Scandinavia - is ScanRail the best?

[WillTravel]

I am going on a trip with my 16-year-old son around Scandinavia.

Our itinerary is like this. I have put an asterisk beside the segments that could use ScanRail.

June 28 - Arrive in London
June 29 - Ryanair to Aarhus
*July 1 - Aarhus to Copenhagen (we might also take the ferry/bus combo)
*July 3 - Copenhagen - Roskilde - Copenhagen (day trip)
*July 6 - Copenhagen - Malmo
*July 7 - Malmo - Gothenburg
*July 9 - Gothenburg - Oslo
July 12 - Ryanair back to London
July 14 - London to home

When I price the *segments on the www.dsb.dk and www.tagplus.se the total prices seem less than we would pay for a ScanRail pass. When I price these segments using the RailEurope.com site, they come up to more. Is there any way I can pay the European prices for these tickets?

Also, how far in advance would it be reasonable to have to book and reserve these tickets?

Thanks for your help. No matter how many sites I look at, I tend to fear I am missing something important.

[Kim]

RaileEurope marks up their prices, which is why it ends up being more with them. You can get the European price by just going to the station and purchasing point to point tickets.

Kim

[WillTravel]

Thanks Kim. Do I have to purchase the tickets weeks in advance, or is buying them the same morning likely to work?

[Kim]

Here's what I would do.. buy your first tickets (the one from Aarhus to Copenhagen) the day you get there, just to get it out of the way.

Then, while you are at the station buying those, ask the person working whether they think it's a good idea to buy advance tickets for any of your trips. You could even buy them all at once the first day, if your trip is really set in stone.

Kim

[WillTravel]

Would they be able to sell me tickets for use within Sweden when I was in Denmark?

[WillTravel]

I phoned RejseBureau (a Danish number available at http://www.dsb.dk).

It seems there are indeed cheaper options if you buy them direct as Kim said above. However, the best discounts are if you buy them 7 days in advance, which we clearly can't do if we wait until we get there.

So the agent recommended we purchase them now and have them mailed to us to get the cheapest prices. They can sell us the full Scandinavian itinerary. I am not sure if she was authorized to say this, but she gave me an email address to write to.

She also seemed to say that reservations were necessary (not sure I understood this part).

[nitsansh]

If reservation is necessary, that means you should make reservation for a specific train to be able to ride it.
Does that apply to all trains?

[WillTravel]

nitansh, I don't know if all trains require reservation. However, it appears that the Copenhagen-Malmo train should be booked in advance at least.

Here are our current plans:
Purchase train tickets at the DSB office in Aarhus on June 30. We get a discount if purchased 7 days in advance, so I hope our itinerary is in the range. I think it will be. We'll make any suggested reservations at this time. We can purchase all of our tickets at this office (or so we have been told).

Take a bus/ferry from Aarhus-Copenhagen on July 1. (See http://www.abildskou.dk)

Take Copenhagen-Malmo train on July 6.

Take Malmo-Goteborg train on July 7.

Take Goteborg-Oslo train on July 9.

We will get the Copenhagen-Roskilde-Copenhagen round trip by train as part of our Copenhagen Card package (which we will probably purchase in Copenhagen).

This whole itinerary ends up being considerably cheaper than both of us getting ScanRail passes.

[nitsansh]

There is no need for reservation for Copenhapen-Malmo. This journey takes 35 minutes (between central stations), and there are trains 3 times an hour from 5AM to midnight.
No need for reservation for any train between Copenhagen and Roskilde either.
From Aarhus to Copenhagen, reservation is compulsory on the faster LYN trains, but not for IC and other trains.
Malmo - Goteborg: no reservation required for any direct train.
Goteborg - Oslo: no reservation required.

Perhaps the agent meant that you need to travel on specific trains to benefit from the APEX discount.

[WillTravel]

Thanks nitsansh - it's hard to keep this all straight, but that makes sense.