bjamie

Hi! We have traveled thru Europe several times, and often on trains, but this is the first time we will be purchasing a rail pass and I have a few questions!

1.) We do not need to purchase individual tickets at all, correct? Just hop on a train and show your rail pass to the conductor when they come around and they will mark off a day.

2.) My two-year-old is always free on every mode of public transport, right?

3.) We will be doing the Golden Pass train from Interlaken to Montreaux and I have read it is best to make reservations for this train in the summer ( we will be there early July). How is it possible to do that with a rail pass? We would like to do the panoramic VIP seats if possible and I believe that there is an additional charge on top of your rail pass for that, but so far I haven't found a website that actually explains how to do that! If it helps, we will likely be doing a early afternoon departure, which I think is not as popular as the late morning trains.

Thanks for the help!

toinky4

The Swiss family pass covers children upto 17 years if I remember correctly from our travels 2 years ago.

The panoramic train gets very very hot due to the windows and almost all glass ceiling. We had traveled in a similar train to Zermatt in April and were overheated. Dress in layers!

Most seat reservations can be done for an upcharge a few months before travel date. You will have to check the website for details

Dukey1

YOU are the one who "marks off the day" on your pass, not the ticket checker.

You can, and should make seat reservations for the Golden Pass trains in advance. Seat reservations have nothing to do with the tickets or the passes you might use. They are an additional charge item.

The best seats are those which are in the very front car overlooking the driver or at the very rear. Only one segment has those sorts of cars.

www.goldenpass.ch Actually, the panorama cars found on some routes have larger windows and they OPEN.

PalenQ

http://www.goldenpass.ch/en

This is the official site for the Golden Pass scenic train and you can book VIP seats on it months in advance without any ticket or pass I understand- you would need to buy a first-class upgrade if you have a 2nd-class pass to use the VIP seats.

Reservations are not required for any segment of the GP but yes if you want a place in the observation/panoramic cars you should do that - again check the official site.

For normal trains there are no seat requirements required or needed IME - if you want one you take your passes up to any ticket window and pay a small fee to do that. Otherwise you just hop on any normal train with a pass and just flash it to the conductor when he/she pops by.

For lots of info on Swiss trains check www.swisstravelsystem.com; www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.ricksteves.com.

The Golden Pass segment Zweissimen to Montreux is the scenic portion on an Interlaken to Montreux GP route - from Interlaken to Zweissimen via Spiez is not especially scenic so I would not worry about VIP seats necessarily on that part or observation cars or even advance reservations - you can reserve in Interlaken if you want but VIP seats sell out months ahead of time.

Trains from Interlaken to Zweissimen are normal gauge - but Zweissimen to Montreux is narrow-gauge - tracks are closer together so normal-gauged trains just can't possible go thru so everyone gets off one train and heads for the next train on an opposite platform.

PalenQ

The Swiss family pass covers children upto 17 years if I remember correctly from our travels 2 years ago.>

I think it's always been under 16 and only those under that age who are traveling with a parent -not a grandparent, aunt, uncle, older brother, etc.

bjamie

I thought I read somewhere that the family pass is actually ages 6-17, and under 6 is just free, even without the pass?

PalenQ

This source is IME usually very accurate:

http://www.budgeteuropetravel.com/id3.html

says kids 15 and under and it has been that way for years but I guess could be a sudden change- where did you see that - probably can't recall out of the blue.

greg

1) Rail passes are not valid on all the trains. Passes in Switzerland comes in different kinds. No simple answer. If you have gotten a SWISS PASS, which is one specific kind of pass among many kind of passes, here the is areas of validity. Solid lines means covered, dashed lines means discounts toward buying tickets: www.swisspasses.com/railpass/overviewmap_en.pdf

3) Golden Pass trains come in different form factors. Some more ordinary than the others. To select a specific kind of car, you need to know which departure time uses which kind of train. To do this, go to www.sbb.ch, enter your destination. For example, Montreux-Zweisimmen shows 7:44, 8:44, 9:44 departures as "Panoramic". But they are different kind of trains. Reading the details carefully you see that

7:44: fast train, Golden Pass Panoramic
8:44: regio, Golden Pass Classic
9:44: fast train, Golden Pass Panoramic <u>avec places VIP</u>

The more temperamental site, www.goldenpass.ch shows which VIP seats are still available. You click at each individual car in the booking page to see the kind of cars making up the train.

If you want to sit in VIP seats, I think it is essential to make a reservation. This train is immensely popular in the high season. On the day we traveled in VIP seats in July, the Montreux to Zweisimmen direction was not crowded at all. But all the trains heading to Montreux were full of tour groups.

PalenQ

Swiss Passes are valid on I believe all trains or gondolas or lifts or postal buses that connect two actual towns or villages but as greg says not trains to mountain tops - like to Jungfraujoch near Interlaken - that gets only a discount of 25% above Wengen and Grindelwald - fully covered to those places.

Thus passes will take you fully covered to Murren via cable car and train once on top because Murren is a town and so is Gimmelwald ( well a hamlet) the reason the lift from Stechelberg to Gimmelwald is fully covered by a Swiss Pass.

and though valid on Glacier Express trains there is a hefty surcharge with a pass. That said virtually every train besides those to mountain tops are fully covered as are postal buses, city transports, lake boats, etc.

But if going say only to one place and staying put the Swiss Transfer Ticket plus half-off Half-Fare Card to use once there could be a better deal than a pass - but if moving around at all a pass can be cost effective.

PalenQ

With Swiss Flexipasses a new rule change this year or last? It used to be on a flexipass on the days in between 100% covered travel days you used to get 50% off just about everything that moved in Switzerland but now on days not using the pass you get nothing BUT with a flexipass you can now buy a half-off Half-Fare Card to use on days you will not be using the unlimited travel days - thus if doing the Jungfraujoch train you would not use a day on your pass as it gives you only 25% off the most expensive parts of that train but use the Half-Fare Card for 50% off.

With the Half-Fare Card on a flexipass the days you are not using the pass you get 50% off everything that moves, except cows I think, in Switzerland. Museums however - 470+ of them- are free with a pass only on unlimited travel days.

consecutive-day passes get the 50% off on gondolas and trains to mountain tops of course any day.

bjamie

Thanks for the heads up that the passes don't allow discounts on high mountain passes on 'off days' anymore! That ends up making the Flexipass a bad deal for us then! It sounds like since we don't have 3 travel days adding up to about $85pp each day the Half-Fare Card is our best bet.

PalenQ

It sounds like since we don't have 3 travel days adding up to about $85pp each day the Half-Fare Card is our best bet.>

The half-fare card costs more than $85 itself so just buy regular tickets. and you each need a half-fare card to get half-off.

bjamie

I meant that we don't have 3 different days where we will be travelling more than $85 each. Our total travel seems to be about $400 each, with the Schilthorn lift being a big chunk of that, so a Half Fare card makes sense.