80. I was left desperately trying to find alternative transport at the last minute. Absolutely terrible service. Avoid this company!

If I could give this a zero, I would. Brussels to Prague…..
firstly, the train left Brussels 2.5hours late.
Secondly, we booked, and paid for, Comfort Plus - which not only did not appear to exist, but the carriage it was meant to be in was not attached to the train! Without prior warning (surely they knew carriage 16 was not attached long before we embarked!!!) we were put into a Classic which was uncomfortable and absolutely filthy!
There was a member of staff who we complained to, but she was unable to help.
After a not-so-comfortable sleepless night, we were hopeful we might arrive in Prague a couple of hours later than scheduled… but no, it was decided that the train would terminate in Dresden and we were all herded off and stuck on coaches for the remainder of the journey!!!! Unacceptable and disgusting! We will NEVER travel with ES again.

Went from A to B on our route. Met interesting people. Convenient way to travel long distances. Company's communication in Brusels station (Train was 2 hours late but fortunately caught up over night) No one was saying why the train was late and no interest from the staff at the station even when going to the help desk. They seemed to think it was nothing to do with them - very odd customer service.

We were eager to try this new option connecting Milano and Brussels. Unfortunately, the service and comfort on board (the train wagons are literally from the 1980s) is not commensurable with the cost and flying remains the better option.

We tried to order food many times and could not find a person to take the order. We did get a couple snacks right after we got on the train but could not get dinner or breakfast. We finally found someone that told us to order from QR code and quickly disappeared. We had already tried to order from QR code and there wasn’t an option for that. I finally decided to scan the WT code on the door at the kitchen prep area and was able to order an hour before getting off the train and I could order from there which means the QR code in our cabin is the wrong one. Our heat was broken the entire time and they said they can’t get it fixed. So we were hungry and cold all night

Milan–Brussels train. Perfect if you want to experience an 1980s-style journey, with a touch of Gastarbeiter.

No internet.
No electricity. No water.
Vintage, dusty seats, poor cleanliness, and most of the toilets closed for some mysterious reason.

The one-hour unscheduled stops somewhere towards Switzerland are also a lovely touch, bringing back that 20th-century feeling of uncertainty. Are these border checks? A technical failure? Will we ever get to our destination?

And, if you're lucky, you'll also get a French couple talking non-stop throughout the journey.

A truly nostalgic travel experience. (2 stars cause somehow we arrived on time [ 5 minutes delay])

I'm a huge fan of trains. When I found out that there would be a nonstop train connection from by country of residence to my country of birth, I knew I could not miss it.

I traveled in the 4-people compartment from Brussels to Lugano. The lower bunk bed is not comfortable at all, as it's pretty short and quite narrow, which makes sleeping difficult for side sleepers like me. Cabins are not really soundproof and light from outside comes in, so I strongly recommend bringing earplugs and an eye mask. The toilets are very small and were not in a proper condition towards the end of the journey. On a positive note, the staff was very nice and had lovely traveling companions, what in the end made the trip pretty enjoyable. I arrived a little less than 1h late in Lugano and believe I was lucky as this train has a terrible on-time performance. It is a special way of traveling though, going to sleep in Germany and waking up in the Swiss Alps! I would recommend it only if you know that you will have good travel companions and you have plenty of time to spare in case of delays.

This is the second time we used the European Sleeper (first time was in 2024 Brussels-Prague). This time we we went from/to Brussels-Como (to Como:19/10 and back on 23/10). The first trip was delayed for 1,5 hours in Brussels, but the return trip was on-time.
PRO:
* This is one of the few sleeper trains in Europe. Such a nice initiative needs to be supported.
* The staff we've encoutered have always been lovely and helpful. Alas sometimes you have to be lucky to be able to find them.
* The bed in the sleeper compartement is really comfortable: their mattress, pillow and duvet are much better than the ones I got on a Nightjet train I took.
* At the first time we took the train in 2024, we only had one power socket in a sleeper (at the washbasin). But this year, there was one extra power socket at the table! Very convenient for charging your phone. Good job!
* In 2024, there was hardly water at the washbasin, but we had very good flow of water this year.
* In 2024, we got stale rolls at breakfast, but we got each a nice sandwich.
* Some dubious person boarded the train in Como on 23/10, who looked very suspicious and were clearly not a passenger of the ES. The staff noticed him as well, and reacted immediately. They led him to a specific place and contacted the police for further investigation. They also assured worried passengers, and immediately checked everyone's ticket to make sure that no other 'unknown passenger' boarded the train.

CON:
* As in 2024, the toilet was again the biggest issue for us. Not all of them were functional and were quite dirty (and got very dirty at the end of the journey). To be fair, the passengers also hold some responsibility in keeping the toilets clean. However, the staff could also do some very needed cleaning work during the trip.
* Although the beds were clean and comfy, the rest of our compartment was quite dirty (table, carpet, seats). Crumbles of previous passengers were left there.

