Glacier Express Panoramic Train Round Trip from Zürich With Private Guide

Journey Through the Swiss Alps: A Spectacular Glacier Express Experience

It was an incredible experience of trip to ZURICH, Switzerland, and I highly suggest everyone to embark on the Glacier Express journey at least once in their lifetime. Witnessing the breathtaking Alps up close from the comfort of the train as it winds its way along the mountain peaks is truly awe-inspiring. Our tour guide, Michael Myers, was just exceptional, serving as a knowledgeable and friendly companion throughout the trip. Exploring the quaint Swiss villages in CHUR and BRIG on foot was a serene experience, with lush greenery and meticulously maintained wooden houses adding to the charm of the surroundings of great mountains touching Northern Italy and Austria. Best regards, Prachi Malay Parikh March 21-22 ( 2024)

Great journey and experience

Enjoyed the experience with my partner who celebrated his 50th birthday. It was a gift so I ordered a cake unfortunately one of the waiter's on the train ruined the suprise as soon as we say down. This upset me and ruined the day but the train journey itself was a success

A unique experience with attention to detail lacking

For a train that requires a travel ticket and a £40 seat reservation, the scenery and quality of the coach is amazing; but that’s where it stops. The locomotive wasn’t branded, and looked out of place, some of the waiting staff were abrupt, boarding rude and there was no milk available meaning no cappuccino, hot chocolate or white coffee was available half way through the journey- disappointing

Fantastic. You should do this.

Our guide, Michael, was knowledgeable, enthusiastic, accommodating and great company. We particularly appreciated our walking tours of Chur and Brig whilst we waited for our trains. The scenery on the express itself was mind-blowing, and it was amazing to think that we travelled over the headwaters of both the Rhine and Rhône. We saw so much of Switzerland in a single day. The food on the express was good, although it was disappointing to learn that our dietary requirements (specified when I booked on the Viator site) had not been passed on to Glacier Express catering. Despite this rather unsatisfactory lapse, we still say 5 stars - mostly due to Michael and the scenery. Vielen dank, Michael!

Spectacular view

We enjoyed the whole trip, and had a great tour guidance. Watching the hills with the snow so close was very impressive.

Andermatt to Saint Moritz

We took the Glacier Express from Andermatt to Saint Moritz and returned the next day to Andermatt. We left the car in Andermatt. The car park to use overnight is located underneath the Radisson Hotel. Walking time from the car park to the train station is about 5 mins. Not far at all. For the Glacier Express you need to reserve in advance and seats go quickly. You will need to pay for the reservation and then buy a separate train ticket as well. We bought the train tickets at the station. The Glacier Express arrived perfectly on time and we found our seats without trouble whilst being welcomed aboard by the train manager. We travelled in First Class and the seats were very comfortable and the space available was good. Arrangement of the seats is 2:1 across the train. The views are absolutely amazing from top to bottom (windows at an angle in the top of the train) which meant we could see the mountains, the villages, the ravines, the snow capped mountains in August! The second day we woke up to fresh snow on the mountain tops which was amazing, especially as it was the start of August. The speed of the train in such that you can easily see the magnificent sights of Switzerland and take photos as you go without missing anything. The Glacier Express staff aboard the train, on the platforms and in the ticket office were all extremely polite and welcoming throughout.

Glacier Express train trip is worth it!

Uli is an experienced tour guide , he provided a rich historical and insight talking points on each interesting view spots, we really enjoyed travel in big with Uli.

Grossly Over Priced/Poor local Service

This is a completely overpriced trip, with Viator using a local company to provide the guides. Apparently the two don't talk and any problem that occurs, they point fingers at each other. Anyone can easily book the same trip for 1/3 to 1/4 the price. Trains run easily and regularly from Zurich to Chur and then add the Glacier Express train from Chur to Brig. The guide only makes sure you get to the right trains and they are easy to do. Plus our reservation clearly had included lunch on the Glacier Express train and we had to pay extra and neither Viator or the local company providing the service would accept responsibility.

Why did I pay sooooo much!!!?

The meeting information they sent to us the day before the trip was wrong…it said to go to the train station tourist office and meet that morning…. After waiting there and getting very concerned, I called the hotel we were staying at to ask their advice, and they said the guide was at the hotel looking for us! If I had not called the hotel we would have missed the entire thing and we would probably have lost our $1099 ! The Tour operator never answered their phone all morning while I was trying to call. They blamed the issue on Viator. Our itinerary said in writing that lunch on the train was included… again the tour operator said it was not. and again blamed Viator , so we were out another $125 for an average lunch with lousy service. Lesson learned … don’t book through Viator, do your research and book your own trains and save hundreds!

