J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by AllyG

Iceman,
If you're ski-ing in the 3 valleys you can buy the carre neige insurance cover for search and rescue etc. when you buy your lift pass - it's something like 3 euros per person per day and I reckon it's well worth it.

I tried to get snow sports cover for my older daughter with the NFU (who insure the farm etc.) but they refused totally because she has ME/CFS. So I bought it with flexicover.co.uk who will cover you even if you have pre-existing conditions and I picked the option of not covering her for ME related travel/holiday problems so I didn't have to pay any extra and I am just hoping for the best. As far as I could understand (insurance policies are horrible things to read) they will cover us for off-piste as long as we are within the resort boundaries and they will pay search and rescue.

Hopefully Bandit will not discover that this company is a load of rubbish, and I've never used them before so I'm just being optimistic plus I am doing it through Igluski and I reckon they're pretty good :D

Ally

Iceman,
I have done this several times. What I do is go to the Tourist Board website of the valley I'm going to - like Val Thorens for example, and then click on the buy lift pass bit. The link below to the Val Thorens site works for me now, hope it does for you to.

http://www.jbsurf.com/internet/default.aspx?CO=1701&LC=EN

Then pick which lift pass you want, like all 3 valleys or just Val Thorens or whatever. Once you've filled in all the details and paid they send you the plastic card to your home address which is re-chargeable so next time you go you just have to type in the number of the card and the dates you want and pay and magically when you get there it works!!!

Hope you have a great time :D

Ally

I was looking this up for myself, and I thought other people might also find it helpful so they could have the option of avoiding ski-ing in France during the French school holidays. Of course the slopes may still be crowded with Dutch, Russians etc. ... I haven't checked all their school holidays :lol:

The Winter and Easter school holidays in France vary across different geographical areas so that not all France has their school holidays at the same time, apart from at Christmas.

Basically this means that their Christmas holidays are from Saturday 17th December to Tuesday 3rd Jan
Their Winter school holidays run from 11th February to 12th March
Their Easter school holidays run from 7th April to 7th May.

http://www.provence-hideaway.com/120-2.html

Ally

Judging by reading some of their comments on the Oz ski forums, the Australians think their ski passes are too expensive as well, so I should think you're right LOTA.

And last season the Skitube was an extra 29 AUD per adult per day, on top of the Superski lift pass for Thredbo and Perisher, unless you bought it all in one go in which case it was $559 for 5 1/2 days.

Ally

I don't know if anyone here is interested in ski-ing in Australia, but the lift pass price for the Adult SuperSki pass (Thredbo and Perisher combined) for 5 1/2 days was 499 AUD for the season that's just finishing now.

And we got $1.43 to the pound in June, roughly half what we got ten years ago. So the lift tickets are very expensive but mostly I think because of the currency rates.

Ally

Best of luck for January LOTA :D

Ally

Hi Gareth,
I don't know anywhere in Meribel that does short break ski holidays, but we have been with mountainsunltd.com on a short break to Tignes. They also do short breaks to La Plagne. The prices are quite reasonable, e.g. around £160 for 3 days ski-ing and 3 nights in La Plagne at the end of Jan. The price includes Geneva transfers, the catered chalet, and ski hosting. So you just need to pay for flights, lift passes and ski hire (or bring your own skis).And they are generally quite flexible about the number of nights, as long as they have availability.

I am off to Meribel myself for the New Year, so I am hoping it's as good as you say it is!

Ally

I didn't even know it was possible to buy separate lift passes for La Rosiere and La Thuile! When we went to La Rosiere a few years ago we bought the San Bernardo pass, which covers both areas, but never actually skied in La Thuile. I wonder if we paid more than we had to?

Ally