New Schilthorn cable car reservation process
A traveler named Alpenrose shares details about the new guaranteed departure boarding pass for the Schilthorn cable car, which can help avoid long queues. It's essential to purchase this pass the day before your travel; it costs CHF 5 each way and is required for children aged 6 and over. Travelers can also choose to break their journey at Mürren or Birg, but must specify this while booking to receive the necessary boarding passes.
- Buy the boarding pass at least a day before your trip to avoid long waits.
- If you're traveling with children aged 6 and over, remember to purchase a boarding pass for each child.
- Consider booking the boarding pass during peak seasons to save time, as there may be long queues otherwise.
- The Swiss Travel Pass allows free access to the Schilthorn, making it a popular choice among tourists.
AI-generated summary-
It is now possible to book a guaranteed departure time on the Schilthorn cable car, starting from (and returning to) Stechelberg or Mürren.
The boarding pass is optional, and is additional to your Schilthorn cable car ticket or travel pass (e.g. Swiss Travel Pass). The boarding pass enables you to avoid waiting in a queue, by giving you access to a separate turnstile for boarding the cable car at your allocated time.
When and where to buy
Boarding passes must be purchased at the latest on the day before you travel, either at one of the Schilthorn Cableway ticket counters during opening times, or up until 21:00 on the Schilthorn Cableway website.
schilthorn.ch/en/Guara nteed_Departure_Time
If booking on the website, you are sent the boarding pass by email as a PDF. It is not clear whether this needs to be printed out, or whether presenting it on a mobile device is acceptable.
Planning your journey
You can choose to go straight up to the Schilthorn from Stechelberg or Mürren, or to break your journey at Mürren and/or Birg. It is likewise possible to break your journey on the downhill trip.
If you do want to break your journey, you need to specify this at the time of booking, so that you will receive additional boarding passes for the intermediate stations.
Cost
Reservations cost CHF 5 for the uphill journey and CHF 5 for the downhill journey. The cost is the same whether you go direct, or break your journey at Mürren and/or Birg.
If you have children aged 6 and over, you also need to buy a boarding pass for each of them at the same price as for adults.
Travelling to and from the Schilthorn without a reservation
The cable cars between Stechelberg and the Schilthorn have a capacity of 75-100 passengers, of which up to 30 places can be reserved (according to information on the Schilthorn booking system). So it seems the remaining places are still available on a first-come-first-served basis for passengers without reservations.
If you don’t take the cable car for which you have a boarding pass, you don’t get a refund, and the boarding pass expires. If you are still mid-journey (e.g. you stay too long at Birg), you would then have to join the queue of people without boarding passes to continue your journey.
There is more information here:
boardingpass.schilthor n.ch/webshop/whatisabo ardingpass.en.pdf
Alpenrose
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Far out. Thanks for the info AR.
Thanks for the sharing these new details Alpenrose!
I wonder if they are getting much busier this year with Swiss Travel Pass holders traveling free…
That’s great news (boarding pass) as we have only the morning to go up and back to and from the Schilthorn.
From Lauterbrunnen (where we are staying )due to our limited time frame (need to catch a 12:02 train out of Lauterbrunnen to Interlaken Ost are we best to go up and back down the same way?
I had thought there was an earlier departure than 7:55 am but that is the first available boarding pass reservation time? There customer service department said 7:05 was the earliest departure and when I look at the timetable it looks like 7:05 perhaps they are just not taking boarding passes for that early in the morning.
I believe the bus from the hotel in Lauterbrunnen is 20 minutes to Stechelberg to pick up the cable car? So when I look at the timetable is the 7:05 the time of the bus and it leave Lauterbrunnen….and next bus would be every 30 minutes?….
Alpenrose, thank you for sharing this information.
>> thank you for sharing this information
You’re welcome!
Alpenrose
Hi Charwinelove,
The timetable can give you the specific details. You can enter your hotel address and schilthorn as your destination to find the schedule options on your day of departure. It looks like 07:05 is the first bus departure from Lauterbrunnen and then it shows connections every 30 minutes thereafeter.
Thanks for sharing Alpenrose. My wife and I are planning our next trip and she wanted to include this.
Alan
Thanks for this information.
I am wondering now how necessary this is. We will be in Murren June 22. How long is the typical queue?
>> I am wondering now how necessary this is. We will be in Murren June 22. How long is the typical queue?
