Rail pass for 6 days trip to Zurich and Lucerne?

Hi,

Wish to seek your help in deciding my trip to Switzerland, i am arriving in Zurich on 30th April and travelling to Paris on the 5th May. two kids 8 and 12 yrs and one adult are travelling.

I am confused in terms of which rail pass would help to cover the the 6 days ( 5 night trip) :

Day 1, arriving in zurich at 6am, have booked a city tour for four hours at 1pm , (any suggestion what can be covered after 6pm city tour gets over?)

Day 2, planning to cover zurich zoo for the kid, we plan to leave for Lucerne at around 1pm and hotel check-in at 3pm. What options available in Lucerne in the evening?

Day 3, planning to cover Mount Titlis ( feeling it will take full day , starting early at 8am)

Day 4, planning to cover Interlaken, have made reservation for golden pass train leaving at 7am, thinking to cover Jungfaru park for the kids, but as we are covering mountains in Lucerne, does it make sense to cover mountain in Interlaken? planning to return by 6pm train back to lucerne. One more doubt, since we have done the reservation for 3 seats on Golden pass train, how can we book the ticket for it (Can we get the ticket at the station?)? which pass will provide us discount for this train?

Day 5, planning to cover MT. PILATUS , again we feel this could be a full day trip, and evening we can take a boat cruise in the Lucerne region

Day 6 , We have a train from Basel SBB to paris at 12.30pm, so we will leave Lucerne by 10am as its ard one hour train ride.

Sorry for the such a long post, as the number of days are limited and need to finalize the itinerary, so if you can please fill in the gaps and advise what would best suit our trip. Many thanks in advance

Jai

Hi Jai,

I think price wise the Swiss Half Fare Card works best. You just need one for you as an adult, and the kids travel along for free everywhere because you can order along the free Swiss Family Card. The Swiss Half Fare Card is cheapest if purchased online as you can see here. In your case you can buy through raileurope.co.in/pass/ swiss-half-fare-card, but you need to act fast as (free) shipping takes up to 5 days. So you're just in time.

As for your plans: it's quite a lot for a few days. I would skip the zoo on day 2 and head for Lucerne early. Visit the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne and take your time. I'm sure you kids will love that and it's more unique than a zoo.

Visiting multiple mountains is never a waste of time as they are all different (at least I think so). But it all depends on the weather. If it's raining or clouds cover the summit, there's no use in going up. So you can't know in advance whether you'll be able to go up and on what day. Just make a wish list and decide per day.

As for the Golden Pass train: do you mean the section from Lucerne to Interlaken? You can buy a 50% discounted ticket with your Swiss Half Fare Card. You can do so at the station. The children travel for free. Seat reservation is not required.

More information is here:

• myswissalps.com/lucern e
• myswissalps.com/zurich

Did this help?

Dear Arno,

Thank you for your prompt feedback and yes your suggestion does help. As the time is very short, I am not sure ordering would help at the moment, as it would be a risk if it doesnt get delivered to home address before 29th April. So will plan to pick up the Swiss Half Fare Card on arrival at the Zurich Airport.

I will see the suggestion mentioned and would also try to explore the mountain in Interlaken.

I have already done the seat reservation for the Golden Pass, will purchase the ticket at the Lucerne station.

Thanks for the help.

Regards

Jai