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Feedback for itinerary & if swiss travel pass is worth it (with elder parents)

Hello all,
I got some good suggestion and created an itinerary for my family including parents. One of them has some intermittent mobility issue due to Parkinson. No heart or lung issues. We'll be traveling with a portable wheelchair so some hills are fine, but the objective is to enjoy the views and local fares.

Itinerary:
day 1: arrive in Zurich at 4pm (Lucern)
train to Lucern

day 2: city wandering - chapel bridge, old town etc (Lucern)
day 3: Pilatus cableway & Lake tour (Lucern)
day 4: free day and more wandering( Lucern)
day 5: train to Wengen, free afternoon/evening (Wengen)
day 6: aerial cable car Mannlichen (Wengen)
day 7: Trip to Murren (Wengen)
day 8: Leave and train back to Zurich

Any suggestion folks? Did I pick the right activities for my objective? Anything you'd replace with something better?

Finally, the bold parts will be the train and cableways we'll be taking. Is this itinerary worth purchasing a swiss travel pass or a half fare card?

Your help is much appreciated!

Posted by
11778 posts

A Half-Fare Card (HFC) is often a good choice. The other Swiss Pass options never make sense to us and I have done a spreadsheet analysis on each and every one of our 5 trips to Switzerland. The only way to be certain is to do your own analysis ride-by-ride. Look up all fares on the SBB.CH site. Note the default fare that will pop up assumes you have an HFC.

Posted by
16895 posts

My quick, rough estimate is that you'd spend about 340 CHF per person for tickets to cover the transport you've mentioned. The 8-day consecutive Swiss Travel Pass will cover more that's not on this list, such as city trams, museums, or possible additional destinations. The Wengen-Mannlichen cable car is 50% off with the pass, so you'd pay 22 francs locally for the discounted roundtrip ticket. I would choose the pass with the expectation of using it a little more, breaking even in cost, and generally enjoying the convenience of not stopping to buy tickets. Or the Half Fare Card would be a bit cheaper for the total of just the items listed (120 + 170 = 290 CHF).