J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by dobby

Resort - Are, Sweden
Dates – 14-21 Feb 2016 (UK and Gothenburg half terms)
Who went - Intermediate family (Ma, Pa, 2 girls aged 12 and 15)
Where we stayed - Brunkulla apartments
Who we went with – Ski Safari

Plus points
Family-friendly resort with varied skiing, particularly suited to intermediates.
Few lift queues
Quiet pistes
The three ski areas offer different skiing experiences

Minus points
Not a lot of cruisy blues
Not a lot for beginners (didn't bother us though)
Can get windy
Expensive food and alcohol
Few too many T bars

The cast
Mrs and me are two vaguely competent but slow intermidiots plodding our way down the reds
Daughters are hooning around on pretty much any slope
We do about 4000-6000m of vertical per day, so not big mileage merchants, but like to spend most of the day skiing.

Met up with a couple of other J2Ski'ers and we had a great time...big shout to Bedrock Barney and Dan55

The cost
About £3700 for parking at LGW, flights, accommodation, hire car, petrol in Norway, ski hire and ski passes. Could have saved by booking ourselves, but Ski Safari had done a lot of leg work finding the resort, so we booked through them.

Flights
Flew with Norwegian from LGW to Trondheim. Flights about 30-60 mins late in each direction. Not most convenient flight times (arrived at Trondheim at about midnight). Who needs sleep, anyway?

Hire car
Rented an estate from Europcar. Didn't use ski rack – just chucked skis in back of car. Used boot liner made from bin bags. Handy having the car to (a) make runs to supermarket and (b) to drive to Duved ski area (8km west of Are).

Drive to Are from Trondheim
Surprisingly easy. Two and a bit hours at 1am, even on snow/ice. Those winter tyres are fantastic.

Brunkulla apartment
We stayed at one of the Brunkulla apartments, about 10mins walk from the VM8 8-man lift, and about 10 mins walk from the town centre. Generally great. Enough space. Kitchen area with oven, hob, microwave, dishwasher, fridge-freezer, coffee maker. Dining area. Living room area. 2 bedrooms sleeping 2 and 3 respectively. Bathroom and sauna. Large hallway with boot driers/warmers and big clothes drying cupboard. Lockable ski store close to apartment. Mainly families but some noisy students (for one night only....must have had a talking to...).

Resort
Are is a small town spread along (and up from) a railway. Plenty of accommodation, restaurants and bars. Couple of decent sized supermarkets. State-run booze shop.

Ski hire and passes
Booked through Skistar website. Very quick service with kit because all of our vital statistics (weight, height, ability) had been provided when booking. Got 20% discount on kit and 10% on passes by booking early.

You get 8 days kit and pass for the price of 6 – useful if your travel plans allow you to make use of it, which ours did

The skiing
Great for intermediates. Lots of reds, not many greens, blues or blacks (subject to the usual comments about some runs being mis-graded).

Generally v quiet on the pistes and at the lifts. Only had lift queues on Saturday (probably due to many lifts being closed due to wind).

Three different areas - Are By, Are Bjornen and Duved.

Are By - main area - skiing above and below tree line. Above tree line, it can get blown out and runs can get icy. Runs above Ulladalen (left of piste map) are quite exposed. Rodkullen (left of piste map) and Sadeln (right of piste map) offer some blues to play on, but mainly reds otherwise. Nice to lap red 57 and 58 first thing in the morning when VM8 lift opens at 8am.

Duved - a quiet hooner's paradise. Nice wide reds above Duved chair. Linked by a couple of drags to Tegefjall which has a couple of quiet, nice reds. Pistes tend to be easier than in Are By. Blues above Tegefjall worth a few runs, but not 20 (flat). Stop for a sausage butty and hot chocolate at Mr. Bramwell's at the top of the Tegefjall chair.

Are Bjornen - kids area lined by lift to Are By. Great skiing in the trees - piste 120.

Ski school
Kids did an hour's boarding lesson. Learnt to zig-zag down a green in an hour, which was not bad.

The snow
Pretty good, apart from on pistes exposed to wind. Pistes got a bit scalped on a busy Saturday. Piste prep good.

The lifts
Not bad - still a few T-bars, but not too onerous. We even had Bedrock Barney's family on a few T-bars.....

Food, drink and apres
Manageable because we self-catered. Beer/cider is about £1-£1.50 a can from the grog shop. Drink in bars/restaurants is expensive - £5-7 a large (0.5l) beer, £3 for a soft drink, £3 for hot chocolate. Eating out can be expensive, but there are places that are not too pricey. About £11 for burger, chips and salad in the mountain cafe. £6 for a large sausage wrap at Mr. Bramwell's.

The people/language
Everyone was extremely friendly and everyone spoke excellent English.

Would we go back?
Definitely. Local advice was to check for dates of Swedish half-term - Stockholm week is busy, but Gothenburg is not.

If you can get a good value tour operator deal at half term go for it. Trouble is finding a good value deal at half term....

DawnyP, to save money book early, where ever you go. Also, DIY is the way to save big money at peak periods such as half term. If you don't drink much and if you don't mind self-catering, then you could do far worse than one or two of the Scandinavian resorts (Hemsedal, Geilo, Beitostolen, Trysil, Are)

Dan - take it easy on the drive. If my plane's delayed I'm just going to park outside the Skistar shop on Monday morning and wait for it to open. First lift and all that. Who needs sleep?

Was a bit of a dull course. Not exactly the Streif.

Barney. 17 days, but who's counting?

Good advice above. Get a decent helmet that fits your head nicely and which fits well with your goggles - i.e. no big gaps between goggles and helmet.

La Thuile's a good place. Home runs not easy but you can download on a lift.