My holiday in Courchevel 1550

Sounds like a superb holiday!

My other half is booked in for snowboarding lessons with ESF for 6 mornings, and I'll either ski with the chalet/hotel, or get myself some lessons. For the lessons, does he just go along to the 1850 ESF office?

Shame about the instructor with the sense of humour failure! The french don't always get us english and our sens d'humeur sarcastique!

I had a terrible instructor on my first trip in Austria, aged 13. He was an arrogant ejit (but very cute!!), and he obviously didn't want to have to teach a beginners group, so just kept skiing off really fast, and getting annoyed when we couldn't keep up.

Hi Gadget Girl,
The ESF 1850 meeting point is just outside the gondola that comes up from 1550. I noticed the different group signs hanging on wires up in the air. We just went straight away to the 1550 meeting point with the e-mail in our pockets (and they had our names on their pieces of paper).I don't know where the 1850 office is, but it may well be in the lift station. There seemed to be a lot of stuff in there when I walked through it. It's somewhere in that area anyway, and the place is just swamped in red suited ESF instructors first thing in the morning.

I booked all our lessons ahead of time, just to be sure. Why don't you try e-mailing them to see about your lessons?

I'm sorry you had such a useless first instructor, even if he was kinda cute :D

I think it's just the luck of the draw what sort of instructor you get. So, best of luck with your instructors :thumbup:

Ally

Enjoyed reading your report Ally, sounds like the ski school experience was really good but a bit expensive.
When we go to France we only put the kids in ski school for the morning sessions.

Finn

Ally, I glad you enjoyed yourself, despite travel hiccups and the ever variable service of ESF.

There are plenty of English speaking independent Instructors and schools in the Tarentaise. It's high time you got away from the Syndicat, traditionally they have very little respect for their clients. You provide a fine example, because you did not get the lessons you paid for, which is appalling IMHO.

bandit wrote:Ally, I glad you enjoyed yourself, despite travel hiccups and the ever variable service of ESF.

There are plenty of English speaking independent Instructors and schools in the Tarentaise. It's high time you got away from the Syndicat, traditionally they have very little respect for their clients. You provide a fine example, because you did not get the lessons you paid for, which is appalling IMHO.

I've booked snowboard lessons in Samoens with an independent school at Easter. The only lessons ESF could offer were 2.15-4.45 pm which was too late in the day. Also, rather put off by previous comments about them.

Glad you had a good time although I could feel your stress on the 1st morning!

Dids1 wrote:

bandit wrote:Ally, I glad you enjoyed yourself, despite travel hiccups and the ever variable service of ESF.

There are plenty of English speaking independent Instructors and schools in the Tarentaise. It's high time you got away from the Syndicat, traditionally they have very little respect for their clients. You provide a fine example, because you did not get the lessons you paid for, which is appalling IMHO.

I've booked snowboard lessons in Samoens with an independent school at Easter. The only lessons ESF could offer were 2.15-4.45 pm which was too late in the day. Also, rather put off by previous comments about them.

Glad you had a good time although I could feel your stress on the 1st morning!

I'm with bandit on this one too. I haven't been with esf for the last three seasons due to bad experiences.
Glad you had a good time :thumbup:

I really do think you are spending too much time Ally in lessons. I know we all want different things, but I am guessing that you choose to fill your time in lessons as its only you that goes? Maybe you need to take a group holiday?

Anyway, stick with what you like. But if you are going to complain about it on here, you need to be complaining elsewhere as well and doing something about it IMO.

Hi Ally, Glad you had a good trip. I've been to Courcheval a few times. I had lessons with esf once and never again. We found a really good co. in 1650 called New Generation. They were really excellent. We hired lockers in 1650 and that way, we could off-load boots and skis at the end of the day and walk back to chalet in comfort!