IKON Adds Zermatt

[Zand]

ABC - finding flight and hotel costs was pretty easy but i,cant find the cost of taking the train from Zurich to Zermatt (only see the schedule). It shows that it takes about 3.5 hours which is great. I'm sure its a lot less than renting a car in Denver...would $100 get you a round trip ticket or is it more?

In all seriousness the cost isnt as bad as I ever thought it would be. A week in Colorado cost me nearly 2k 2 years ago and it seems like Switzerland could be done for close to that. Also makes me glad SLC exists for trips west on the cheap.

 

[thetrailboss]

ABC - finding flight and hotel costs was pretty easy but i,cant find the cost of taking the train from Zurich to Zermatt (only see the schedule). It shows that it takes about 3.5 hours which is great. I'm sure its a lot less than renting a car in Denver...would $100 get you a round trip ticket or is it more?

In all seriousness the cost isnt as bad as I ever thought it would be. A week in Colorado cost me nearly 2k 2 years ago and it seems like Switzerland could be done for close to that. Also makes me glad SLC exists for trips west on the cheap.

For train tickets and information: https://www.sbb.ch/de/

SBB also sells ski packages that include train tickets, ski rental, and ticket if you want to go somewhere else during your visit.

 

[abc]

Zand, I just put in a random time tomorrow. The price came up as CHF 64 (Swiss Franc).

When I used to traveled to Switzerland, I always used a "Swiss Transfer Ticket", which is a round trip ticket from any airport to any destination. But the Swiss had discontinued that a year or 2 ago. But I'm told there's still the half price card you can buy. I don't know the detail though. www.sbb.ch is the Swiss Railway web site.

 

[abc]

For train tickets and information: https://www.sbb.ch/de/

Unless you're fluent in German, better drop the /de part (/en for English)

 

[Zand]

Zand, I just put in a random time tomorrow. The price came up as CHF 64 (Swiss Franc).

When I used to traveled to Switzerland, I always used a "Swiss Transfer Ticket", which is a round trip ticket from any airport to any destination. But the Swiss had discontinued that a year or 2 ago. But I'm told there's still the half price card you can buy. I don't know the detail though. www.sbb.ch is the Swiss Railway web site.

The site i just looked at says the Swiss Franc is basically at par with the $ right now so thats not bad at all. Is the bus system in Zermatt free for local travel?

 

[thetrailboss]

Unless you're fluent in German, better drop the /de part (/en for English)

Yes. Thanks

 

[Zand]

That site is confusing as all hell. Wish you could just put in the starting point, destination, date and time, and the prices come up. I don't even understand what to do on that site.

 

[chuckstah]

ABC - finding flight and hotel costs was pretty easy but i,cant find the cost of taking the train from Zurich to Zermatt (only see the schedule). It shows that it takes about 3.5 hours which is great. I'm sure its a lot less than renting a car in Denver...would $100 get you a round trip ticket or is it more?

In all seriousness the cost isnt as bad as I ever thought it would be. A week in Colorado cost me nearly 2k 2 years ago and it seems like Switzerland could be done for close to that. Also makes me glad SLC exists for trips west on the cheap.

I've been on a lot of ski trips over the years, West, Rockies, Canada, Europe and more, easily 50 plus trips. Zermatt was by far the most expensive trip. 10 days for lift, lodging (shared cost with couple friends), trains, and flight didn't seem too out of line at maybe $2000 estimated cost, a dozen years ago, but that was just the beginning. We were bleeding money the whole time as prices for everything were sky high. Think $50 lunch and a shitty beer or 2. Great trip, great snow (mid March), great time, but I won't likely be going back. Just too damn expensive as total cost was around $5000, trying to cut corners. The only other place with comparitively high prices was Iceland, which is also a great trip. Go if you can, but bring more spending power than you think you will need.

 

[Bosco DaSkia]

In all seriousness the cost isnt as bad as I ever thought it would be. A week in Colorado cost me nearly 2k 2 years ago and it seems like Switzerland could be done for close to that. Also makes me glad SLC exists for trips west on the cheap.

If you’re talking about flying out of Boston, Europe is A great value versus going out west. The airfare is comparable, but the lodging and lift tickets are much cheaper in Europe and they are in America. Remember, with Zermatt,you’re looking at one of the fanciest fucking places to go skiing in Europe. With that in mind, I found the prices to be most reasonable when I was last skiing there. To be fair though, for the same amount of money you could really live like a serious king at any of the other hundreds of resorts in Switzerland or Austria that are within just a few hours of Zermatt. Check Google maps. You will be amazed at the number of ski areas when you zoom in on that region.