Disappointed

Nothing it was boring 4 hours of seeing the same thing. Our guide was fantastic but the tour itself is boring. Lunch was part of the package but it was never provided we paid almost two thousand for a party of four for a plain train ride. We sent an inquiry as to why the full package was never provided but to date we have not received any justification to the cost of the tour

Not as expected

This tour is not at all as described on the tour site. We expected a breezy day through the country side with a guide that would accentuate the experience. The train made several stops throughout the day to allow for other trains to pass (one shared track) on several stops it was in dark tunnels. Not exactly an opportunity to see the sites. Our guide, although a very sweet man, fell asleep during the tour. Our takeaway...too expensive, not what expected and we would not recommend. I would recommend downloading the SBB train app and routing your own tour between your destinations. The trains are much less expensive (even for 1st class) the sites are as good or better than what we saw on the Glacier Tour.

Swiss Alps where sky meets with mountain peak

It was a wounder full journey in a wounder full sunny day through a spectacular pass. Our English speaking guide Michel was very good and professional. He was very much on time and explained the various flora and faunna of the regions nicely. Would recommend to make this trip to everybody who loves to see the scenic beauty and remoteness of Swiss Alps

Use Swiss Travel Guide!!

If you need help seeing the Swiss Alps via the Glacier Express then absolutely book Swiss Travel Guide. Its tour manager Mike von Aesch is the BEST! So informative and so helpful!!

Great excursion

Our guide Rolf was great. So very formative and friendly. The trip was fantastic. Trains so clean and comfortable.

Oskar was a very...

Oskar was a very knowledgeable person, he had the best attitude to explain every single detail during the trip to us. We had a very nice time with him, he is a very patient and polite person. We would love to have this experience again!

Wonderful views

This is a great tour on the "Slowest Express Train" in Europe. It's an easy way to see different areas outside of Zurich. With a guide, the transfer for the roundtrip back to Zurich was comfortable. The train from Zurich that we were on ran late, so we couldn't make the expected connection for the return. Our guide quickly determined the alternate train to catch and which track it was leaving from. The guide was also full of information during the train route. He pointed out architectural differences in the farm houses as the settlements changed as well as historic WWII sites. All in all a fantastic day that we would recommend to friends.

Best views

The views from the train is amazing. It is a whole day experience, but covers a lot. Food was delicious on the train. The guide that we had wasn’t much of a help, besides getting us on the different trains/ connections. Can easily be done on your own. Definitely worth the time of you have a whole day.

Must See Once!

Simply Awesome! No words can define it... Must check-out Bern & Brig too, if you can... Thanks to our guide Rebacca who was par-excellence for making our journey a memorable treat.

The highlight of our time in...

<p>The highlight of our time in Switzerland. Our guide, Dominique, was super fun and extremely knowledgable. She knew the answer to every question we asked and we really enjoyed our time with her. Although it's possible and pretty easy to do the trip without a guide, I would really recommend booking a guide. It removes all of the stress and allows you to learn a lot more about Switzerland than you would without one. I would absolutely recommend this tour to anyone that has a free day in Switzerland! The Swiss Alps are amazing, and the meal on the train was delicious.</p>

loved our guide, this is a full day...

<p>loved our guide, this is a full day tour. we visited in december and the sights were amazing, all the countryside covered in snow, just amazing!<br/> the train is very comfortable, the food is good, our guide was very enthusiastic. <br/> i think the highlight ofthis tour was the small town of Brig, i just wish we would have had more time in there, otherwise its a 10/10</p>

Fabulous view of the beauty of Swiss only available with this SLOW (Express Tour) train. - A MUST if you visit Swiss.

You can see the fabulous view of Swiss as you ride on this slow moving train that traverses some of the most spectacular scenic region in Swiss. You can go from St. Moritz to Zermatt or the reverse direction, but my recommendation is to take a St. Moritz to Zermatt ( North to South) direction train because you the views are MORE spectacular. The Express Train traverses 180 mi (290 Km) in 9 hrs, moving an average of 20 mph, sometimes faster, sometimes slower. As the train reaches snow capped mountains, the train slows down to 15 mph, and you can take many beautiful scenic photos. At the end of the journey, at Zermatt, you can visit Klien Matterhorn, and see the Matterhorn mountain nearby. The train has a dining car, but servers will come around your table to take an order in advance (beef stroganoff or chicken) and drinks. Bottled water is MORE expensive than a beer ( 7 Sfr vs. 5 Sfr for 500 mL bottle). So, if you plan to take this train all day (9 hrs from St. Moritz to Zermatt), it would be wise to go to a Co-op or Migro's in advance, and pick up a sandwich, bottled water, bottles/canned coffee, etc., and do not waste monry to buy food or drinks on this train, and avoid paying for EXHORBITANTLY expensive, not-so-tasty train meals on this train. Lousy tasing, tiny little coffee costs 7 Sfr ( ~ $ 9.00) on this train, and even lousier tasing meal costs upwards of 30 Sfr each. Not having this advance knowledge, I paid for coffee, bottled water, beef dish on the train, and had wished that someone had given me such advice in advance. Otherwise, you will have a wonderful memory of seeing the beauty of Swiss from this train ride experience.

