Pila trip report (pics to follow separately)

Recently returned from Pila (20-27 March) where we stayed at the Hotel Etoile de Neige. Travelled from Bristol to Turin. All booked through Crystal.

On the whole, I liked Pila, although there were some things I didn't like, more about that later. Thanks to everyone on the forum who recommended it – you were spot-on. It's a great place for learners to build confidence.

Got through Turin airport quickly and after a short 1h 45m transfer we arrived in Pila. On arrival at our hotel, we were collected by the ski hire shop minibus to pick up our rental skis plus boots for daughter. We had asked for standard skis, and everything seemed ok, although my instructor was a bit sniffy about my bindings. Nevertheless I didn't experience any problems all week. At the end of the week the hire shop picked up our equipment from the hotel after we left.

Hotel:
The Etoile de Neige is a 3-star hotel located at the bottom of Pila, adjacent to the Chamole chair lift. People who have booked lessons with the Italian ski school are collected by a minibus from the hotel and dropped off at ski school in time for morning lessons. They weren't bothered about health and safety, regularly cramming more people in than they had seatbelts for, but it wasn't a long trip. Otherwise it's either a long-ish walk uphill or you could hop on a magic carpet, then have a shorter walk to a chair lift which drops you near the ski school meeting point.
It was easy to ski back to the hotel at the end of the day.

The hotel exceeded my expectations. I was slightly worried by some negative reviews but having been there, I don't understand what people were complaining about. Admittedly it was a little "tired" looking in places but it was clean and tidy and the food was really good and included wine, soft drinks and water. Our room had free wifi (essential for daughter!) and all the staff were friendly and helpful.

Eating out:
One thing I liked about Pila was the number of eateries dotted around the various runs and the prices were great value. A plate of risotto was 10 Euros, a sandwich 5 Euros, small beer 3 Euros, americano coffee 1.6 Euros, latte 2 Euros, big slice of margherita pizza 5 Euros. Prices were consistently good value throughout the mountain.

Weather:
All week we enjoyed blue skies. On one afternoon the temperature reached 18 degrees at the bottom of the slopes, but on average was about 10 degrees on the hill, though colder at the very top. The snow was pretty good on piste, although some pistes were extremely icy in the mornings, and of course slushy at the end of the day at the bottom.

Lifts and queues:
Another thing I liked was the absence of drag lifts. There's one gondola, two magic carpets and all the other lifts are chairs. There's also a bubble that comes up from Aosta in the valley. Queues weren't particularly a problem until Good Friday when the Italian Easter holidays began. Waiting 15 minutes to get on the Chamole chair then became the norm. There were no major breakdowns as such, but some of the chairs were pretty worn-looking with bits falling off seat pads etc. I know that's cosmetic but I felt that the whole place could benefit from some investment. I also noted that every chair lift was the open type ie didn't have a canopy to protect you from the wind so I should imagine in the depths of winter these would be cold.

Ski schools:
We had pre-booked 5 mornings of ski school for me and daughter and Crystal use the Italian ski school. This was not a good experience, though we did work things out in the end. On day 1 we had to self-select a group according to our ability – green, blue, yellow or red (with green being complete beginners and red being experts). Not being a complete beginner, I chose Blue. As lessons began, I realised that the groups contained a wide range of ages. In my group I was the only adult, with everyone else being age 5-12. I'm not too proud to learn with kids but children and adults have different learning styles. Plus the parents of the youngest children were all coming to me saying "Oh will you keep an eye on little X". There were 12 in our group and the instructor didn't seem able to keep everyone together so I felt that an adult should ski at the back. I spent the first lesson herding the kiddies at the back who kept straying away, rather than learning to improve my own skiing. When I pointed this out to the ski school, their solution was to move me up to the Yellows, which I was unhappy about because I know my own ability (or lack thereof!) and I knew I would struggle. However, I agreed to try it for the second morning and I was right to be worried because the Yellows were of a much higher level than me and I fell over and generally felt crap! In the end, the ski school agreed to convert the unused portion of my pre-paid lessons into 3x 1-hour private lessons, which worked out better.
I do question the wisdom of having such a wide range of ages in a group. I haven't experienced this before and I began to think it was something to do with whatever arrangement they have for Crystal customers. As I roamed the mountain, I did not see any other groups which mixed ages. I wondered if our experience would have been different if we had booked directly with the ski school in resort, rather than through Crystal.

Resort layout:
A certain ski guide book says Pila has "a splendid nursery slope set away from better skiers racing through". This is not correct. I presume it is referring to blue 15, which is the main slope for learners and is used heavily by the ski schools. The problem is that it is most certainly not "set away from better skiers racing through". Due to the geography of the resort, most of the other slopes come on to blue 15 at various points and to ski down to the bottom you have to use blue 15. This means that the bottom of blue 15 is like the M25 in rush-hour. Also, the resort has recently constructed a snow park at the top of blue 15 (which I hardly saw anyone use) effectively creating a much narrower space shared by learner groups and by better skiers bombing through from various red and black runs. I found it really quite upsetting practising my turns and trying to concentrate, with people flying past on both sides. I felt many of them didn't leave any margin for error if I had unexpectedly changed direction. Watching them flying through groups of little children who were following intructors in a line – well it really made me feel sick. My instructor got quite cross about it and called them idiots. I don't understand why the resort doesn't cordon off a separate "lane" for people who just want to ski from A to B as fast as they can. At least this would separate speeders from learners. How there wasn't an accident I'll never know.

In conclusion:
I hope I haven't given the impression that I didn't like Pila, because I did. I would definitely go back, particularly given that it was excellent value for money and the snow was great considering the temperatures. I would recommend avoiding Italian holidays, though. I'll post pictures separately.

Interesting report, thank you. The ski school sounds chaotic. I went to Pila for one day, enjoyed it, but that was enough.

Great report, Acarr. Have you made your views about the ski school known to Crystal ? It'd be interesting to hear what response they offer.

billip1 wrote:Have you made your views about the ski school known to Crystal ? It'd be interesting to hear what response they offer.

Other than the resort reps, who helped me convert to private lessons, I haven't said anything to Crystal yet. I wondered whether my particular experience was unusual or if I was being picky? Maybe this is normal in Italy - we haven't skied there before.

For the first time ever when skiing in Italy I had a problem with ski school (not Pila) and I went with Crystal. Large group of mixed ability. Complained to the reps and followed it up with customer services on return and received compensation. I would always notify customer services if things aren't right, not for the compensation, but if people don't inform the main office of problems nothing would change.