My husband & I are seniors. We have booked one week in an apartment this summer in Grindelwald with our adult daughter & grandchild age 11. The second week, we will be in a hotel in Kandersteg on our own. We are not planning to rent a car & will be training in from Zurich airport & training on to France from Geneva. We will probably buy a Swiss Pass for 15 days for us. Our daughter is considering the 5 day flexi version of the Swiss Pass. Our question is this: do we also need to purchase a Bernese Oberland Regional Pass? We will want to do Jungfraujoch & some of the most popular excursions in the first week. OR would we be better off with a half price Swiss Card & the Bernese Regional Pass?
Thanks for the help!
Posted by
Knoxville, TN, USA
7209 posts
If you are the typical tourist a Half Fare Card should suffice for your entire stay in Switzerland. Unlike the BO Pass, the Half Fare card is good all OVER Switzerland...even up to the Jungfrau. Be sure your daughter gets the free Family Card for her daughter to travel free with her even to the expensive Jungfrau. There is also a version of this card for grandparents so your granddaughter can travel free with you even if her mother is not traveling with you.
Posted by
Seattle, WA
17435 posts
Hi Pamela---good for you in choosing Kandersteg. It is one of our favorite places, always included in our trips to Switzerland, and most people here have never heard of it. As for which pass, I will say that in 4 trips to Switzerland, most for 2 weeks, we have used a different one each time, and they all have their benefits. But I cannot see how a Berner Oberland Pass plus another pass would be cost -effective for you. It does include free rides on some of the lifts around Grindelwald, like First and Schynige Platte and Pfingstegg, but it is limited to 8 days so you would need to piggyback with another pass. The Half Fare card offers the benefit of a full 50% discount off the Jungfrau trip, but has the inconvenience factor that every trip will involve buying tickets. I think the convenience and the free travel that come with the 15 day pass vastly outweigh the small incremental benefit of the Half Fare card for the Jungfrau trip, so ether Swiss pass would be my recommendation. We did use the 15-day pass for one of our trip that involved lots of travel and multiple bases ( Rigi, Wengen, Mürren, Kandersteg, Zermatt, Gstaad, Morges, and a flight out of Geneva) and that was a good choice. Your daughter should be fine with a Flex Pass but a 3- day pass might be sufficient. She will get 50% off travel on other days, and if you are staying around Grindelwald, the lifts there are 50% regardless whether it is a covered day on the pass or not. And as Tim said, she should be sure and get a Family Card.