Zurich: Lucerne & Mount Pilatus – The Legendary Dragon Mountain

Just a bus driver, no guide! Driver had two different tours on bus and zero information on bus ride. Minimal directions on where to meet. Could have taken public transportation just as easy. Had to google for sites to see and directions. That being said the view from Mount Pilatus was spectacular.

The cable car cogwheel train and Lucerne were great but I didnt have a guide I had a driver as we were dropped in Lucerne for 2hrs on my own Then taken to cable car and given tickets fo that the cog wheel train and the boat and told where the driver would pick me up Would not recemend to anyone who doesnt have internet as mine was not working

Pretty much a bus shuttle service to two areas with self guided time in each. If you are expecting a guide with local commentary regarding history and local facts probably better to look at alternative tours. We only booked the silver tour so there may be better options with the gold tour. Could probably be done much cheaper independently via train and Uber to and from the cable car station.

Not really fair to rate the experience since it was a rainy and foggy day. We did enjoy the day very much even in bad weather. The guide was excellent. I do recommend the Gold tour. The train and the cruise were very nice. We wish we could have seen the views but can’t blame that on anybody.

Get the gold package. It was truly a remarkable day with enough “free time” to complete everything on our list.

Well planned, well timed, great guide, beautiful views and a worry-free experience. We highly recommend!

Wonderful tour with a lot to see. Our guide Angelo was amazing accommodating and helpful on the tour and beyond.

Today has to be one of the best days of my life. John, the guide, was very friendly and accomodating. The day was amazing. I purchased the gold option and it was well worth it. Plenty of opportunities to grab food and drink, take a jacket as it’s cold up the top and don’t hesitate booking.

Amazing Day! Beautiful scenery Angelo was wonderful! Very knowledgeable and pleasant! A day full of adventure!

Please don’t buy this Zurich: an Adventure to Pilatus Gold and Silver Tour and Lucerne. I made that mistake and was sadly disappointed. The problems? 1) The drive there was ridiculous. It appeared at first that they were trying to load a recording, but couldn’t get it to work. The guide – I use the word loosely – fumbled around, then just turned it off. He gave a super brief, few sentence explanation of the Swiss government, then just ignored us and talked to the driver in German. There were five of us tourists on the bus, and we all spoke English. When pressed, he finally got the audio working, but the only played it for a few minutes, then abruptly turned it off after it said we’d be stopping at the famous Lucerne Lion. I believe that was because they weren’t taking us to the Lion. They skipped it. 2) They didn’t follow the posted itinerary. Instead of taking us up the mountain first, as we were told they would, they flipped it and we were taken to Lucerne at 9 a.m., a full hour before anything opened. No open stores. No restaurants. The bigger problem was: they dropped us not at the Rolex store, where other folks who took tours told us they were dropped, but in a bus parking lot across the river and a full 20-minute walk from the town center. The weather was horrible, raining and cold. I asked for a map, so we could see the sights. They scrounged around and pulled out a brochure with a one-inch map without any of the sights marked on it. No map for us to follow. Even hotels hand those out. When we complained, they told us to use Google. 3) The small map in the brochure had only one thing marked on it, the pickup spot in the center of Lucerne. If that had been our pickup spot – and it is where we heard the other tours picked up – we could have walked over and had a couple of hours in Lucerne, then met the bus. Instead, we were told that wouldn’t be our pickup spot. We had to walk back to the bus lot, across the river. That meant, we had to allow another 20-minutes to walk back to the bus. Since we needed to spend more than 40 minutes walking, we had little time to see anything in Lucerne or forshopping once the stores did open at 10. 4) The weather had continued to worsen. They can’t control the weather, but they could have controlled the schedule, giving us more time in Lucerne once things opened up, since they should have realized conditions on the mountain were bad. Instead, we were then shuffled off to Mount Pilatus, again with no info, no commentary, not even an account of how high the mountain was. We were told how to use the cable car to go up the mountain, given tickets, and told they’d pick us up in three hours. Once we got to the top, the weather was awful, snowing and fog so dense we couldn’t see more than two feet in front of us once. We couldn’t see anything. The mountain slippery with ice and snow, we couldn’t go anywhere. There was NOTHING to do but have a little lunch at the restaurant, but we had THREE HOURS to kill. The snow worsened, and we headed down the mountain early. 5) When we complained, the driver and guide drove us back to Lucerne, but again dropped us at the bus lot. There wasn’t time for the forty-minute walk to and from Lucerne, so we found a place to get a coffee right near the lot. We watched and buses came and went. All of them were empty except for the drivers. No other tourists showed up. The other drivers had obviously dropped their clients elsewhere and the drivers were using the lot to sit in the buses until it was time to pick up. When our bus returned and we complained, the guide insisted they had no choice, that Lucerne only allowed drop off and pick up at this lot. We didn’t believe them. Still don’t. If that were true, we would have seen other tourists coming and going. We saw none. In summary: this was a horrible tour. They should have accommodated for the weather, followed the itinerary they published on the internet, and taken us to the mountain first for an hour or so, before the snow started. We might have been able to see something. They could have then driven us to Lucerne when the restaurants and shops were open. They skipped the famous Lion altogether, although their own recorded message said we’d be seeing it. And they literally dumped us at Mount Pilatus in a dense fog and left us there for 3 hours with absolutely nothing to do, nothing to look at. We would have been better off taking a train from Zurich to Lucerne and an Uber to the mountain. We got no commentary, no local color, saw none of the sights, and were unable to shop. This tour sucks.

Make sure to bring a jacket as the temperature at the top of the mountain can be 30-40 degrees colder than in the town

Our tour guide John was great! Very friendly and helpful. And Pilatus mountain was very beautiful. Well worth it

Tour was great as far as what was offered and for the location Mt pilatus was incredible my only complaint would be the price for what was offered if i was to do it again i would just get an uber to the locations and purchases the pass. i had silver so there was no guide. i will say a driver for the first half of the trip was great and very nice man and the Swiss tour bus was clean and nice i do wish for the price we paid that they would have picked us up from the hotel.

It's a self guided tour, but enjoyable. The view from the mountain top depends on the weather. However, the views traveling up and down were breathe taking. The gondola goes up one side and the train goes on the other side. I recommend riding both, since we saw the ibex while riding the train and not the gondola. The more or less time you spend on the mountain will determine how much time you have in Lucerne. Plan accordingly, since the boat will take some time to get there. It is a relaxing ride with gorgeous views as well.

BOOK THIS TOUR!!!! While it is a long day, this tour had it all! Cable car, gondola, train and a gorgeous scenic boat ride! We were blessed with beautiful weather and clear skies so we were able to enjoy breathtaking views of Mt. Pilatus from all angles and also the stunning views from the boat! I only wish we had slightly more time in Lucerne, but other than that, everything was absolutely perfect!!

I love the tour and the only reason I am giving it a 4 star instead of 5 is I like hearing the history of the area or any interesting facts about where I am going or seeing. The guides were super nice and accommodating but no information except Zurich is clean etc.