J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by AllyG

Timeforabeer,
I have an excellent little ski exercise book which I got free from Inghams a few years ago. It's called 'fit to ski' by Dr Steve Ingham and I think you can buy it.

It has graduated exercises according to the number of weeks you've been training for. After doing the exercises for about 8 weeks I had no trouble ski-ing with sore legs or anything else.

It has a mixture of general exercises like jogging on the spot, squats, lunges etc. together with specialist exercises like side shuffles and rotating jumps plus balancing ones like the double footed rotating lift, and lots of stretching ones. It also advises running or cycling or whatever as well.

Hope this helps,

Ally

Thanks Surflondon.

I phoned P & V in their London office, and they said the property I was interested in wasn't available for booking yet because apparently it's a timeshare (which I didn't know) and the owners haven't sorted out their holiday dates yet, so it won't be available for booking until around 30th June. But there are plenty of other properties available for booking now for ski holidays.

Ally

Surflondon,
You've completely lost me I'm afraid!

Do you mean there will be a further discount later on or what?

Ally

Thanks for that Surflondon.

I looked at their blog, and they say the special beat the euro discount is only available for their summer holidays up until November 7th. That's great if you want to go this summer, but unfortunately I want to go ski-ing in February.

The discount I'm talking about is their brand new 20% one, available on ski holidays, which only opened their booking season on 8th June. It's not available on all properties, but they do list the ones that have the discount. I think it's an early booking discount.

Ally

Bandit,
I don't know what the prices were last year, to compare with, but I do know that P & V also do last minute discounts as well as early ones, so if you book in between these two periods you pay the full price.

I clicked on the French translation of their website, and the discounts also seem to be available to the French. e.g. 2 person studio apartment in Les Arcs between 6-13th Feb is reduced from 620 euros to 496 euros.

Pierre et Vacances also own Center Parcs, so I would think they're an international company and the prices would be the same. On the English translation of their website the ski prices are in euros.

We hired an apartment with them last year in Bandol, on the Cote D'Azure (French riviera) and it was very good value. It was a reasonable price and right on the beach. Apart from the usual problem of being very squashy it was great. There were only 2 of us in an apartment for 4, which was just as well because there weren't actually any beds. One sofa turned into a double bed and the other one turned into 2 single beds, which meant you had to jump over a bed to go to the bathroom if you used both beds. But we were OK because we only used one single bed.

Ally

Pierre et Vacances have just made their French ski apartments available and some of them are at 20% discount for early bookings.

And the pound has recovered a bit against the Euro. I got 10% more for my pounds just now than at Christmas - 1 Euro 10 cents for 1 pound day before yesterday.

I know about Pierre et Vacances because they have just sent me an e-mail about it, because we had one of their apartments last year.

Ally

It's all very well saying 'lessons' everyone, but can I get lessons now?

The answer unfortunately is 'no'. I planned my birthday treat around having mogul group lessons on the 'real' snow in Chill Factore, Manchester, in June, as per their website and my phone call to them, but now apparently their mogul lessons are 'off' the menu!

And, what is worse, I booked the hotel a couple of months ago, near the ski slope in Manchester. They tell me they don't even have any moguls, at all, now on their slopes. I wonder if this is really true, or if they have someone answering their phone who doesn't know what he's talking about.

And, I can't book a carving clinic either, but I don't know why yet.

They did tell me there would be no problem booking lessons in the summer because the slopes are less crowded in the summer. I am really cross.

Ally

Oh, you mean you let your South American cover slip for a bit. Just as well you're not planning on getting a job in the secret service :lol:

Ally