Traveling FIRST CLASS on the GERMAN ICE LUXURY TRAIN

Never is any atmosphere when it’s German run, unless beer is involved… don’t hate me… FACT 😂

Before visiting a country, please understand/ deal with the culture. Data, photo and filming of persons is a different case in germany, the people don’t like that if you don’ t ask them.

The Leipzig Hbf is huge and truly impressive. Unfortunately, in toto it's not all that busy -- many unused tracks. At least today, it's "more Bahnhof" than is needed for that size of city. By contrast, Frankfurt/Main Hbf is an absolute mess in terms of crowdedness. An unpleasant experience there.

ICE = Intercity Express is not at all a luxury train, it is just a quicker one than others due to less stops. Other trains are Intercity trains (IC), Regional Express (RE) and normal regional trains (RB= Regionalbahn). The video shows an ICE of DB = Deutsche Bahn = German Railways, there are competitors like Flixtrain for instance, which has some german wide services, and regional train companies. Their service classes may be very different to what you see in this video.

The ICE service started in the 1990ties. Still some trains are of that time, maybe refurbished, but there are new editions all the time. The train in this video is obviously an older one.

Normally there are two first class cars, one restaurant car, and 5 or more 2nd class cars. You will find at least one "silence" car, where the use of mobile phones or even talking should be avoided (this car is always the fullest), and other cars, where you could also find a special compartment for families travelling with kids.
Automatic seat reservation fills the train from the restaurant car to the end, which means, car 26 will be always fuller than car 23, because 26 is neighbouring the restaurant car.

There are double ICEs, too, so you will find one train set from car 21 to 28 and a second one with car 31 to 38. Watch out to sit in the right part, as some trains split at a certain station (e.g. at Hamm station, where one part of the train heads to Cologne and the other part to Dusseldorf).

The latest edition of ICE trains has 13 cars and has more than 900 seats.

There are excellen sprinter services between metropol cities. A trip from Berlin to Munich takes just about 4 hours, which is much faster than by airplane, considering, that the airports are far away of either city center and you have to be at your depature airport very well in time to get through the security and find your depature gate, which could be quite a walk. Not talking about the time you need to collect your luggage, which is restricted to a certain amount of kilos.

Even though DB owns the biggest part of the cake and has international services, they prefer to make complete announcement in german and very short (if so) announcements in english. That is even more common in former east Germany and the staff is not so up-to-date as in other situations, too.
His train journey started in Leipzig and I bet the staff was from that area = east Germany. Travelling in Cologne area is just fun, because of the staff.



Talking about announcements: the pandemic crisis forced some flight attendants to change there company. Once you hear an announcement as if you were on board of an aircraft, you definitely are lucky enough to have a very motivated former airliner onboard.

I have been travelling with DB since the 1980ties and lived in small towns, where a regular train service was the only connection to the rest of the world (Germany). Glad for every station they keep up. Thank you, Deutsche Bahn. Keep on going!

Btw: you are very german over and over. Make peace with that in your heart, where ever you are.

I think there are big prejudices that germans are everytime very grumpy. I dont have thia feeling at all, they literally dont want to get filmed and to be in the internet without their permission

I laughed when you mentioned having to pay for public toilets in Germany, because it's the same in Hungary. I hate it! Beautiful train station, though!

Toilets in train station used to be incredibly horrible places in the past, so at least they're clean nowadays.
I guess it has less to to with the fact that they were not cleaned regularly before but the people who were responsible for the horrible conditions are not willing to pay.

The charge for using the toilet is paying for the upkeep, toilet paper, soap and the cleaning staff that keep it looking presentable. If you have a public toilet that is free of charge chances are that they may be dirty as hell with people peeing in all corners but the actual toilet bowl (and you will smell that!) or junkies shooting something up their system in there. This goes under the hashtag "the ugly truth"

I thought it was Milan has the largest train station

I grew up in Germany so none of this bothers me. I’m very use to it.

You have to pay for toilet because when it is for free, it will smell disgusting and cleaning is not so often.

I like the Starbucks station lounge but not the coffee. Thanks for showing beautiful classic room.

I paid to use toilets in UK and other parts of Europe, but the restrooms were clean as opposed to the filthy free public toilets in USA.

Where are you from?

As far as Josh's 'rant' about Germans, me, as a German, I strongly agree about almost everything. But whenever I leave Germany, I kind of miss the miserable Germans. That's why I go back and forth.

hello thank you for the video! it was very interesting, but can i ask if the first class seats can be adjusted in terms of elevation? like those on the planes! :)

Yeah, Germans are sometimes to serious about their data protection (Datenschutz), but the most stupid thing that I met was at the grocery shop. The worker at the shop forbid me to take photos inside the shop, and according to the law he had right to do that. I really don't understand, what it will be for the shop, if I just take couple of photos of the food for my friend? What can I do later illegal with those photos?

