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Hello all
I would like to sum up my recent visit to Switzerland. I visited Switzerland with my wife from 25th August to 28th August 2018, that is 3 nights and 4 days. To sum up, the visit was amazing, incredible and memorable for the lifetime.
All the tips that I had gathered from this forum were useful. Almost everything went as per plan.
The three-day swiss rail pass was the best decision. We could travel anywhere on any train, bus or boat without wasting any time for buying the ticket (except for Jungfrau where we spent about 10-15 minutes for ticketing).
We found people very helpful and co-operative. Staff at train stations, bus stops, SBB counters, on the train, everywhere Swiss personnel were a great help. This is what makes Switzerland a tourist-friendly country. Keep up the good work.
First day: we visited Mount Titlis: since it was cloudy and raining, we could not see beautiful sceneries, but when we reached the top, it was snowing. My wife witnessed snowing the first time in her life and was very excited. We took some fantastic pictures of snow and had a great time up there playing in the snow.
The second day: we visited Jungfrau. The sky was very clear on this Sunday and we witnessed some mesmerizing sceneries from Luzern to Interlaken. Even from Interlaken Oast onwards everywhere, the mountains and snow-
cladded cliffs provided perfect fascinating views for our pictures. Up there at Jungfrau we followed the sign of “tour” and everything went almost smooth. Ice cave, Ice palace was too good to be photographed. We went out in the snow and played with snow. Here also we were helped by some people so I and my wife were photographed together, even holding the Swiss flag!!!! Of course, it took about 4 and a half hours to travel each way from Luzern and back. A lot of time indeed!!Third day: we travelled to Andermatt and took Glacier Express and travelled from Andermatt to Chur. After 2 days of hectic travel, it was really good to sit on a panoramic train with beautiful and gripping scenes on both sides. Weather on Monday was clear and sunny, helping us to catch some splendid photographs. On return to Luzern, we went boating for 2 hours and enjoyed every moment of it (in the blue water !!!).
Fourth day: we left for Zurich to continue our travel to the US.
While everything went very smooth on the sightseeing, we had a lot of issues in our accommodation. Being vegetarian, we had rented a studio apartment in Luzern. A basic facility like induction hot plate did not work. Message sent was not responded. Could not locate wi-fi password. I was promised luggage can be stored at around 10.30 am, but was kept waiting on the staircase for over half an hour just to store the luggage.
On my return, I was asked to provide feedback. When I provided the feedback, the apartment personnel are behaving in a very offensive and abusive manner. They say wi-fi password was on the 14th page of the instruction manual (as if I visited Switzerland to read their manual page by page and line by line, and not for sight-seeing !!!). How unhelpful they can be. They deny having received any mail about hot plate issues.
And here I have a question for the forum. How can I deal with this apartment personnel? I have paid a huge sum of money for 3 nights. Since basic amenities like the hot plate and wi-fi password were not provided, I have demanded a refund of money. Apartment personnel are refusing to accept any shortcoming on their part. Is there any tribunal where I can lodge a complaint against the apartment personnel? I seek your advice.
Regards
Rakesh Upadhyay
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Hi Rakesh-
Glad to hear that Switzerland provided wonderfully scenic journeys…and, snow in August! I’m sorry to hear there were problems with the accommodations.
I can understand that you would not enjoy reading a long instruction manual, but, many countries use a lot of documents , both to avoid miscommunications and provide the terms of the contract.
Unfortunately, I personally don’t believe that you have any recourse on the issue of the password. They provided it.
On the issue of the hotplate, it does sound like the renters did not fulfill their obligations.
Rudeness is unpleasant, at the least. It would surprise me if it were actionable. I have never experienced it while traveling in Switzerland, but, it is indeed sad and disagreeable. Whether you have any recourse is unclear to me.
Certainly, I’d publish a review on some suitable web site.
Slowpoke
Thanks, Slowpoke for the response.
