The biggest potential disaster of the trip was not getting the night train tickets in time. I bought the tickets online, only as I checked out did it say you cannot print them, but the must be mailed. It said you need 8 days, we had 10 so ever the optomist, I bought the tickets and crossed my fingers.
You guessed it the tickets did not arrive before our flight to Prague.
In Budapest they were not very helpful, I'd bought the tickets from Bann.de the Germany railway. All they said was to buy another set of tickets. Thankfully there was space, so having paid for two triple cabins we did leave Budapest as planned.
We we arrived in Berlin we went straight to the Bann office and applied for a refund. I figured, better to do it in person rather than via the phone when we are back in Boston.
The train was great, much less hassle than airports and security. Initially the cabin was setup with 3 seats, we had our own little sink (the oringinal reservation had a private bathroom, annoyingly the initial reservation was the next cabin, and there is a connecting door, obviously they would not unlock it). When we were ready to sleep we called the attendant, he quickly stowed the seats & folder down the beds.
The European night train system is brilliant, our train was posted as Budapest to Berlin, but they also served other destinations. Some of the carriages are split off and go to Warsaw and other cities, it means you can sleep and you don't need to change trains in the middle of the night.