While in Europe, next month, my wife and I will be traveling from Lausanne to Interlaken and we want to take the Golden Pass. We are using a Rail Pass and the book says reservations are not required, unless we want the special VIP seats. Does anyone have experience as far as the VIP seats vs. the normal Panoramic seats vs. the regular one. If they really are that great, is it easy to reserve a spot the day before? Can this be done in Lausanne for all of the various train changes? Thank you.
Posted by
Elk Grove, CA, USA
6898 posts
Bryan, here is the official word from the Golden Pass folks on this subject. I received this in an email from them. (sfrs=Swiss Francs)
"The reservation fee for VIP is sfrs. 15.- and sfrs. 7.- for normal panoramic seats for the segment Montreux – Zweisimmen. With Eurail or SwissPass in 1st class there is no additional fare to pay."
From Lausanne, I would suggest taking the 30-min local to Montreux where you would pick up the Montreux-Zweisimmen and Zweisimmen to Interlaken segments.
Posted by
Davidson, NC, USA
82 posts
Bryan,
We will be travelling the same route on July 22... As Larry stated above, just travel locally from Lausanne to Montreaux. Then,I booked our VIP Panoramic(1st row of the special panoramic trains) seat reservations for the Montreaux to Interlaken segments using the www.goldenpass.ch website. It went extremely smoothly and they send you a pdf to print out & bring as confirmation. For a family of four travelling with Swiss Passes, the total was 80sfr, so 20sfr per person. Note these are the special VIP seats. I figured, what the heck! You only go around once!
Enjoy!
Lisa
Posted by
OP
San Diego, CA, United States
19 posts
Great Thanks for the info and advice regarding leaving Montreux. I'm considering whether we should take a boat on the lake from Lausanne to Montreux since that is free with our Rail Pass. Or that might be a bit difficult with our luggage. The goldenpass site is great. The problem is the Lake Geneva boat site isn't very good.