J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by Wanderer

Getjim

Believe it or not, that was actually one of Tony's better jokes :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

This is what happens when the "compo" culture takes hold. Operators of these types of facilities become so obsessed about not leaving themselves open to lawsuits that common sense goes out the window. They feel obliged to anticipate every possible risk of injury and ensure that they have taken every possible precaution, no matter how ridiculous, to show that they were not negligent.

A favourite example of this, is the warning including with microwaves telling you that they are not suitable for drying pets :lol: :lol: :lol:, included because one idiot in the world thought that this was a good idea. Another example, was a school in the UK which was in the papers because it banned conker contests because of the risk of unjury to the pupils :shock: I am sure we can all come up with other examples of such nonsense.

While I know that the French, in particular, have very strong regulations about "unauthorised" instruction that I suspect is all about protecting the local ski school(which prevents some of the tour operators from offering ski guiding), I rather doubt that this was the issue here.

You can hire snow chains but, boy, do the car hire companies know how to charge :twisted:. If memory serves, they were looking for €25 per hire last year. This is such an irritating expense, particularly as it is so unlikely that you will use them (particularly when you have winter tyres). I seem to recall from previous threads that you can buys chains for about this price in low cost supermarkets on the continent but who wants to waste time finding a large supermarket on the way to the mountains - then you have the dilemma about whether to carry them home and risk excess baggage charges :twisted:.

Child seats are even worse - I was pricing carhire for my summer break earlier in the year and one company quoted me €92 for a booster seat for 2 weeks - I can buy one at home for €10 :evil: :evil: :evil:. I find it incredible that they continue to get away with this kind of price gouging (I ended up bring booster seats with me but it was a pain carrying them).

Its hard to win sometimes :mrgreen:.

IF you are going to be on motorways and relatively low roads most of the way, you will probably get away with it. However, some of the twisty roads up to higher resorts can turn into skating rinks very quickly.

Juliet

You might also want to check out www.snowrental.net. Depending on resort, they can offer excellent value.

Apologies Admin for directing members away from your advertisers :twisted:

If a short transfer time is critical (and with kids I can understand the importance of this), then you should probably be looking at the French resorts accessed from Geneva - Flaine and Morzine spring to mind. Flaine is nice with easy access to the slopes from the main village - mainly hotels, clubhotels and apartments though. Haven't been to Morzine so not much advice on that. Most of the Austrian resorts are no more than 90 minutes from the nearest airport so lots of choice there. However, genuine ski-in, ski-out is not that common. For example in Soll, you pretty much have to get the ski bus no matter where you stay (great resort in many other resorts respects).

Clearly, you sensibly want to avoid that mad early morning 1km trek when you are rushing to catch ski school, carrying multiple sets of skis and dragging a sleepy child along :twisted:. Places that have worked well for us in terms of good selection of skiing and direct access to ski slopes include Flaine, La Belle Plagne and Tignes (Val Claret), though some of these have longer transfers, probably about 2.30 hours from Chambery or 3.30 hrs from Lyon :!:.

Given your requirements the location of the chalet is nearly more important than the choice of resort - you can get the best resort and then discover that the chalet is miles away or up or down a steep hill.

We are in a similar situation. We have already made a booking for 30+ and I do not expect the "offer" to be extended to us. However, while it is a bit disappointing, I suppose that is normal business practice. If you book a flight and it subsequent is made available at a lower price, I don't think anybody would expect the airline to refund the difference to you!

To be fair to Crystal, we have found them to consistently offer the best value for family groups with very cheap or even free child places (which are genuinely available). Combined with generous group discounts (outside of half-term!), the overall cost is usually reasonable enough. We have also found that standards of food, etc in the Club hotels is pretty good. While the properties can be a bit tired, I think this is not unusual in the Alps!

BTW, I have noticed that an increasing number of resorts are offering family lift pass deals, typically half price for the 4th and over members of the same family - this would typically save a family of 2 adults and 2 kids about €80. It is worth researching on resort websites before booking lift passes with your tour operator or buying through the reps on the bus transfer to resort as they rarely know about this :lol:.

AJ

Any pictures of you skiing in your wedding dress? :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

Tony

We accessed Val Thoren through the Frejus tunnel - it was a short drive from Sauze, maybe 40 minutes or less. I mentioned in my earlier post that the bus drops you at a lift, in an area called Orelle, that takes you to the top of the mountain and when I did it, the run down into VT was quite difficult (good intermediate standard required).

I have had a quick look at the VT website and it looks like some new lifts and runs may have been added to the Orelle side since I was there a good few years ago - so there may be easier options to get down into the main resort area now. However, a 2nd/3rd year skier might want to quiz the rep carefully on this point or risk facing a daunting challenge for their 1st run of the day :!: