Smoking/Non-smoking room requests in Switzerland?
 

Hello: My family and I will be visiting Switzerland in late May. We have confirmed reservations in Grindelwald and Luzern area. Do hotels in Switzerland have smoking/non-smoking rooms? I prefer non-smoking but I never received a confirmation for this item.

OK. I'm going to be attacked for this, but Switzerland's only drawback is the smoking everywhere. Yes there are hotels that have some non-smoking rooms, but they tend to be not far from smoking rooms. Also, when you ask about non-smoking rooms it is taken as a personal insult because chances are that the person you're talking to is a smoker. I love Switzerland, it's beautiful and the people are nice, but I've had a lot more luck with avoiding smoke in Austria, and for that reason I go there. Italy is rapidly becoming more smoke-free too. Switzerland is right up there with Ireland when it comes to smoking.

I've been to CH 10+ times and can _never_ remember being asked if I wanted a smoking/non-smoking room but, I also never remember being in a room that smelled of smoke. Suggest you contact the hotels you're planning to stay at.

I also have a problem with smoking, being from Ca. where smoking is prohibited everywhere even in some parks. I have come to the conclusion that if you are going to travel you just have to put up with it for a couple of weeks. Most of the time you can avoid it if you just stay deligent. On a recent trip to China I was worried that the smoke would be bad, the worst I had to endure was standing at the crub in SFO waiting for a taxi when I got back home. Even the airports inside China were smoke free, but still some smoked. In Amsterdam airport there are smoke free areas but no one pays attention to the signs. I will just go and try to avoid it the best I can, but I will not give up travel because of smoke. Good luck, Buck

From my experience, only largerhotels have non-smoking rooms or even non-smoking floors (like i.e. the Hilton Basel). For small hotels with only 20-40 rooms or so, this would just be too difficult for their planning.

Ursula is right. Unless you are at a Hilton or Sheraton you will probably not be able to request one. However I have never had to decline a room because it was smoky here, so you should not have a problem. FYI Non-smoking sections in restaurants are almost non-existent here. The only one I know of in Zurich are the Moevenpicks.

The Moevenpick's have always been ice-breakers, also regarding children's menus, children's toys, children's seats, baby stuff in the toilets. For all that, they are great. At least, they know who their future clientele will be.<BR>Again, how do you want to keep a restaurant with some 10-20 tables smoke-free. Even if 50% of it is a non-smoking area, the other 50% will be smokey as well. Only works with large places like the Moevenpick's.

Thank you all. Doesn't sound like any of the non-smokers have had major problems thus far. I suspect that if there is a problem with the room being too "smokey", the hotels will try to accomodate our needs. So, I'll stop worrying about it for now :-)