Switzerland: Europe's Crown Jewel - September 2024
We are on the 9/16/24 trip. This will be our fourth Tauck trip. Anyone on the same trip? We're excited to hear any feedback anyone has who has taken this trip. My husband is disappointed with the news about the Glacier Express but some of the feedback is encouraging.
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Everyone is always so ramped up about the GE, but to be honest, we saw MUCH better scenery on other trains and on the motor coach thru Switzerland. Switzerland is stunning- yes, the GE is super scenic - but so is everything you will see.
We did this tour many years ago and did do the GE, but it wasn't a highlight for us.
We did the Ultimate Alps & Dolomites and saw so much more scenery than anything we saw on the GE.
You will love Switzerland
When we did the Switzerland tour, we did get to go on the Glacier Express but it's nothing special. You won't miss anyting - except to be able to say you did it.
If you want a preview of the trip, see https://www.mikeandjudytravel.com/2023-2Switzerland-01.htm
We are on the July 15 departure and I will be happy to recap our experience, especially regarding the revised itinerary sans GE. We are also staying in Grindelwald as a sub for Interlaken. There are many comprehensive recaps on this forum from prior years and lots of helpful tips to further enhance the experience. Hearing from friends who live in this region that they have had a very rainy start to the summer (as evidenced by the flooding in Zermatt) yet hoping the weather will be clearer next month. Packing layers for sure!
Thank you! Have a great trip. Looking forward to hearing about it.
Thanks Mike. I did read your blog. It was excellent.
JRMSoCal….I am wondering how you know that the hotels were switched for your trip. We are on the Sept 6 Crown Jewel trip, and we have not received any info about the trip at all. I wouldn’t even know that the Glacier Express is a no go for us without this forum and Facebook. We are disappointed, as well, because it was literally one of the reasons we signed up for this trip. I know everyone says it’s not that special, but it was definitely advertised as being a major component of the tour.
Glacier Express is over-hyped - it’s just a train ride. You’ll see as much and do more on the First Class train.
We are on the Sept 1 Crown Jewel trip and received notification from Tauck about the Glacier Express and the earlier stop in Chur rather than Andermatt. We were also looking forward to the GE because it's so famous, but Tauck's notification said that the regional train would showcase the same incredible scenery. We have never been to Switzerland, so we are looking forward to lots of gorgeous scenery no matter what form of transportation.
There are several ways you can learn about or be notified if changes have been made. If a change or changes have been made before you book they will appear on the Tauck main website in a pop-up window (see below), they should also be noted somewhere on your Financial Summary which you can get to by following a link in the "Tauck Journey Confirmation" email you should have received within a few minutes of booking with a Tauck agent. Changes will also be shown in the "Journey Summary" in "My Account" on the Tauck website (not the forum website). If changes are made subsequent to booking, Tauck will send you an email. If you are not getting emails from Tauck, either Tauck has the wrong email address for you or you booked using a Travel Agent and your agent, who gets all the communications, is not forwarding them to you like they should. This happens more often than it should.
If you go to the Tauck main website > your tour pages (Switzerland: Europe's Crown Jewel) (make sure you have selected the correct year) > then select the "Pricing and Availability" tab > and finally click your specific departure. You should get a pop-up window that looks like the screen capture below- Note there are a lot of changes to this tour but it looks like none affect your departure!!!
Thank you very much, Alan. I did book this tour through Pavlus, but in their defense, the agent I had ended up sick so I have been transferred to another, new agent who might not know about sending me the emails. I will contact her. But, anyway, I did find the info you have graciously sent me above. I can’t believe none of the changes have our date on them! We shall see, I guess. I do appreciate the time you spent explaining to me how to access this info. Thank you again. 😀
Alan, that was good of you to go through that detail for others. When we booked this trip for 2025 I was surprised to see how many departures they have and how many hotel changes are made. I had picked a date and then saw that almost every hotel was changed and the last days activities had changed as well. By moving to a departure one day earlier everything is as noted in the itinerary. They also have completely eliminated the Glacier Express for 2025 tours.