All in all, I really like travelling in a sleeper, and really hope that ES will succeed. I understand they can't really compete with Nightjet, as the later is sponsored by the Austrian government, whereas the ES has to provide the whole budget and organization themselves. They have made nice improvements, and I really hope they can keep improving their quality.

I did sleep very well. The booking process was easy and I got a proper invoice for my company.
However, the breakfast was so early, that it woke everyone up and the train was delayed in Brussels for an hour. Additionally, charging was not working throughout the night.
However, I would book the European Sleeper again.

I wanted to cancel my booking, and when I received an email asking me to confirm the cancellation, I was not able to confirm the cancellation, and I have not received my refund either. Not happy at all, and a system you cannot trust.

Dealing with European Sleeper (ES) customer service has been a bizarre and unnecessarily stressful experience. I can't describe it better than with this song lyric: “Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel. Never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel” (If you know, you know.)

Our train journey was cancelled on the day of departure, forcing us to pay for somewhere to sleep for the night and book different trains to reach our destination. ES refused to reimburse all the (reasonable) costs incurred and wouldn’t explain why.

Over a month since having a refund approved we're still waiting for the HUNDREDS of euros spent on a journey that never happened.

Replies to negative reviews on here are quite frankly, useless: “Email us” or “submit a claim." All this does is send the customers back into the same process they're already stuck in! There's only one email address and only one claim form, no way out of the loop.

ES website directs passengers unhappy with how their complaints have been handled to the ILT and the EU Online Dispute Resolution platform. Yet the ILT doesn’t handle individual disputes, and the EU ODR platform hasn't existed for over a year!

There are also questions about the timescales ES quotes for reimbursement. Article 18(5) of EU Regulation 2021/782 requires certain ticket reimbursements to be paid within 30 days. So why is ES quoting 4–6 weeks on its website and 4–8 weeks directly to customers by email? If these are statutory ticket reimbursements, shouldn’t the 30-day deadline apply?

It’s worth noting that ES received a formal warning from the Centre for European Consumer Protection (ZEV) regarding rejected compensation and alternative transport claims. ES subsequently gave a written commitment to improve. If customers are still experiencing problems with ES, ZEV says they can report them directly.

Very poor informatiom & help from staff when boarding. Overcrowded train. Accommodation not what we paid for. Cabins still made up from previous journey complete with a bloodied sheet. Cleatnly no cleankng betwern journies. Staff few and far between. One family preferred to get off and and fly home. No electricity in cabins so no possibility of charging phones. No onboard refreshment service. None of the experience was as is advertised. Long delays throughout the journey. And some inspection of the train underside by engineers was rather disconcerting. A dreadful journey. Save on the considerable expense and fly instead.

Our wagon had a problem which made the entire wagon move out. The problem is that, apart from waiting outside in the cold in the middle of nowhere for around 2 hours, we were told there was no more sleeping cabines, and that we were to take the spare spaces left in other wagons. So I paid for a sleeping cabine only to be demoted to a seat for 8h-10h. Terrible communication, very bad customer service, I expect a full refund but from how it looks it seems like a long battle.

You can't cancel your ticket a couple of days before your departure so I had to take the train back and it was announced around 1h30 late so I went to order a coffee IN THE STATION and after 30m I went back on platform only to find out the train left ?? Me and other passengers were completely shocked and lost. I was lucky enough to have enough savings to get another ticket to go back home, but I can't imagine how bad it would've been if that was my only way back. Don't expect anything from the customer service they are absolutely useless.

In conclusion, do not use this service.

I never leave reviews online but this time I make an exception because before travelling with ES I was terrified by all the negative reviews here and I want to reassure other potential travellers :) Our experience was definitely ok, I guess this is the most common experience but people are more likely to leave a review when things go wrong. We (2 parents and 2 children) took the ES from Brussels to Milan in October 2026, using an interrail pass (i.e. only paying the reservation). It left and arrived with a 20-minute delay, not a huge problem. We had the classic couchette with 6 beds reserved for the 4 of us. On our carriage (which includes around 8 couchettes like ours I think) there were 2 toilets and 3 sinks, all functioning and clean, we almost never had to queue. Other passengers were not too noisy. We didn't manage to order food in the morning because you need to do it online and we were in Switzerland with no free roaming (so, better to order food the night before or go to other carriages and look for the conductor). The beds of course are not super comfy (I was initially on the higher bunk and felt myself swaying too much, I had to move down to the middle one) but it's just for one night! We had fun playing games or watching cartoons in our compartment in the morning. The kids loved it and want to do it again! We probably will!

Booking process was very easy, and they communicate with honesty. I fully support the values of this company and am happy that it exists! We had a problem with our departure since they decided to leave much earlier than planned, and the trains themselves are a bit old and tired, but happy to support it and hopefully further fundraising will also help to improve the trains and services.

All okay. But a Little to long waiting time in front of cologne station…

Great young company, great website and proposition.
The train needs to modernise and some more live information need to be given. For the rest, it was a great nigt trip and I will do it again soon for a next destination.