Hi Travelsmoo –
<<“I know I’m planning way in advance”>>
For what you are doing, it is a good idea. You become familiar with the tools – especially the timetable – so that a change of plans or a need to coordinate at the last minute if someone’s plane is late does not cause panic, but, rather, a check of the information available to support the change.
(At least the Swiss have provided a lot of ways to survive at the airport or main train stations if you have to wait).
That is also happening for me. I knew a lot about how to plumb the depths of the old timetable , which I used on my desktop computer. That was how I did my trip planning. And, thanks to this forum, I was still learning new functions, even after 30 plus years of visiting Switzerland.
Now that they have made it friendly for smart phones, I cannot quickly find a lot of those things that I used to rely on.
<<“My main concern was the logistics of how things work as you have picked up on! You have confirmed my suspicion of getting to First and not enjoying our time there due to “clock watching”.”>>
My main concern is that you were considering plans that required perfection of execution through a wide range of steps, when you had not used the system extensively. One minor glitch and the whole thing could fall apart. Little or no tolerance for mistakes. It is much better to plan with room to miss a connection. If you were making way stops at Zürich main station, which has over 900 luggage lockers, for example, you could count on finding something…99 % of the time, although the large ones (246 of them) sometimes get scarce, And, the left luggage office stays open later than at most stations. In the Jungfrau region you are working with left luggage offices that don’t stay open very late, and cableways that do not run very late in the day (or evening).
As an example of my problems noted above, I can’t yet figure out how to
find the opening hours for left luggage at Zürich on the new format website (which is still being refined – we are all beta- testers).
Now you add the factor of coordinating a group of people, who will likely not have done as much work as you learning the system.
Finally, I mention jet lag.
On my most recent trip, I arrived from the ‘States on Friday morning. On Saturday, I decided to go to St. Gall for lunch at Weinstube zum Baümli, a place with good memories from early trips.
http://www.weinstube-baeumli.ch/Startseite/
I have been there (or to the nearby abbey) several times.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Abbey_library_of_Saint _Gall
I was rushing just a little bit. I ended up going out the wrong side of the main station, and misinterpreted my smartphone map ( I’m more comfortable with paper maps) and never did get there. I finally got back to the station, selected a train back to Zürich that had a restaurant car (symbols for the train in the timetable show restaurant cars), and ate lunch on the way back.
At the end of my trip, I went back again. Not a hitch. The moment I left the train, I knew exactly where to go. I recognized the streets and the lay of the land.
I have 6 hours time difference; if you come from Sydney, you will have 8 hours. It takes a few days for my brain to be able to easily process complex information. I get by with easy stuff, but decision making is slow.
That is why I usually plan my first 2 or 3 days with some detail, checking travel times, sights to see, opening hours, etc.
Switzerland give the information to permit that precision, and the systems are highly reliable. Heavy use of the train systems means that delays – previously unthinkable -now occur once in a while. Especially, during rush hours near the main cities.
Slowpoke