We are booked on the Grand Australia & New Zealand tour in October 2025. When you click on the specific date and read the notes, there are several hotel changes. However, the dates do not match the dates of any of the tours. For example, it lists tours of October 25th. There isn’t a tour on October 25th, only October 23 and 27. We called Tauck twice and they confirmed no changes were made to our tour and said it was an error and they would correct the website. But months later, it hasn’t changed.
Is everyone under the impression a hotel change is a bad thing? If so, why?
In my opinion, just because Tauck uses a hotel for most of its tours doesn't mean anything other than it was available and they got the rate they wanted. For example, the "regular" hotel we had in Sorrento on my recent Classic Italy tour was in a terrible location, not near anything. To get to the center of town, a shuttle bus was needed.
BKMD - my post wasn’t referring to hotel changes but the misinformation on the website.
It happens fairly often, I’ve pointed this out quite a few times to Tauck when it affects a tour I am taking.
When a tour hotel is changed permanently they forget to change it on all the different parts of the information about that tour.
To begin with, AZCreeker, I though maybe you had looked at the wrong year. That is easy to do.
The hotels for the Australia tour have changed a lot over the years since we took it, example, Silky Oaks that everyone likes, that was not the hotel we stayed in back then.
Unfortunately, it is easy to get on the wrong tour page or look at the wrong tour category on the Tauck website. You must look at the tour pages very carefully to make sure you are looking at the correct year AND the correct tour size, e.g. Classic (full size) vs Small Group tour, AND, for some tours the correct direction, e.g. northbound and southbound, etc.. Sometimes, as in the Crown Jewel tour discussed above, both Small Group and Classic tour departures are both in the same listing on the "Pricing & Availability" page, sometimes not. And sometimes Classic and Small Group tours are listed as totally different tours. e.g. "Best of Ireland" and "Best of Ireland, Small Groups" In the case of Best of Ireland- the Small Group tours stay at Ashford Castle, but the Classic tours do not.
All that being said, it appears there is no 25 Oct tour of either type, at least not yet. Also other dates don't fit the pattern- according to the departure dates listed, Small Group tours start on Thursdays in Oct 2025- 2, 9, 16, 23, and 30 Oct while Classic tours start on Mondays- 6, 13, 20, 27 Oct 2025. Also, other dates in the Notes don't follow. They don't fit 2024 or 2023 either! So, Tauck will need to fix this
Hi SueTimAltoona - the screenshot Alan shared is indeed where I found the alt hotel info on the Tauck website. In fact, I actually selected our tour date because I prefer to stay in Grindelwald. Regarding the Glacier Express itinerary change, I received an email directly from Tauck about 6 weeks in advance of our tour. I did book through a travel agent; however, the email was sent directly to me from the Tauck Ops team. Thanks to this forum, I was prepared for this news so it wasn't a complete shock. I'll report back upon my return!
It would be helpful if you would put the dates of your tours in your posts... we leave soon for the July 10th tour but leaving here on the 8th.
Thank you, JRMSoCal. I will be looking for your report! I am very interested in what you choose to do in the free time listed on the itinerary…if there is much. Please report. Also, are you arriving early in Lausanne? Be sure to report what you did the morning of the first dinner day. Thanks!
Just received an email from Tauck about our Sept 6 Crown Jewels trip. No Glacier Express on Day 7 despite the above info. Yes to a Milchmanufaktur cheese factory tour and a regional train trip. Disappointing to say the least….
Missing the Glacier Express is no big deal IMHO. And I had looked forward to it! I thoroughly enjoyed the bus ride to the next stop. It was incredible.
We did this trip in June 2022.All I can say is fantastic. The scenery is breathtaking. We did the Glacier Express and I agree with the other posters. It was very nice but not nicer than just being on the bus trips. Lucerne is lovely. We loved all the hotels. The Jungfrau is really terrific. You do need shoes with traction that you can wear in the snow etc. My only regret is not hand gliding in Interlaken.
Hang gliding
We are currently on the trip in LUzerne.. Our tour director told us that the Glacier Express is just a slow 4 hour train ride. With the local 2 hour train you get to see more of the natural countryside and it was a delight. The hotels do not for the most part have AC. Be prepared to be warm at night.