Group Train Travel from Italy to Switzerland

Posted by andreabeck999 on 04/29/25 03:54 PM

Hello! I am taking my Girl Scout Troop to Italy and Switzerland this June/July. We are a group of 10 - 2 adults and 8 girls who are 16 and 17 years old. We need to travel from Florence to Adelboden, Oey, Switzerland and then Adelboden Oey back to Milan a week later. I was working with SBB to reserve group tickets, and it has gotten kind of complicated because:

We qualify for the day pass for schools at CHF 15 for the portion in Switzerland, so we would like to take advantage of that savings.
We were told by SBB that there is construction on a tunnel on the more direct route, so we are getting routed through Zurich (not exactly direct). This is significantly longer. Meanwhile, trenitalia is not showing this construction. My gut is to trust the Swiss when it comes to schedules and timetables, but would love other thoughts (especially if it gets us a shorter route to Milan!)
Meanwhile, neither trenitalia or sbb show the same routes that SBB is quoting me. Could this be because those routes are sold out?
SBB has to issue paper tickets for the day passes and the portion from Milan to Chiasso, and will charge CHF 50 to ship them. So we don't have to pay that fee, they recommend purchasing the Milan to Chiasso ticket online, and waiting until we get to Lugano (a brief stop on our trip from Florence to Adelboden) to buy the day passes in person. This all sounds very complicated to me, and I am tempted to spring for the CHF 50 - but with the value of the dollar dropping every day, I am also trying to stick to our budget as much as posible. Does anyone have experience purchasing the Swiss Day Pass for Schools in person? Did it work? How would I reserve seats if I didn't purchase until the day of travel?

Part of me wants to just book it all through SBB and be done with it, but I feel like there might be a better (cheaper) way. I am an experienced traveler - domestically and internationally. But this situation has me flummoxed.

Any advice is much appreciated!

Posted by WengenK

Wengen

04/29/25 04:36 PM

2948 posts

Trenitalia's schedules for the Summer are probably not completely on line yet. Trenitalia only publishes a train if it is 100% certain it runs. SBB has nor problem selling tickets for routes where schedules might change, as in Switzerland the expectation is that a ticket is for a route, not a train, and that you just find yourself other trains if the schedule changes.
In Switzerland routes never sell out as that is impossible. If a million people turned up in Zurich and wanted to buy a ticket to Adelboden then a million tickets would be sold. And we would probably talk about it for decades :-)

Also Trenitalia often has incomplete info on Switzerland. Best trust the Swiss.

To get from Milano to Adelboden you would normally take the Simplon railway. That is unfortunately going to be an issue this summer. as the line is going to be partly closed for maintenance and upgrades. There are replacement buses, but they are annoying... And the schedules aren't finalise yet, and the information has not percolated through all the systems. So it is confusing. Hence the suggestion to go via the Gotthard route. That is indeed a detour. You could maybe do Milano - Locarno - Domodossola - Brig - Frutigen - Adelboden to keep it interesting...

15,- CHF for a day pass is a steal. If the price to be able to take advantage of this extremely generous offer is that you have to pay 50,- to have the passes shipped I would just do that. Then you just buy your ticket Milano - Chiasso in Milan, and hop on the RE80 train. None of the train you will be taking that day require advance reservations, but SBB likes to make reservations for groups. They will take care of that.

Note: When you say that you need to get to Milan a week later, is that Milan city or Milan airport?