travel from prague to poprad and back

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hello, we are a family of 5. we want to travel from Prague to Poprad and back with a stop on the way back for 2 days in the area of mala fatra (zilinia)l.
we want to find a cheap way to travel. originally we wanted to take the night train, but saw it is very expensive.
more information:
dates: leave on Monday, April 25th, return on Saturday, April 30th at night.
the children ages: 21,17. 12.
one of us might come back separately before the others.
thank you for your help

we want to find a cheap way to travel. originally we wanted to take the night train, but saw it is very expensive.

Well, it depends what to compare it with. In case you decide to travel with the state railways companies, then minimum price will be 19 euro (ticket + 6 berth couchette reservation) per passenger, thus making it around 100 euro for all five (in case you prefer sleepers, then it will be min. 25 euro per person). However great thing about Czech-Slovakia connection is that it's not monopolized by state rail companies, thus you can travel also with private one. E.g. RegioJet which offers tickets for the overnight Prague to Poprad for as low as 10 euro (seats), 13,60 euro (couchettes) or 23,60 euro (sleepers). What it means is that all five can travel for as low as 61,20 (5 berths in 6 berth couchette) or 106,20 (3 bed sleepers).

Overnight vs. day time dilemma: during daytime cheapest discounted ticket you can get will cost you 66 euro (1795 CZK) with state railways or already mentioned 40,50 euro with RegioJet

and back with a stop on the way back for 2 days in the area of mala fatra (zilinia)l

You can purchase same discounted tickets from Zilina to Prague as well, it will be even cheaper then Prague-Poprad with state railways. The only thing you should take into consideration that Zilina to Prague it's just 5-max.6 hours journey with overnight trains, thus it might not be very comfortable night (e.g. boarding the train at half past midnight and getting off at 6am)

on leg Poprad-Zilina (or maybe some earlier station like Ruzomberok?) you can just go with Slovak domestic tickets or perhaps even rely on buses (depends on where exactly in Little Fatra you need)

one of us might come back separately before the others.

Not a problem, just purchase a separate ticket and that's all

And there is even another train-operator on this route, leo express: www.le.cz, which runs a daytime and overnight train as far as Kosice, this train has normal seats only.
On RJet you can book from 2 month before, on le longer time before. Prices are comparable.

And there is even another train-operator on this route

Yep, we are aware, but for the overnight journeys RegioJet definitely wins, since it offers very cheap couchettes & sleepers as well as better schedule (with Leo it's no overnight option at all when traveling from Prague to Zilina and 3am dep. when going from Zilina to Prague)

Thank you very much for your help!
another question I have is - if we want to stop in Zilina for two days on the way back, do we have to buy 3 seperate tickets for every person (prague - poprad, poprad - zilina, zilina - prague)? or is it possible to buy a two way ticket prague-poprad and make a stop on the way?
Thanks again

if we want to stop in Zilina for two days on the way back, do we have to buy 3 seperate tickets for every person (prague - poprad, poprad - zilina, zilina - prague)? or is it possible to buy a two way ticket prague-poprad and make a stop on the way?

Well, it is possible to purchase tickets, which will allow a stopover. However in your case it will be cheaper to go with 3 separate combinations of tickets (for CZ-SK & SK-CZ you can get discounted tickets, while for Poprad-Zilina just an ordinary Slovak domestic ticket either from ZSSK or RegioJet).
Just to give an example: a)RegioJet (discounted ticket for couchette 13,6 euro per passenger or 61,20 euro for all 5), then either ZSSK domestic Poprad-Zilina (26,24 euro for all if purchased via ZSSK website) or RegioJet Slovakia domestic (13,80 euro for all 5) and finally 30.04 Zilina-Prague (again 61,20 euro if you go with couchette); b) ticket Prague-Poprad-Prague allowing stopover (e.g. in Zilina) will cost you about 200 euro + you'll have to purchase separately couchette/sleeper reservations

Thanx a lot. This is very helpful!