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Hello all, my husband and I will arrive in Zurich at 7:45am on Wed., 9/7. We will have slept on our overnight flight from Dallas so we will be ready to walk around Zurich for a few hours, get our bearings, eat, and move on to the natural beauty of Switzerland. I took the advice of this site and added up the known trips at full fare and then tried to compare the costs based on the different passes. I’d like advice based on our tentative locations.
Wed. – arrive Zurich, walk around, lunch, train to Appenzell (sleep Appenzell Wed. night)
Thurs – enjoy Appenzell then train to Luzern/Lucerne for the night (sleep Luzern Thursday and Friday)
Fri – explore Luzern
Sat – day trip to Fort Furigen (Stansstad), train to Berner-Oberland (sleep Gimmelwald Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday)
Sun – explore
Mon – explore
Tues – explore
Wed – steam boat to Chillon Castle and spend the day (sleep Villeneuve or Montreux)
Thurs – train to Geneva airport for 1:15pm flight home
I certainly appreciate any feedback on this topic and my tentative itinerary. I’ve tried to figure out the trips I know about based on our itinerary, and the fares without any discount, to see if the HFC or the (8 day) STP would be the best bargain.
I’m sure I’ve made some errors, but here’s what i figured:
Full fare/no discounts: $470/person (without any discount figured to visit Jungfroujoch, I figured around $250 for that trip).
8-day STP: $587.50/person ($400/STP + 187.50/25% Jungfoujoch discount = $587.50/person).
HPC: $493.50/person ($134/HPC + $234/fares + $125/50% discount for Jungfrou)
If I’m close to being correct, the cheapest seems to be paying full fare for our short stay. We don’t plan to visit any museaums or sites other than those listed. IF we did, it would likley be a chocolate or cheese factory; but our main priority is walks among the amazing scenery and the top of the world. Please, feel free to point out my errors! I really want to be a good steward of our finances 🙂
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Hi BrendaGirl, thanks for joining MySwissAlps!
It’s hard to tell if your calculations are correct. You’d need to list all plans for each day of your stay, including the remaining days in Gimmelwald. Only then you can start calculating and make a fair comparison. Each day trip and town-to-town transfer should be included, and looking at your numbers I don’t think that’s the case yet.
Details are important. For example: exploring Lucerne could mean that you make a walk in the town (for free) or visit Pilatus (pretty expensive).
In nearly all cases it’s cheaper to buy a rail pass instead of normal full-fare tickets. This will certainly apply to your 8-day stay in Switzerland too. I think both the Swiss Half Fare Card (https://www.myswissalps.com/swisshalffarecard) as well as the Swiss Travel Pass (https://www.myswissalps.com/swisstravelpass) can work out for you. The Swiss Travel Pass offers more flexibility. You can hop on and off trains, buses and boats without tickets whenever and wherever you like, and adjust your plans on the spot if weather or other circumstances force you to.
If you want to make a detailed calculation, my advice would be to first complete your plans, and then follow this step-by-step guide to make a comparison: https://www.myswissalps.com/train/ticketspasses/practical/chooserailpass. You can fill out the free downloadable sheet. If you’re still in doubt then, you can attach it here or make a screenshot.
Suggestions for trips in the Jungfrau region during your stay in Gimmelwald can be found here: https://www.myswissalps.com/jungfrauregion/activities.
Does this help you out?
Arno,
Yes, so helpful and very kind! I did want the flexibility to decide in the moment and the freedom to hop on/off and make changes as needed due to weather. I appreciate the links as well. Thank you for your time and trouble 🙂
Brenda
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