Nice presentation! Great vlog! I am a new subscriber to your channel. Greetings from Plano, Texas, United States.

Hey Josh
Just a little constructive feedback.
Unfortunately,I didn’t wait for you to get on the train. The first problem I encountered, you showed us the DB lounge but because you couldn’t afford the ticket price you couldn’t enter and show us the lounge. If people are watching a travel vlog they want to see it not just be told it exists.
The final straw was your complaints about spying a single euro to take a pee as the toilets in Germany are all pay to use. It’s actually a great system, it ensures the toilets are well maintained and generally very clean. Complaining and wishing it was different doesn’t entice me to want to watch more.

Instead of just complaining, you could also inform yourself about the local legal situation first, before travelling to a foreign country in order to film there. It's not that hard, you know...

1 Euro to pee! Wow.

Americans are not train people.. that mode of transportation went out during the cowboy days of 1800... we are advance now and prefer individuality of automobiles and flying... trains only are for people with nostalgic towards days gone by...

Fuck Germany charging for toilets. As long as you’re near a major station the trick is to go and find a train that isn’t due to depart for a while and use the toilet on the train. I did this several times on my recent trip. It’s barbaric to charge someone to go to the toilet.

I am German and I also think it's rude to film people without their permission. I'd be mad as well.

In the UK you have to pay to use the loo in a lot of places - hence why the phrase "I'm off to spend a penny" is frequently used

Sorry, the ICE isn't a luxury train. If that were so, pretty much every Swiss train would be luxury...

I dont know where you live now... I was thinking a bit like you about the Germans before I have seen the half world. And now I like that "privacy" behavior. I miss it even when I am very long away... Also... Germans seem not very friendly in the first moment. But its only that they are not hypocrite like many other Europeans who say "Hi, how ya doin" in the first moment, but dont mean it.

Germans are smart, par a euro to pee, and make it clean and basically safe!

Not every German is unfriendly and scared of cameras 🙃

Germans don't like being filmed without their permission. I think it's refreshing as I hate it as well as you are loading this on the internet for everyone to see them. As for paying for toilets, I was at the Brussels station and you had to pay as well. The toilets were better than any US ones.

Someone should make filming people without their permission illegal in Southern California! SOCAL channel focuses of faces and decolletage, specially! Your videos should be reported to the German authorities.
Josh, you are a cheapo and typical millennial.

Exactly. It’s ridiculous they still don’t have free public toilets. I don’t understand. Even many Asian country has

Josh, you are so right, that's why most of us left Germany. Terrible society, arrogant behaves most unfriendly. I would never go back there. If you travel around the world and compare what you see and get to Germany, Germany is near the bottom of the list.

Josh, i dont like you Eather, you seem pretty arrogant so stay away from Germany, why you even Come🤣🤣🤣

Coolest Starbuck I have been to is the First one in Seattle

You don't like Germany and never want to come back. No need of you people in Germany. That's the attitude why German economy is strong and Germans are are more efficient and well-educated than you Brits.
Tell me why Germany is still growing & Mad UK is in recession!
Ha...ha......ha ha ha

About paying to pee in Deutschland... go to France and you can pee on the street for free! yippee!

Much appreciated providing the guidance and information.

I just watched this video, three years after you uploaded it. I visited Berlin and Munster in 2015. I had a great time. No one was disrespectful to me because of my black skin. I noticed there were so many foreigners in Berlin. Turkish was the second most widely spoken language in Berlin when I visited. Munster was nice as well. I stayed in a small town called Rinkerode. There were hardly any immigrants living there and very little English was spoken. Despite all that, I managed to get by and enjoyed my holiday.

Germans are always very unfriendly, dont worry, it's their nature to misbehave in an extreme way.
They love blocking seats for us disabled people for example and when you ask them, if they could stand up "please," as you are obviously disabled (in my case) and show your disablility card, they even attack you highly aggressive.
Really rude people there.
One time I got even beaten and spit. I have been to so many countries, but never seen such people.
Don't return, best advice, and of course, don't use public transport there.
🎉

It's not that luxurious though in ICE first class... No food included and often the order system in the WiFi terminal doesn't even work so you'll have to walk to the bistro or restaurant car anyway. Now I don't mean to say that's so terrible but on routes between Brussels and cologne for example they constantly tell you to watch out for pick pockets so traveling alone and leaving your luggage at your seat to get food and drinks it's a bit unfortunate. And this is a consistent problem with many DB trains in my opinion

Immigrants from Africa hijacked every toilet in Europe to make some on the side. 🤣Amsterdam,Switzerland,France,Germany,everywhere. Africans need to count euros, they are the people of the toilet in a land of free enterprise.

So funny to hear your opinion of German people 😂 as a Canadian I find them so nice and straight to the point

The main perk of First Class is that it is much quieter and less crowded than Standard Class. It is definitely worth paying the extra if it is only around 10 to 15 Euros.