Advice on my 3 days in Grindelwald

How old are the teens? What kind of pass are you considering? It looks like a 3-day pass of some kind, since you want to avoid using it on Day 1 when you travel to Grindelwald. Depending on the type of pass and what you plan for the day you travel to Luzern, that may be a bad idea. Here’s why:

You have multiple rides on the First Gondola on Day 2, These are discounted 50% with the Swiss Travel Pass, but are fully covered with the Berner Oberland Pass. Same with the gondola up to Eigergletscher: discounted with the STS, free with the BO Pass. The train up the Jungfrau slightly cheaper with the BO Pass, because it provides full coverage as far as Eigergletscher. With the STS, you are charged for everything above Grindelwald, although with a discount. This will also affect your travel back up to Kleine Scheidegg from Alpiglen, and ride back down to Grindelwald.

If you have. BO Pass , it makes sense to activate it for Day 1, as coverage with begin from Bern the rest of the way, and then you can use it the rest of the day for free use of, say, the Pfingstegg lift for the Rodelbahn, or even go check out Wengen, using the gondola from Grindelwald Grund up to Männlichen and cable car down to Wengen (a pretty exciting ride). You can return to Grindelwald the way you came, or by train through the valley, or train to KS and down to GW. All covered with the BO Pass.

On the other hand, it will not cover boat rides or cablecars or cogwheel railways at Luzern, so will not provide help with Pilatus or Rigi. A STS will fully cover the Rigi trip, and offer discounts on Pilatus.

Here are the maps of coverage so you can compare:

https://www.berneseoberlandpass.ch/assets/Uploads/BLS-BO-Pass-M-23-WEB.pdf

https://cdn-doc.myswissalps.com/docs/default-source/rail-network-maps/swisstravelpass.pdf?sfvrsn=7788603a_56

One comment about your Day 3 plan: you could include Wengen on this day, by continuing to Männlichen after your drink or snack at the Grindelwald lick restaurant ( good choice). Ride the cablecar down, walk through the town, and return to Grindelwald by any of the 3 routes outlined above. Again, all covered with the BO Pass.

If you're interested in Wengen - on Day 3 you could train from Kleine Scheidegg to Wengen for dinner and then back to Grindelwald from there. It's not a significant amount out of the way, just a 25 minute train to Wengen. Just keep in mind that the last train always departs for Wengen at 5:14 from KS, so you have to be ready to leave KS by then if you want to make it to Wengen.

For your travel day, Harder Kulm is just ok in my opinion. We've done just about everything there is to do in Berner Oberland over the many, many times we've been there and it wouldn't break to my top 25 list. If you left Zurich early in the morning you would have time to do Lauterbrunnen if you want. You can store your luggage at the station and walk around a bit or even rent ebikes to bike some of the valley if you're up for it. Or you could store your luggage and go up to either Wengen or Murren from there. You'd arrive in either Wengen or Murren by around lunch time which would give you a few hours to explore before continuing on to Grindelwald. Either of those are a bit of a detour but not a wasted one.

I just read the previous advice and want to clarify that if you do "Restaurant Grindelwaldblick to Mannlichen" to get to Wengen as they mentioned, that's hiking 3 miles on the Panorama Trail to Mannlichen to then take the cable car down. My recommendation was the train directly from Kleine Scheidegg to Wengen, which does not involve additional hiking.

The Panorama Trail is an amazing walk/hike, but it's really meant to be done in the direction of Mannlichen to KS, so that you get the best views. Walking it the opposite direction wouldn't be my first recommendation on such a short trip.

If on Day 1 you will be dealing with jet lag, then a quick trip up the Harder could be a good choice, but you sound like an active family and unless you will be very tired I think you could do a lot more with that first day.

Since you have Wengen in your thoughts, then why not go there? Zurich - Lauterbburnnen 2h 25min. You would have time to explore part, or even all of the Lauterbrunnen valley (one hour walk from one end to the other, most people take longer because there is so much to look at, but it is just over 5km/3 miles). 

Go up to Wengen and explore the village and even do some of the shorter walks up there. Do this in either order, eat lunch in Wengen or Lauterbrunnen, as you wish.

Train Lauterbrunnen - Wengen 12min.

Wengen - Grindelwald 1 hour.

“ I just read the previous advice and want to clarify that if you do "Restaurant Grindelwaldblick to Mannlichen" to get to Wengen as they mentioned, that's hiking 3 miles on the Panorama Trail to Mannlichen to then take the cable car down. My recommendation was the train directly from Kleine Scheidegg to Wengen, which does not involve additional hiking.
The Panorama Trail is an amazing walk/hike, but it's really meant to be done in the direction of Mannlichen to KS, so that you get the best views. Walking it the opposite direction wouldn't be my first recommendation on such a short trip.”

My thinking was that they will already be as far along the Panorama Trail as the Grindelwaldblick restaurant, and it would be a simple matter to continue to the Männlichen cable car for the ride down to Wengen. Yes, it is recommended to do the hike heading towards KS for the views of the Jungfrau, etc., but the views are pretty nice in the other direction as well. And all they need to is stop and turn around from time to time to see the view in the other direction.

And when they get to the Männlichen cablecar top station,,they could add the short walk up the Männlichen Gipful for the best views of all. This is now du bed the “Royal Walk” for reasons I do not understand, ut it is well worth doing.

https://www.maennlichen.ch/en/summer/experiences/royal-walk.html

This is an active family. They will already have had a lot of sedentary, possibly crowded, time on the train this day, with the ride up to Jungfraujoch and back, and the ride back up to KS a from Alpiglen after the Eiger trail hike (which they are doing downhill, so it is not particularly taxing).

If there is time left in the afternoon (which depends on how much time they spend up at the Jungfraujoch), it would be a way to satisfy their curiosity about Wengen without making a completely separate trip. And they would get that spectacular cablecar ride. They could even book the “Royal ride” on top of the cablecar for only CHF (if they have the BO pass).

https://www.berneseoberlandpass.ch/public-transport/wengen-maennlichen/

I would also suggest they get an early start on this day, have a good breakfast and bring snacks so they can skip lunch at the Jungfraujoch. The two self-serve restaurants up there (one “Swiss”, one Bollywood, are overpriced and over crowded. The sit-down restaurant is even worse, price-wise:

https://cdn.jungfrau.ch/Gastro/Menukarte-Restaurant-Crystal-Jungfraujoch.pdf

(Can you tell I am not a fan of the Jungfraujoch?)

Better to head back down to the Eigergletscher station, and have soup and salad at the restaurant there, before starting the hike:

https://cdn.jungfrau.ch/Gastro/Karte-Restaurant-Eigergletscher.pdf

Or, if it is not too late in the day, stave off lunch until they finish the hike down on the Eiger trail and reach the Alpiglen mountain inn:

https://alpiglen.ch/index.php?page=restaurant

But we have not heard back from Lovelife&travel regarding what type of pass they are considering, and the ages of the teens. All my suggestions are based on them having the BO pass. If they use a Swiss Travel Pass, everything will cost more. And the ages of the teens is important because the whole trip will cost a lot less if one or both of them is 15 or under.

Thank you for all of your replies! My teens are 14 and 16, so I will definitely take advantage of the discounted family travel card for my 14 year old. I have not thought about which pass to buy b/c I wanted to lock down the activities first and then compare the pass options.

I had not thought about jet lag so I am thinking our Day 1 excursions will be just 1 activity. Perhaps we will do the Panorama Trail (#33). I know all of the activities are weather dependent. So if there is sunshine on the first day, I would prefer a hike.