There’s no such thing as a typical queue, as it varies according to the season. In September 2016, which is just after the high season, I think I would have spent about 45 minutes in the queue at Mürren, and longer than that at Stechelberg. Cable cars run every half hour, so if you don’t get onto the first one after you arrive in the queue, you have at least another half-an-hour to wait for the next one. Coming down, the person in front of me was the last one allowed to board, so I had to wait for the next one, having already been in the queue for the best part of half-an-hour. I got off at Birg for a while, and I think I was able to get on to the next cable car that departed after I joined the queue there.
Late June will be pretty busy I would think, as it is the start of the high season. The Schilthorn is free with the Swiss Travel Pass this year for the first time and is sure to attract even more people than in the past. That is most likely the reason they have introduced the optional reservation system.
There will be queues at Stechelberg, Mürren and also probably at the Lauterbrunnen-Grütschalp cable car. At Mürren, you have not only the people who have just arrived on the cable car from Stechelberg, but also those who have arrived via cable car and train Lauterbrunnen-Grütshcalp-Mürren, as well as people staying in Mürren.
Whether or not to reserve is a personal choice, but if you value your time, and are travelling in peak season, it’s probably a good idea.
Alpenrose
>> Thanks for sharing Alpenrose
My pleasure! Enjoy your trip to the Schilthorn – hope you have clear weather!
Alpenrose
Thank you Alpenrose! I didn’t know this yet. I’m not surprised that they offer this now that the trip is free with a Swiss Travel Pass, and more tourists preferring doing things as quickly as possible. I have updated our page http://www.myswissalps.com/sc hilthorn/tickets.
Alpenrose, thanks for responding to my question. I was hoping we could be spontaneous and not make too many reservations or spend most of our day waiting in lines, but I guess the region may be more Disney-like than I had expected. At least now I have more realistic expectations.
Thanks
I think Disney lines in the summer are multiple hours of waiting – you shouldn’t have that! 🙂
Question on the reservation….
For my return route I am looking at taking the 10:03 reservations which put me in Murern at 10:15….then I would walk through the village and find the train to Grutschalp and then at Grutschalp take the cable car to Lauterbrunnen.
When I am making my selection I assume I select Schilthorn to Murren, however do I have reservations still for the train to Grutschalp and the cable car to Lauterrunnen or would I be in the que for that portion. Or should I be selecting a different option
The only three choices Stechelberg, Murren or Birg for the downhill return?
My uphill travel is, Lauterbrunnen by bus to Stechelberg
Stechelberg via Cable car to Gimmewald
Gimmewald to Murren – switch to another cable car
Switch to another cable car in Murren for Birg
Birg to Schilthorn
4 different cable cars?
Can you advise on the return which destination point I should select please.
Hi Charwinelove,
The boarding passes are for the cable car only. You can board the train, normally without queues (not heard of that anyway).
Yes, 4 cable cars. The switches are very easy, no worries. On the return journey your destination is Mürren as that’s where you plan to walk over to the train station to take the other route down to Lauterbrunnen.
Thanks lucas, that is a plus 🙂 we are staying in murren, so perhaps if we decide on going to Schilthorn we will go first thing in AM.
If you purchase this on line, the day before, will you be able tojust show the pass on your phone?
Hi Gail,
>> If you purchase this on line, the day before, will you be able tojust show the pass on your phone?
I mentioned this above in the paragraph under the heading When and where to buy 🙂
If booking on the website, you are sent the boarding pass by email as a PDF. It is not clear whether this needs to be printed out, or whether presenting it on a mobile device is acceptable.
Alpenrose
Hi Gail,
When using the Swiss Travel Pass you still need to go to the ticket office and be issued with a ticket. We got caught out a couple of weeks ago using the STP when we travelled up to Murren via Lauterbrunnen and Grutschalp just having to show our STP. When we got to Murren we went straight to the cable car queue and just missed out on getting on(so waited around 30 mins ) and it was only as we tried to go through with a huge queue behind us, we were told that we needed a ticket.!!! Fortunately a kind official rushed back and got us tickets so that we didn’t have to wait another 30 mins/ 60 mins.
The large queues were on a Saturday in early May with about 50% being skiers taking advantage of good end of season snow.
Tim
It looks like there is a bus from Lauterbrunnen to Stechelberg that says it arrives at Stechelberg, Schilthornbahn at 7:47. Is it reasonable to get a reserved time to the Schilthorn at 7:55? Are the two places right next to each other? Or should we get the next later time to make sure we have time to make it?
Thanks!
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