J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by tonyo74

Lessons lessons lessons nuf said!

Hi Chrissy, I had loads of problems when I first began skiing, terrible pain and burning feet after less than a hour, firstly with hire boots on second trip I decided the solution was own boots but it did not improve if anything was worse as a newbie I was unaware of how boots should be sized fitted and think I was given a very bad service (thanks for nothing S and R), this ended up worse than the hire boots, I had some adjustments made in resort at Selva which helped a little but was advised that I had the wrong boots for my feet (they are a bit strange(my feet not the boots)). After a lot of research I visited solutions for feet - http://www.solutions4feet.com/contact.php they took over 2 hours to fit new boots, custom footbeds etc and although (as advised by S4F) I will never ski pain free they are now bearable to ski in for a few hours at a time. So on my experience you sometimes have to accept that if you don't have British standard feet you may have some pain but a good boot fitter can minimise this to an acceptable level.

£500 is good especially as the deals are (or were a few years back) all inclusive, a similar week in France would be around £800 as a guess. It is a fairly small resort, by the end of the week you should have cracked the whole lot. Lessons were superb best I have had (both in France and Italy since) and the instructors all had perfect English (I think it's mandatory). It's fair to say snow conditions are not up to high resort European standards but in my case this meant that my next trip to Europe on good snow was even easier, suppose if you learn on some ice and slush good snow is a breeze! As I said its a bit boot camp, very eastern block hotel, it was clean but not what I would call salubrious, food was ok a bit samey wine was passable. 100% glad I went moved my skiing on leaps and bounds, but would not go back now!

Although its not the best "holiday" a week in Romania is great for lessons, poiana Brasov has all inclusive weeks which is really all inclusive including lessons 9-5 for 6 days, a bit like boot camp but if you want to progress fast in a week can't recommend highly enough, looks like snow is ok there at the moment, won't be the best conditions but that is part of the learning curve.

Gareth Fair wrote:Meribel, it really is the best place in the 3 valleys to access the whole ski area and the lift system is so good that you can be anywhere very quickly. If you want to maxamise your skiing time and ski new runs each day its hard to beat. The town is not great with a lot of 18 year old posh kids on their gap year that are all too cool.

That's why I love La Tania, easy access to 3V, 2/3 quiet lifts to Meribel or courchevel, ski in/out , but most of all a nice traffic free little village full of genuine friendly folk, and drinks a fair bit cheaper too.

Heading off to Mayrhofen on a few weeks, as like most I can only ski 1 or 2 weeks a season I always try and fit in min of half a days instruction to keep the bad habits at bay. Any suggestions for a good school/instructor???

La Tania would be a great choice for your party, one of my favourite resorts ever. Has everything you would want at beginner level and bigger resorts close by if you get adventurous, some long lovely green slopes above Courchavel that the newer skiers can spend all day playing on.

Went to Romania -Poiana Brasov a good few years back, as a beginner it did its job, very cheap, excellent lessons - all day 9am - 5pm every day, very limited ski area (even for a new beginner) was a bit like boot camp "You will ski and you will enjoy" After skiing France, Italy etc since would die if I had to go back.