train tours of switzerland

Apparently, nobody on this forum has. You could easily do this on your own, and might price check it to see if you are paying a big premium. Tour operator could have a discount from the rail operators. Advantage of a tour is that they take care of the leg work of hotel bookings, and there is always the advantage of getting to know others on a tour.

I have booked through Vacation by Rail for this coming Sept 2019. Its called the Grand Train Tour of Switzerland. Its considered an independent tour. They book 4 of the scenic railways and also our hotels which include breakfast. There are a couple optional excursions. Its 10 nights, 11 days. Our time off the trains seem very flexible.
We plan to extend the trip 4 more days on our own ...still trying to decide where. We fly in and out Zurich. Tour ends in Luzern.
This is our first time travelling with this company. It seemed the perfect way to go for us! I too know of no one who has done this. Would also love to hear from others.

So they book rail tickets and hotels for you? That is quite extraordinarily easy to do on your own, and my guess is that you would save a considerable amount of money.

Vacation by Rail offers various tour options and itineraries internationally. Many are guided tours, ours is not. It seemed a less stressful way to plan, strategize and see/visit the many beautiful sites of Switzerland for the first time using the scenic railways. We will cover alot of territory and stay in 6 lodgings. I do realize it will be much coming and going!! We don’t mind that. We travel light and actually have done some European trips before. Rick Steve’s guidebooks are our “go to” manual. I see that some of his tours have similar itineraries in Switzerland.
I thought to add on those 4 extra days to find a lovely place at the end to just enjoy, hike, relax.
We did not feel our $2300 pp 11 day trip was unreasonable. No doubt it could be done at a fraction of the cost.
Many seasoned and adventurous travelers would likely choose differently. We are in mid-upper 60’s and feel comfortable with this. Hopeful this works well for us!

OK, you talked me into it. For simplicity, the 1 CHF = 1 USD.
The full fare ticket cost of the trains shown in the Grand Train Tour is 805 CHF, 2nd class. With a Half Fare Card at 120 CHF, that would come to 522.50 CHF. add in reservation fees of 43 CHF for the Glacier Express and 14 CHF for the Bernina Express (summer rates), that is 579.50 CHF.

There are 10 nights of hotels included in the tour (with breakfast). I'll estimate 300 CHF per night per room (double occupancy) for nice Swiss hotels in resort locations, comes to about 1500 CHF per person. Oh, lunch included on the Glacier Express, about 30 CHF.

Bottom line: 2110 CHF ~ $2110
Add in commission of 10% comes to $2330, surprisingly the sell price for the tour offered by Vacations by Rail.
Net result, I don't think you can do it "for a fraction of the cost", unless by "fraction" you mean 90%. You can always stay at cheaper hotels, but then you have to do the legwork to find them.

Wow Sam, I so appreciate seeing how you looked into this and broke down the costs and fees!! Maybe not a bad deal after all!? Any extra cost for us is worth having someone else do the “legwork” as you mentioned. Also having the tour company’s help possibly if there is a glitch? I liked the flexability of this particular tour not needing tour groups everywhere, although we are not opposed to them and enjoy that. I see we can hopefully find affordable restaurants through using our Rick Steve’s guidebooks and this forum. Surely am looking forward to going ...thank you!