We just returned from our trip, and I wanted to share a few highlights about the sights and the train options we chose - after so much deliberation and questions about rates and passes posed here on the forum! We did not have enough time to get to the Jungfrau region and do it justice, so our plan was to go to Luzern and Engelberg, and fly home from Zurich. This route was wonderfully calm after our time in Paris. :-)
First, thanks to Chris from Basel - your advice was great and really appreciated. :-)
Our family of five traveled from Paris to Basel via TGV Lyria, and I bought the tickets from capitainetrain.com 3 months before the trip to get a great rate. Once we entered Switzerland, we purchased Half Fare passes for the four of us who are adults. Then we got a free Family Card for our 15 year old. From then on, all of his train travel was free. This proved to be more economical than Swiss Passes.
We traveled from Basel through Luzern to Engelberg, and that was fairly seamless except for the mere 5 minutes we had to get from platform 7 to 13 with our luggage for the transfer to Engelberg!
We stayed at the Hotel Edelweiss Engelberg, which is a Swiss Family Hotel - and it was lovely with a lot of old world charm and an excellent view. They were able to arrange our tickets to Mt. Titlis for the next morning, using the Half Fare passes again.
Mt. Titlis was a lot of fun, and spectacularly beautiful. The snow was slippery, which made for great fun for my Midwest kids...and great concern for the guests there who had never seen snow before. Watching others experience snow for the first time was a memorable part of that trip for us! :-) On the way back down, we left the cable car in Trubsee and on the way to the lake, we were greeted by cows, bells ringing, as they made their way down as well.
In Luzern, we took a 100 year old paddlewheel steamer across the lake to Weggis, and spent some time strolling along the waterfront. Mark Twain lived there at one time, and said "This is the charmingest place we have ever lived in for repose and restfulness." It was a serene and lovely place to take a day trip, have lunch, and simply enjoy the boat ride across that gorgeous lake. Since we had just had our mountaintop experience, we did not take a trip to Pilatus nor Rigi - but were very content to discover other beautiful places as we were ending our trip.
And finally, the train from Luzern to Zurich Flughafen was an easy ride, and as the station in in the lower level of the airport, our connections were simple. We were advised to get there 3 hours before departure, but also advised that if we printed out our boarding passes in the hotel the night before, that we could make that only a 2 hour lead time (thus ensuring we could enjoy one last delicious hotel breakfast that was included in our room price :-) )
I certainly appreciated the advice I received from this forum, and hope that these comments are helpful to someone else!
Laurie