It sounds great on their web-site: "SkiArena Andermatt-Sedrun, central Switzerland's largest ski resort", recently reported to be a "spectacular new ski region in Switzerland, with the completion of a link between two neighboring resorts." In the 2020/21 season it offered a "half-price" pass for return customers to attract tourists in this Covid season. As always, reality is more sobering: You can not ski between Andermatt and Sedrun/Disentis areas, but need to take a "Ski Train" in between. Supposedly this travels every 15 minutes, except in the middle of they day when we tried the traverse, when trains seem to go over hour. Returning late in the day, the Disentis train station was more than a kilometer from the Disentis lifts with a non-frequent bus connection, so we had to walk. Finally, while the Dieni lift runs until 16:30, the two crucial connecting lifts at Val Val for the traverse close at 16:00 (or so the piste control claimed). There is no exit to the railroad from Val Val, so we needed to retreat to Dieni to get the train to Andermatt.

An even bigger problem is with parking. As others point out, there is no free long term parking for visitors. The main parking for the Andermatt-Naetschen lift, leads you through an active military garrison, and is quite small. When we visited, Andermatt was having great day attracting customers: the cars were strewn over the lot, with clearly no assistance from security people. It might work here or there, but no, clearly that car would have difficulty getting out. At the end I parked on the entry road with a string of other cars, a few meters from the lot, blocking nobody, with a proper parking ticket, not a no-parking sign in site. Big mistake: after a total of 1-1/2 hours riding the Disentis-Andermatt trains, we were greeted with a message from the military that our infraction was being forwarded to the police for prosecution.

I'll spare you the Kafkaesque details of detailing with the Swiss prosecutorial service; suffice it to say they are happy to drag you through the mud and charge you a high price at the end of their service. Clearly I had forgotten the regola prima in Switzerland: "everything not explicitly allowed is forbidden" (the actual no-parking sign was 250m from where I parked), but a lot of blame goes to the Andermatt Tourism Board, the people doing the marketing to get you to come and leave your money. There are simple solutions to misunderstandings like this: ideally a separate entrance to the parking lot which bypasses their grouchy neighbors. Or employing security personnel on busy days -- as is done in other Swiss resorts -- to help park cars and to point to other parking opportunity when full. Or finally: just a string of no parking signs to make it clear that parking along the entry road is nowhere permitted.

Andermatt still gets two stars, because the half-price pass would be a great deal. But you can be sure that after Covid it will go back to being one of the most expensive resorts, while claiming to be one of Switzerland's largest. Save your money: go to a smaller, less 'trendy' ski resort which is guest-friendly.