Urgent help.....Zurich/Geneva

sale_2

hi all,

can anyone help me to beat the price or better idea for zurich / geneva

2 adults travelling 2nd week of aug (wrong time) for a week.

flight from city airport (ideal will save on parking) to zurich = 150
hotel in zurich 5 nights approx = 300
rail pass for 2 for 4 days = 180 (are the individual journey tickets cheaper??)

planning to visit geneva/junf.../mount titlis / lucern/zurich.

only possibility of saving is on hotel / rail pass?

thanks in advance

cheers

123oleary

look on raileurope.co.uk . ignore the rail pass sections but look on european rail tickets and type in your journeys, then you can compare prices . swiss rail is cheap compared to uk

BernadetteN

duplicate message

BernadetteN

£150 for 2 flights to Zurich I think is quite a reasonable price. I am guessing that price is with Swiss. I can highly recommend Swiss from LCY to ZRH - we have bought 11 tickets on this route in the last few months and it's such a stress free way to fly out of LCY rather than Gatwick or Heathrow, and Zurich must be one of the top airports in the world, it certainly is when travelling with kids.


To get to Zurich centre, I highly recommend buying a train ticket. A 24 hour ticket for the zones containing the airport and city centre costs only 12CHF, or a 24 hour ticket including entry to museums and boat trips around Zurichsee costs 17 CHF. Zurich has one of the best public transport systems in the world where trams, trains and buses are rarely more than a 10 minute wait. I think you might find public transport in Zurich is included on a Swiss train pass so you may not need these tickets.
http://www.zvv.ch/_tourist_e/tickets.asp
http://www.zuerich.com/en.cfm/zurich/zuerichcard/

The sights apart from Zurich you have mentioned are actually all in the Berner Oberland region so would it not make sense to spend a few days there instead of travelling every day from Zurich? Interlaken is right in the middle of the region but expensive. A better option would be Wilderswil, a village just to the north of Interlaken at the base of Schynige Platte, or Boenigen just to the west of Interlaken on the Brienerzsee. You can get a hotel at either of these villages for under £50 a night for 2.
http://www.interlaken.ch/index.php?id=120&L=3
http://www.interlaken.ch/index.php?id=124&L=3

The one thing to remember with a Swiss train pass is that you only get around 50% reduction on the private mountain railways, so you would have to price up a trip up the Jungfraujoch and Titlis, and also the Brienzerrothorn, Schilthorn, cable car to Wengen etc on top of the pass cost. An alternative would be to pay for a train ticket from Zurich to Interlaken area (90CHF or £37 return), stay in that area, then buy one of two train passes which cover the Berner Oberland region and cover more (but not all) of the cost of the private mountain railways and lake steamers.

http://www.jungfraubahn.ch/en/Deskto.../383_read-696/
That's the link for the Jungfraubahn pass. 195 Swiss francs (£79.50) for 6 days. You still have to pay a supplement to go to the top of the Jungfraujoch.

http://www.regiopass-berneroberland.ch/engl/ticket.html
This train pass may also come in handy. 224 Swiss francs (£91) for 7 days (3 days free travel, 4 days half price so those days you go up the area which reqwuire a supplement anyway). It covers a larger area than the Jungfraubahn pass for a few francs more. It also includes travel on the lake steamers. Again there's a supplement to go to the top of the Jungfraujoch and Titlis.

To give you an idea of the supplements you will pay for the private railways, on top of the price of any of the train passes mentioned, to get up the Jungfraujoch you will pay 50% of the fare from Grindelwald using a Swiss pass which is 83.50 CHF (£34), or you will pay 50% of the fare from Kleine Scheidegg with the Berner Oberland pass which is 53.50 CHF (£22).

You can check the prices of Swiss public trains using this website.
http://www.sbb.ch/en/index.htm

I think if you really want to make it the cheapest possible, you will need to decide if you really want to stay the whole time in Zurich, bearing in mind that will mean extra travel to wherever you visit in the Berner Oberland, or whether you want to stay closer to the sights you listed. Then you will have to work out whether a Swiss train pass plus supplements on the private railways (Jungfraujoch etc) is cheaper than one of the other train passes, plus again smaller supplements for a few (but not most) of the private railways plus a return fare to Zurich. You could even combine a Swiss train pass with the Berner Oberland pass which would bring the Berner Oberland pass price down to 179CHF or £73.

Have a nice holiday. We just love Switzerland.

Voyager2002

I can vouch for the accuracy of the advice in #4.

One way to cut costs would be to rent an apartment for the week rather than stay in a hotel. Interhome, a Swiss company, offers a very wide choice of places around the country and rates are very reasonable. I used them earlier this year and have nothing but praise for them. They do have a UK office and website, but if you book through their Swiss website (and pay in francs, preferably using a Nationwide card) then it costs a little less than paying in pounds.

If you want to check train fares, do NOT look at raileurope which charges far more than the actual cost of the ticket. The Swiss railway system (SBB) has a website that is available in English and gives comprehensive fares information and timetables.

Oh: the railway station in Zurich airport is very convenient: I bought both tickets and rail passes there and found the staff both efficient and helpful. I almost bought them on-line, but I am glad that I did not: I had misunderstood one of the (very complicated) rules about my trainpass and would have wasted some money if I had bought the tickets that I thought I needed. The ticket seller there understood what I wanted to do and found the lowest-cost way for me to do so within the rules: super service.

BernadetteN

There are some 2 person appartments still available on the interhome website for the week commenicing 11/8, one in Wilderswil and another in Grindelwald, up towards the Jungfraujoch. They are both only £217 for a week.

http://www.interhome.ch/buchung/listcatalog.asp