St Moritz

Ally, chillax babes. Getting a bus a few minutes is no great issue. There tons of skiing to go at, much of it linked.
I was hoping someone would tell me how good it is.

Oh, and if you're paying £1169 in January, they certaainly saw you coming. Thats about £200 more than I got it for.

Tony,
Well done for getting it at a bargain price :thumbup:

Club Med seem to be selling January at a £180 discount now. And ifyouski.com are selling Sunday 9th January for £838 all inclusive, which seems an amazingly good deal, considering it includes lessons and a lift pass and all food and drink, as well as the usual flights and transfers.

I'm sure someone else will be along soon to tell you how marvellous St Moritz is. Didn't LittleSki go there? And I'm sure Bandit must have been there. The reviews I've seen say it's fine for everyone except beginners.

I have thought about ski-ing in Switzerland, because there are good train connections from London, but I haven't been to any of the Swiss resorts yet. I will be very interested to read your report when you get back.

Ally

Just a bit of advice to those going to St. Moritz.

St. Moritz itself is quite small. It is the more glitzy area where the rich and famous go to be seen. For Joe average the place is actually pretty tacky and I wouldn't say its worth paying a premium to be able to say that you stayed in St. Moritz.

The surrounding towns, Pontrasina, Silvaplana, Celerina (accesses the exact same area as St. Moritz and is at the bottom of the Cresta run)seem to offer much better value for money, allow you to ski in the same areas and offer a much more authentic Swiss experience.

When I go up there I don't think of my self as going to any one of those towns, instead I think of it as going to the Upper Engadin valley. In the valley everything is close together with great bus and train services making it easy to get anywhere you want. Even if you stayed in Pontrasina it would only take about 20mins to get to Corvatsch which is the other end of the valley.

I day tripped it up there yesterday from Zurich had a full day in the mountains and was home again last night so I don't really think the logistics of getting from one end of a small valley to the other will be a problem. Especially with the efficiency of how all things Swiss run.

If you really want ease of access to the main area (Corviglia) then my advice is to stay in Celerina. There are some hotels (Hotel Post, Hotel Misani) which are less then 5 mins walk from the lift and very close to the train station). The lift from here accesses exactly the same area as that from the town in St. Moritz and its probably even quicker to get to the lifts then if you stayed in St. Moritz itself and tried to get to the Funicular which goes from the top of the town.

Thanks very much IR12daveor for all that information :D

I would guess that most people stay in St Moritz itself because that's where most of the package holidays go. It's much harder trying to sort out a DIY package, with transfers etc.

And that package holiday with Club Med to St Moritz does sound very good value.

I rather fancy Verbier myself, mainly because they speak French there, and I don't know any German. Presumably they speak German in St Moritz, and all the signs etc. are in German? Or can all Swiss people speak French as well?

Ally

AllyG wrote:Thanks very much IR12daveor for all that information :D

I would guess that most people stay in St Moritz itself because that's where most of the package holidays go. It's much harder trying to sort out a DIY package, with transfers etc.

And that package holiday with Club Med to St Moritz does sound very good value.

I rather fancy Verbier myself, mainly because they speak French there, and I don't know any German. Presumably they speak German in St Moritz, and all the signs etc. are in German? Or can all Swiss people speak French as well?

Ally

The vast majority of people in German speaking Switzerland speak English. In fact in Engadin many of the resort staff speak Italian as a first language. You'll get by quite happily with English though.

Looks like this is on then Mr H.
Bargain at 987gbp pp if you ask me.

Well despite Ally's concern over non French speakers and the bus to some of the slopes, I have done my research and found out that, as ir12Daveor says, the place is very well linked and served by transport, and it takes only a few minutes to get to lift stations. Especially when you have your own private transport laid on from your hotel ;-)

And its not a case of saying "I stayed in St Moritz" but more a case of saying "I skied in St Moritz" which as Dave rightly points out is just part of the larger valley area, which I am sure we will explore thoroughly.

Ally, from my experience of Verbier, I'd say book it and go. The skiing there was excellent, although I think with your mindset you'll probably only end up skiing the Verbier sector, seeing as you dont seem to like travelling around so much. The links are all skiable or you can hop on a gondola usually, but it can take a while to get between sectors, but having said that I thoroughly enjoyed the sense of travel that gave.

And its booked now anyway!