Bad Gastein

I'm looking at doing a ski season in Bad Gastein and wondering what it's really like? It looks like it has pretty much everything you could want. What did people think of it?

Interesting place. The town is odd, really odd. It must have been great when it was popular but it feels as if theres been an outbreak of the plague or a nuclear war when you go into it.
The Ski area is good although we had possibly the worst conditions I have ever had to ski in, and that was mid January! The best skiing is over at DorfGastein.

Haegbloms is probably where you will end up spending most of your season.
Enjoy.

haha thanks for you reply, there is a free bus around the whole area so I guess I will be using that a lot. Were there many English then or just dominated by Austrians?

Not many Brits at all, mainly German speaking and Scandinavians. And a few Russians causing chaos around the area!

Stayed in Hofgastein for the last 4 years each time with Crystal Ski. Crystal use around 5 hotels in Hofgastein and 3 or 4 in Bad Gastein so I would think there would be a fair few Brits there. That said I have stayed in 3 of the Hofgastein hotels and there did not seem to be many about. As Tony said the Ski area is very good with Dorfgastein having the best mix of slopes. A word of warning though I was there the week before xmas last year and the place was as green as summer. The only areas open was Dorf and Sport Gastein. Dorf was very slushy even in the morning but Sport was Ok down to the middle station. unfortunately it was 3 bus rides to get up there taking over an hour.
Always been reasonable conditions in January though and the only queue you are likely to see is on the Schlossalmbahnen funicular around 10:30 each morning. This can be bypassed by entering from the Gastein side or Angletal.

Anywhere in December is a risk. BG area is quite high for Austria, we went mid January and had green fields and poor snow, but thats just down to bad luck and crap weather. Generally BG area should be pretty safe and had a good solid snow record. Not a place I'd book for a December trip personally.
We stayed in the Tannenburg in town, belongs to Ski Miquel, basic and comfortable but run by an Irish lady who only seems to want to be nice to her "regulars". I would absolutely not return to that hotel mainly because of the way it was run - all a bit odd. But being in BG itself meant no big deal getting onto the slopes. Dorf is a 20 minute bus ride away, Sport about the same.
No queues anywhere when we skied it, a couple of old drags around the area which were a good laugh! All in all an area I would go back to ski when I knew conditions were good.

Thanks for the advice, I guess there is a reason why it's super cheap then!

Usually is. It would be fantastic if conditions were very good, but then wouldn't anywhere?