Andermatt-Sedrun-Disentis — Attraction in Andermatt

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...

First time snowboarding in Switzerland. Very easily accessible town by train. Also it was bright and sunny… had to break out the sunglass dark lenses. Also much warmer than what we are used to- so had to remove some layers!

Booking the ski passes online and collecting them from the machine was a breeze!

However, we had to ask the rental shop where to locate the machine, which was in the basement as we were expecting an information counter of some sorts on the first level.

Maps/ routes of the mountain were readily available at our hotel and ski rental shops.

Very long runs, groomed runs were great. And one pass to go on a few mountains was nice and convenient, as well.

Had a shock at the end when we went down to Disentis, and we thought it would be just one stop on the train back to andermatt, which wound up being a 4-stop 45 min trip! Which I guess shows how massive the mountains are!

Ski pass also allows you a ride on the trains between mountains as well.

Turnstiles were very high tech, new and sensitive which was great and a time- saver.

Just some feedback on signage - it was hard to find the routes sometimes due to a lack of signs or small numbers on signs, and more often than not, would up going down the wrong runs.

One in particular - route 42 where it leads to only a T bar ski lift (which i struggled immensely with) and no other way down.

Also we were hoping for a small terrain park.. just some tables, rainbow rails or boxes would be great. Because both skiers and snowboarders young and old could use them!

Ares ski was interesting, had thought there would be more music- not sure what I expecting…

Food wise was very limited… mostly hotdogs… perhaps it is cultural, but would have been nice to have some variety in food and drinks… And again perhaps because it was our first time and again- it could be cultural… we paid CHF8 per sausage and had to bbq them ourselves. Could be part of the experience, but was just puzzled.

Overall, a nice but...

Pricing is confusing. Andermatt keeps changing its pricing structure ever year and the pricing varies between channels. The management really want you to buy online in advance, but be careful, as the mountain is very prone to fog and wind and tickets are non refundable.

You are encouraged to buy on site from automated machines which do not offer the family tocket 20% discount - they will sell you an adult and two kids' tickets, but not apply the discount. That is either IT incompetence or pure greed. Due to cost cutting there are usually very long queues and the app doesn't work on site because the mobile signal is poor so trying to buy online will be very frustrating.

The ticketing is a shambles and this year they have added an extra charge of 4 francs to use the train between the town, Oberalp and Sedrun, which requires you to guess whether you will need it - and if wind closes the gondola down to Oberalp, you have to use it to reach the other side of the ski area.

This year (December 2021) the slopes are very dependent on artificial snow. There are much better value ski resorts in Switzerland than Andermatt with better facilities and better snow.

The management should fix their channel problem and improve their...