Switzerland Review: Grindelwald Village, Hiking, Zermatt Walks, Murren Village, Food Tour, Lucerne Boat Ride

We would do a few things differently: 
1. We took a lot of trains to mountains and then taking cable cars/trains up the mountain. In retrospect, we would have done less of going to the top of mountains such as Jungfraujoch, Mt Pilatus, Mannilichen, and Matterhorn and instead preferred ~3 hr hikes in those areas with views of the mountains. Depends on what you want to do, but the hotels were really helpful in finding hikes in the area because they know it so well. It's actually hard to find somewhere in Switzerland to hike that you can't get to by a train/tram/gondola/funicular. So, by day 3-4 of the trip, it felt like we had been sitting on trains rather than actually using our legs to walk. So we added the following hikes to our trip: 
     -- We did not train back from grindewald to interlaken and do the hike up to harder klum because the hotel strongly advised against it due to it being very uphill in a forested area, and we were in a heatwave. Instead we did a beautiful hike from Grosse Scheidegg to First, then out to the Bachalpsee Lake and then to Waldspitz, with bus back to grindewald. The views of the spine of Eiger were STUNNING and highly recommended. Funny enough, you also hike right by cows. Very Sound of Music. This took about 2.5 - 3 hours. You can take the bus from Grindewald, but you need to know the bus schedule! Don't forget the local bus pass the hotel gives because it is ~$24 swiss francs round trip. 
3. We also did a great hike - the "mountain view trail" from Lauterbrunnen to Murren that I would recommend for it's outstanding scenery. It's more up and down but doable with good tennis shoes. We spent time in the lovely towns of Wengen and Murren because they were soooo pictureesque and (mostly) car free with less tourists than Grindewald. 
4. We skipped going up to Mannilichen because we had already done Jungfraujoch, Mt Pilatus, and the Matterhorn gondelas/trains. I'm sure it would have had awesome views, but we chose to meander around Wengen and sit and have a cocktail. 
5. The food tour on the last day was at 4pm, and the woman who took us around says she usually does it at 6pm which would make more sense since one of the places on the tour didn't open until 6pm. We went to 3 places - a beer/cheese/meat place (and I don't drink beer at all but my husband loved), a fondue place (opened at 6pm), and a gelato place. Might be more helpful to do a food/ wine (or beer) tour in the beginning to better to prep you for food choices during the rest of the trip. 
6. The swiss travel pass is awesome but also sort of confusing! It worked every time the travel agency said, but on the days we made a route change, it felt like 50/50 whether it covered things or not. So it's always good to ask before yo uget on the train/tram/gondola!  Even the hotel thought something should have been covered when it wasn't so guess it can be tricky even for locals.