Swannee

Hello,

Has anyone ever been skiing in Muerren or the Muerren region? If so can, you please let me know what it's like? I've read a bit about the fact that is hard to get into the town in the summer -- I wonder what it's like in winter when you have skis and more to carry. We have the possibility of staying a week at the Anfi Palace in early March through a time share. Does anyone recommend this hotel -- or not? And how far is the ski area from the hotel? Do you also know if one can get a ski pass that covers more than one region.

We have never been to that part of Swtizerland, although we have skiied in another area of the country. Is Muerren as expensive as St. Moritz or Zermatt?

Thanks for your advice

Cicerone

I have to say that I am NOT a fan of the Anfi Palace, I looked at it for a family holiday last year (I used to live in Zurich) and saw half a dozen rooms and found them all old with tired 19060's décor, thin carpets, old bathrooms, etc. The public areas were the same and kind of depressing. The food was fine, and I have eaten there on other occasions on trips to Murren, but its hard to get a bad meal in Switzerland so that is not really a plus IMO. I would not recommend that you stay there.

Murren is tiny and you can walk or even ski to the lifts quite easily even with equipment, and at the end of the day if you are located in the right area I suppose you could ski almost do your door, a nice plus in Switzerland. The town has an indoor pool and a skating/curling rink, and a grocery store. I am not sure what you mean by "hard to get into town", do you mean get down the valley into Luaterbrunnen? That is a little bit of a hike, you have to take the little train and then the cog railway down to Lauterbrunnen. Door to door this would take you about 30 minutes or more. However, you don't need to go into Lauterbrunnen for anything, unless you want to get over to Wengen or Grindelwald to ski.

You can buy a ski pass that would cover skking in Murren, Wengen and Grindelwald which is a hyuge are, basically the Jungfrau valley. I am not really a fan of skiing in the Murren area, although it is very beaufitul. the lift system s quite antiquiated and I find the trails narrow and a bit dark, eps coapred to Zermatt and St MOrtiz. If you ski down to the bottom of the valley it takes a good bit of time and troubvle to get back up to the ski areas. However, others on this board like it, esp Grindelwald. You mgith run a seachr, or I am sure others will post. I would just say not to stay at the Anfi Palace. I would recco the Eiger Hotel in Murren. Take a look at Hoteleiger.com.

All of Switzerland is expensive, I don't think you will find Murren appreciably cheaper than Zermatt or St Mortiz as it is a very popular tourist destination. You may find hotels a little cheaper in winter than in St Moritz, except at Christmas.

Swannee

Thanks for your comment Cicerone

I was a bit concerned about the hotel just looking at a photo online and I had a similar gut feeling to your comments. However, it is listed as a Gold Crown resort with the RCI time share organization and that is supposed to be their top of the line -- so I wonder --as we have stayed at Gold Crown resorts before and they were very nice.

The problem is that with a time share, you don't always get what you want where or when you want it. -- And you have the option to refuse. We had not asked for this area, but an availablity came through and we were told that this was one of RCI's better resorts in Switzerland and the dates are good ones if we decide to go. If we go to Murren, we have to stay at the Anfi. The alternative is not to go there at all and go skiing elsewhere. If we go, we would probably take the complete Jungfrau ski pass as it makes more sense especially judging from your comments.

We would be coming from North America and probably visit some other places as well on the trip.

Cicerone

I would ask RCI to make sure that the Anfi doesn't have some apartments somewhere else that they use for timeshare, maybe they do and maybe they are nicer. I know that the Eiger, which is a nice hotel, has privately owned apartments next door which can also be rented out from owners, so mabye the Anfi has something similar. Also maybe there has been a redo at the Anfi in the last 8 months, I was last in their restaurant in December. I kind of doubt it but maybe someone here has stayed at the hotel in the last 8 months. There was a poster about 4 months ago raving about the Anfi as being luxurious, which really really surprised me, mabye you can find his post and ask for is opinion, mabye I am too harsh, I don't know...

It may be the best in the area offered for timeshare (a concept not really that big in Europe yet as it still has a bad fly-by-night reputation from years of rip offs in Spain), but that is not saying much. What are your other choices in Switzerland?

Swannee

There are no other choices at the moment in Switerland expect perhaps for Zermatt with a combination of skiing in Cervinia. We had asked to go to Cortina as we had never skiied in Italy and they came up with Muerren and the Anfi (!!!) The time share resorts are supposed to be at a certain level and Gold Crown is the best. We have stayed at Gold Crowns in the past and they were nice, So I don't know. My personal feelings are mixed at the moment . Do you know how far Muerren would be from the Italian border if we wanted to continue our trip afterwards. And it is easy to get to? I gather that one is rather isolated in Muerren and that one can only go down by skis or the funicular -- or am I wrong?
We love to ski and explore new regions but we don't want to feel locked into an area.

What do you think?

FlyFish

Murren is not a good base for skiing the Jungfrau region. The runs on the Murren side of the Lauterbrunnen valley are limited and the trip to the Mannlichen and First areas, each of which is considerably more extensive, is lengthy, involving a tram/bus or train/funicular to get back down into the valley, then the slow train to Wengen or the long detour through Zweileutschinen and then to Grindelwald. If your primary interest is skiing I think you'd be much happier in Zermatt/Cervinia if you can arrange lodging. We've skied that area often, from Grindelwald, and the trip over to Murren and back for a trip to the Schilthorn and a little skiing is a day-long slog.

Swannee

Thanks FlyFish and Cicerone

I think we may just forget this for now and concentrate elsewhere. I read some other post in French on the Swiss Goverment Tourist site -- on the hotel by someone who was there this past February and they said the location was beautiful, but the service at the hotel was poor and that the noise in the disco was unbearable -- as Cicerone mentioned.
We wil look into other ski areas in Europe for March if possible. Thanks for the tips. We are going, however to ski in Utah in February so at least there will be one long ski trip this year.

I appreciate all your comments

Thank you

vinolover

We stayed at the Anfi Palace on an RCI trade last year and were very happy there. We didn't think the room tired or out of date. The bathroom was not huge but quite nice. It is lacking over other timeshare resorts in that it is just a hotel room with no separate living area or kitchen but it did have a small supply of dishware, wine glasses, coffee maker, and minibar fridge.

I posted a more complete review on http://www.tug2.net/.

Photos of our room (and fabulous view from our balcony):
http://www.worldisround.com/articles/77369/index.html

I would definitely return to Muerren for another week and if I wanted to timeshare there I would be happy at the Anfi Palace. More likely the next time we would rent an apartment with a kitchen.

Swannee

Thanks vinolover, but we have decided not to bother. You went there to hike. We wanted to go skiing and after talking to some ski tour experts everyone said that if we wanted to ski the area, we would be better off in Grindelwald and go to Muerren just for a day trip

vinolover

Hope you have a great time! We aren't skiers so can't comment on the best place for that. We never made it over to Grindelwald but heard there is great hiking there also. It does take some time to get from one side of the valley to the other. I just loved the entire area and wouldn't hesitate to go back no matter where we stayed.