Food with a view...... you wouldn’t believe how cheap this was.

 

[abc]

Food with a view...... you wouldn’t believe how cheap this was.

View attachment 25417

That’s because you have the good sense of eating local food instead of McDonald.

 

[heiusa]

Remember all the math changes with the exchange rate at the time of your trip. Growing up, my father would take us out west or to Europe depending on the exchange rate that year, some years it was cheaper to ski Europe than out west. With the EU it makes it easier to figure the exchange rate than pre EU, when you had to figure each country’s rate separately. I did visit Zermat, but we stayed in Cervinia, it took us the whole day to take the lifts up, ski into Zermat, have lunch, then take the lifts back to Italy and ski back to our hotel. So basically we only got in two runs, but they were extremely long runs. We even had to take our skis off to cross runs and passed through someone’s farm.

There is nothing in the US that compares to that kind of skiing experience

 

[Bosco DaSkia]

There is nothing in the US that compares to that kind of skiing experience

not true......at the catamount, you can ski from New York to Massachusetts and back agin....







fact.

 

[Bosco DaSkia]

That’s because you’re eating local food instead pf McDonald.

c'mon now...pf mcdonald's is every bit as good as pf chang's.







food fact.

 

[abc]

c'mon now...pf mcdonald's is every bit as good as pf chang's.







food fact.

no, mcdonald is 3 times better than any local food because it costs 3 times as much






fact, or should be spell fake.

 

[ThinkSnow]

$150 is pretty average in many ski destination in the northeast! See Zand's post above for "in season" pricing.


That's another mistake. Take the train all the way from Zurich. No parking cost! (no rental car cost either)


In season, you'll have the option of "Half Board", which includes breakfast and dinner.

All in all, it's a flawed deduction that just because your cost during off season, renting a car, eating American food, is expensive, cost for ski season will be "outrageous".

We didn't make any "mistakes"-- as I mentioned, this was not a ski trip. I did not include cost of car rental in my estimates because we were using that as transportation in Italy, and where a direct train was not an option. The "american" food in Zermatt was not only 3x the cost it is here, but it was also 3x the cost it was in Milan Italy. I checked on our hotel bill and it was actually 190/night for a middle of the road hotel in the off season, which breaks down to approximately 100 per person per night. Not cheap.

 

[abc]

We didn't make any "mistakes"-- as I mentioned, this was not a ski trip. I did not include cost of car rental in my estimates because we were using that as transportation in Italy, and where a direct train was not an option. The "american" food in Zermatt was not only 3x the cost it is here, but it was also 3x the cost it was in Milan Italy. I checked on our hotel bill and it was actually 190/night for a middle of the road hotel in the off season, which breaks down to approximately 100 per person per night. Not cheap.

I didn't mean it a "mistake" you rented cars for your trip. But it's a mistake to include that in the calculation for pricing a ski trip to Zermatt, which would work far better by taking a train straight from the airport, as one would typically not going anywhere else but staying put the whole time.

Also, you were implying hotels cost more in the winter at Zermatt. I'm not sure that's a valid assumption.

 

[jimmywilson69]

So what kind of skiing would there be for my wife who is strong Vermont intermediate who can ski everything Blue at Stowe and Killington and some Blacks if they are groomed. She struggles with eastern moguls but does better in new snow when compared to hard moguls.

She thinks all the skiing in the Alps is what you see in Ski Films... :lol::lol:

 

[Bosco DaSkia]

So what kind of skiing would there be for my wife who is strong Vermont intermediate who can ski everything Blue at Stowe and Killington and some Blacks if they are groomed. She struggles with eastern moguls but does better in new snow when compared to hard moguls.

She thinks all the skiing in the Alps is what you see in Ski Films... :lol::lol:

Zermatt is a mostly intermediate mountain with a lot of traverses. She’ll be fine.












And if she ain’t.... just remember to pay the extra 3 francs for ski patrol to scrape what’s left of her off the side of the mountain .







Easy peasy.

 

[abc]

So what kind of skiing would there be for my wife who is strong Vermont intermediate who can ski everything Blue at Stowe and Killington and some Blacks if they are groomed.

Practically ALL

European resorts groom the hell out of ALL of their runs!.....................................................................


(something really screwy about the formatting, can't move to the left of center of page except by filling the end of the lines with garbage!)​

 

[BenedictGomez]

Practically ALL European resorts groom the hell out of ALL of their runs!

Thank you, you just made me feel incalculably better about never having skied in Europe.