Zürich hotels morning check-in

What time of year.?
The train to the main train station and charming old town Zurich is only about 15 minutes from the airport. I think you'd have more hotel options in the old town.
However, we always go straight onto Lucerne, which is our first destination. This uses up some time. Perhaps you can share your itinerary?
Some folks just reserve that whole night and inform the hotel when you're expected to land. Good luck.
Enjoy this beautiful country.

In general, you can understand that if the hotel is full the night before, it
may take them a while to get the rooms cleaned and guests can usually
check out until 11 or noon. And that they won't know until close to the date
what their occupancy rate is.

So you can look for a hotel that allows early check-in (which might involve
an additional fee) or reserve the room for 2 nights and not occupy it until
early in the morning of the second day. Or take a chance and show up
and perhaps they will let you check in early if rooms were not used the
night before.

SWISS also has an arrivals lounge you can access for 69 EUR or for free
if you have the right status/class of service.

I would cancel that airport hotel and book a hotel within walking distance of the Zurich main station (Hauptbahnhof). Check with them to be sure they will hold your luggage for you until check-in time ( most will). Drop your bags and explore the Zurich Oldtown area, have lunch, find a park to sit in, take a boat ride on the lake. . . . Of course you will be tired, but it usually helps to get outside for a walk and sit down for a nice lunch.

I am writing this after 21 hours of travel from Seattle to Zurich (via London). We are now on the train to Bern, where I booked our first hotel. So by the time we reach the hotel it will be almost 24 hours for us too. I feel pretty good; looking forward to a shower and then to bed around 10:30 local time.

Thank you good advice to stay near the center. If we can’t check in early I’d rather stroll around. We arrive later this week.

If it were me, I’d take the train and go to Luzern, Basel or Bern, perhaps catching a bit of a nap on the way.

That’s brilliant. I’ll look into that.

I like Jules m’s idea.