Do you want me to provide the name of the apartment? Please let me know.
I would definitely like to publish my experience with this apartment personnel
Rakesh
Hi Rakesh-
You could put it in a Trip Report, I suppose; it is up to you. There are other websites with extensive lists of reviews. It might fit better there. Certinly, I never hesitate to mention the name of a place that I like.
Let’s see if Arno has any concerns
Slowpoke
Hi,
Very happy to hear you had a great trip with the sights. Switzerland is such a beautiful country indeed.
It is unfortunate you had issues with the apartment. If you want to publish a review, I suggest you do it on TRIPADVISOR which is a great sight to read up on visitors experiences of a particular accomodation. However, as with everything online, one has to make a judgement as to the authenticity of a review. But by and large, Tripadvisor has been a great place to check out many accomodations.
You just google the name of your apartment followed by the word Tripadvisor or Reviews. If it is listed on the site, you can join (free) and type your review. To be fair to both sides, Tripadvisor allows the management are free to respond to a negative or positive review of their accomodation. Then its ultimately up to the reader to make a judgement call. .
if I am not mistaken, you can also leave a review on google. Google for the apartment and on the google map or somewhere in there, you can leave a review. If you selected the apartment from Myswissalps, I am sure the admin here will take note.
I always bear in mind that establishments do depend on good reviews. So unless the establishment is very rude and unreasonable, certain negative points can be worded more as constructive criticism rather than taking out one’s unhappiness through a totally sour report.
However, if the owners were really rude, aggressive or very unreasonable, then its fine to state why you feel that way. I agree with Lucas that since the Password was given on the documentation, you will have very little reason to expect a refund because of that. The hob is a different issue though – its unfortunate you couldn’t be verbally in touch with the staff duting the stay.
Hi Rakesh,
Sounds like a mostly lovely 4 day trip to Switzerland. Great to hear you got to see some snow and enjoyed your time in the country.
Unfortunate indeed about the apartment issues. Did you book privately or through a 3rd party like AirBnB?
I booked my accommodation through Booking.com but the apartment owner persuaded us to book directly claiming it would be 10% cheaper.Nowi am not sure if we will work short changed
Hm yes, In that case I suppose Trip Advisor is the best place to lodge a complaint. Perhaps they will respond to you there…
Hello Lucas
Yes, we really had a great trip to Switzerland. Thanks to the suggestions from the forum based on which I did my tour planning.
The accommodation was booked from booking.com.
Rakesh
thanks, Traveljet
I will do it accordingly.
Rakesh
Why don’t you tell us which apartment it was Rakesh? Many of us plan our trips base on reviews on this forum. So your unpleasant experience will be helpful to other travellers to the Swiss Alps.
Hello. I am hoping to be over in the Lucerne area in October and I too am curious to know the name of the establishment where you had your difficulties.
Hi
sorry for the delay in reply.
I stayed at HITRental apartment in Luzern. Please avoid. I had bitter experiences during and after stay.
I booked thru booking.com.
full address where I stayed: apartment on Tribschenstrasse 24, Luzern 6005, Switzerland.
Can provide more details, if required.
Rakesh Upadhyay
I was wondering if you did leave an evaluation with Trip Advisor, as suggested by Lucas.
I checked out their website and see they have units with rentals from 63 CHF up to 165 CHF per night.
Thanks for sharing that Rakesh. I’m surprised as they are probably the biggest rental agency in Lucerne and offer a lot of apartments. I hope this is an isolated incident, but in any case it’s unfortunate how this worked out for you. Be sure to contact them directly about this too, even if you provided feedback on your departure. Their management needs to know.
Hi Rakesh,
There are 2 Tripadvisor links.
Are any of them belonging to the HITrental apartments you are talking about? If so you can leave a review by going to that link. Perhaps you can give some tips to future travellers about what they should check before booking.
Regards
Thank you for mentioning.We almost used them..
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