We had Oskar as our guide. It was...

<p>We had Oskar as our guide. It was myself, my girlfriend and him. He was very knowledgeable and had a great sense of humour. My partner has a hard time walking and Oskar was totally patient and when it was time to board the the trains, he went ahead of us so we had the best seats on the train for the spectacular views. Well worth the money spent.</p>

The day trip was amazing with...

<p>The day trip was amazing with spectacular views. Our tour guide, Anja, was really helpful all day. Arrived on time. Offered her local knowledge of the trip throughout the day. Made sure we got all the right connecting trains. We got much more out of the day because of her service. Highly recommended</p>

Beautiful trip

The Glacier express starts from Zermatt and ends in St Moritz..We traveled from Visp to Zermatt as we had only a day..We got down at Zermatt and went upto Gonergat by the Cogwheel train.. A few tips on Glacier express.. 1. You can catch any train that travels on this route (Zermatt-St Moritz)..All the Swiss trains are beautiful..with huge windows.. 2.You can get down at any station and explore that place and catch the next train..there are no extra cost for that..and no need to buy a new ticket

Mr. Oskar did an amazing job of...

<p>Mr. Oskar did an amazing job of guiding our day. The sights, sounds and tastes of Switzerland left us planning our next visit. While we could have planned our day adventure on our own, having Mr. Oskar walk us through personal experiences and history of this beautiful land was well worth every penny.</p>

This was a great tour. We got to...

<p>This was a great tour. We got to see a lot of the country with some personal attention by our sweet tour guide, Dominique. We had some difficulties with the Glacier Express, in that they had double booked our reserved seats. We ended up in the back of the train and so the service was less than first class. This was not Viator's fault though, sometimes stuff just happens. The views were incredible. Once you've done such a tour once and you see how easy it is to manage such a trip yourself, next time I think we would try it on our own, but for the first time, it was nice to have the comfort of a personal guide.</p>

The trip itself was brilliant, and...

<p>The trip itself was brilliant, and we had a fabulous day. The Glacier Express lived up to all our high expectations and the scenery was spectacular. <br/> Although our young guide was quite inexperienced it was her second tour, she did a good job getting us everywhere we needed to be and on time to make all our connections. We were picked up from our Zurich, taken by local train to the main central station to catch the regional train and then the Glacier Express. We returned to Zurich via a different rail route so in effect we circled a large part of Switzerland which was a bonus. Although we could have managed the day on our own, it was much easier and more relaxing to have the local knowledge of our guide.</p>

The guide was informative and...

<p>The guide was informative and helpful. The train was comfortable and the lunch was good. The only disappointing thing was the lack of snow in mid-December, not something Viator could control. Even without snow, the scenery, including distant glaciers, was great.</p>

Muy largo. Las visitas en los pueblos no valen la pena. Lo único de valor son las vistas desde el tren.

Vistas desde el tren es lo único de valor. Los pueblos visitados no tienen nada que ver. Perdida de tiempo. En adición hay que estar en buena condición para caminar en los varios pueblos. El hotel pick up es un engaño. Nos recogió a pie una persona y caminamos como 2 millas para llegar al tren y de regreso nos dijo sigan derecho hasta llegar al hotel… no era detecho.

Très beau parcours

Une belle expérience pour découvrir une partie de la Suisse. Très beaux paysages. Mais d’après le film promotionnel nous nous attendions à des paysages plus spectaculaires. Le personnel à bord est attentionné. Le train est confortable. Le repas est bon mais pas exceptionnel.

Viaje Increible

Teniamos el SWISS TRAVEL PASS, tomamos el Glacier Express, desde ZEMAT hasta CHUR, algunos tramos estaban en reparación y obras, pero en eso lugares nos transportaron en Autobuses Panorámicos, así que fue una doble experiencia maravillosa, Overwald, Adermatt, Oberalpass y tantos lugares hermosos, es un viaje inigualable, nos toco un dia de sol despues deuna gran nevada la noche anterior, asi que 10PUNTOS..