 Poster: A snowHead
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Yes, I've always wondered how that works with flexiplussers....
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| Origen wrote: |
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With Eurotunnel, you'll need to be there for 6am for an 8am crossing,
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or if you pay the Flexiplus premium, drive on the next train as soon as you arrive (only leaving enough time to scoop up some goodies....) |
I always check the flexi price but its astronomical. I've used at times of dire need though
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| Origen wrote: |
or if you pay the Flexiplus premium, drive on the next train as soon as you arrive (only leaving enough time to scoop up some goodies....) |
Personally I'd save the £180 that you'd pay extra for Flexi and go Friday evening, get all the passport/border control stuff done and dusted and have a night somewhere on the other side
From my experience going standard fare (because I'm a massive tightwad), I've always been put on the next available train. Not sure everyone like to chance it through...
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| knackered knees wrote: |
| Origen wrote: |
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With Eurotunnel, you'll need to be there for 6am for an 8am crossing,
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or if you pay the Flexiplus premium, drive on the next train as soon as you arrive (only leaving enough time to scoop up some goodies....) |
But on that Saturday, i.e. the New Year week, it will be chaos and even with Flexiplus you won't be on the next train as the flexiplusers before you will have baggsied the spaces  |
Even on busy days/multi hour delays for the normal tickets, I've always got onto the next FP departure.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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If you don’t have Flexipass you are able to cut through to the Flexipass only express lane in Folkestone after checkin direct to border control. This route to the extreme right after checkin bypasses the scenic route alone the main terminal building car park. Flexipass is well worth it for the return journey if budget not an issue as this is when most delays can occur.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| LaForet wrote: |
| We also carry a 5ℓ petrol can (this is permitted on LeShuttle) just in case. It's one of those with a honeycomb core for safety. Details in the blog link at the end. |
I am bemused why people carry a smelly bomb inside their car, when they are provided with a capacious tank more than ten times the size of the bomb that is outside the car and carries the petrol in significant safety.
As others have said, skip Reims - it's a lovely city. With the best will in the world you'll waste half an hour driving in and out again, plus you need to find somewhere to park, and something to do to justify your presence, it will be cold and damp (or snowing) etc. etc. Laon, a few miles north, is a better bet if you really insist on wasting precious journey time; tiny city (population a few thousand but with a fine cathedral) on a volcanic plug.
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I started snow head posting with just these questions. Kids now all adult and still we are planning a drive to the alps over this Xmas with them all!
Our option was a Friday afternoon evening departure (we live 35mins from Folkestone so that helps but a Friday lunchtime would potentially work for you) and a stop as far south as possible- preferably South of Reims.
We always stayed at Hotel BB - cheap and electronic access. If it was early enough evening (10pm?) we’d have a meal at Buffalo Grill with a beer, and shared bottle of wine over a steak frites supper. Super value!
If later (eg 12/1am) we’d have prepared baguette/s/wich in the car and just load the kids (when tiny) or force them to walk themselves (when your boys ages) into the “hotel” room. Breakfast next morning at the Hotel BB cafeteria - all you can eat so ideal for your boys!- for next to nothing and then drive to resort arrive late Saturday afternoon.
The kids still talk about how much fun it was!
More than once with nightmare Eurotunnel delays on the way home we bought late availability ferry tickets - usually available at well <£100 - or get them booked now just in case. It saved so much pain!
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With young kids I find proximity to ski school, slopes and lifts paramount. So whilst Bourg has lots of great options I would be staying in Les Arcs. Our formula is go out Friday eve from Midlands, sandwiches packed, get the kids to burn off energy on the shuttle (not between the cars, sorry to anyone else in our carraige whilst opperation energy burn is in flow), booking an Ibis budget for where we think we will be at midnight (Rheims and troyes most frequently used). Arrive bottom of the mountain for lunch and hypermarket.
On the return normally just leave early 6.30 ish from resort having kept kids up the night before for max sleep potential on the way home. Normally expect an early stop for car sick child, then plough through to Rheims for hypermarket and Flunch (quick, child friendly with a playground for energy burning).
Having just done a ferry this summer I have reminded myself how flexible the shuttle is with multiple crossings an hour, I will stop glancing at the minor savings that can be had on the boats and be thankful!
Screens when they are old enough and the roads straight enough are deployed. However try to go without for a bit as there is no where to go after the screen comes out!
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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My granddaughters had sweets to last the journey and worked out when it was time for another. Bad for teeth but good for mental arithmetic. They're older now and just put up with it because they're going skiing. If they grumble about the journey, offer to leave them at home with Grandma or similar terrible fate.
My eldest, about 15, once grumbled about the budget option of coach. I pointed out he had enough in his savings account to pay the difference and fly. He came on the coach. 
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Thanks for all the great advice!
Bit of an update.... After hours of searching we found a nice apartment in Alpe d'Huez which is plenty big enough and at the bottom of a blue run in town.
We'll likely now drive out on the Friday hoping to catch an early morning Eurotunnel and drive down as far as possible leaving a relatively short drive to resort the next morning.
What will the Eurotunnel be like early Friday? A few people have mentioned a Flexiplus, is this the best option?
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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One more bit of advice, the closer to the Alps you get on the Friday evening, the more hotels will be fully booked in advance of the big transfer day on the New Year’s Saturday. I’d recommend you pre-book something rather than hope to get something close by when you have driven as far as you can that day.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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@rob@rar, +1 Hotels on that last approach will be fully booked well in advance for that Friday night.
Flexiplus is "the best" in terms of convenience (and the kids will love having bags to fill in the Flexiplus lounge) but it comes, usually, at a very high cost.
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| tomb wrote: |
| A few people have mentioned a Flexiplus, is this the best option? |
Eurotunnel have bumped up the price of Flexiplus lately. This year it's over £700 for new year, and I think that's far too much.
Given that your departure date is a public holiday and you can leave early (e.g. no need to pick kids up from school), then there isn't much point in Flexiplus on the way out. On the way back it can be worth it, if only to not stress about missing your slot and avoid the temptation to break the autoroute speed limit...
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You know it makes sense.
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I’ve never bothered with Flexiplus. IMO far too expensive for what it offers. I book regular departure slots and allow plenty of time to get to the terminal should traffic be slow on the way to Folkestone or Calais. Sometimes I arrive too early which occasionally means getting on an earlier train, but at the worst it’s a bit more time in the terminal for a coffee or bite to eat.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Flexiplus is great (in that it reduces hassle / stress) but it's crazy expensive. If I was on a budget, I'd rather spend the difference on better accommodation (either en route or wherever you end up) and just leave some extra time.....if you're doing it over two days then it's two days in a car whether you pay for flexi or not....
Remove the stress by leaving a bit earlier and having a longer stop if you get there earlier. I'd get it more if you were trying to be super efficient with getting through the tunnel to do it in one day (our record with Flexiplus was <15 minutes from getting off the motorway to being on the train...including grabbing coffee but that was on the day the border re-opened for tourists after Covid at about 5 in the morning).
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Poster: A snowHead
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We used Flexiplus last Christmas due to dire warnings of long delays, queues and other such stuff. I moved my Tesco Clubcard booking forward (and used it at the weekend to travel out). Four of us, so a bit more cost-effective, but probably won't be using it again. Not worth the cost for the food you can pick up, although we did get through check-in, pet control and border control pretty promptly. Lounge was packed, so we filled up with food and snacks and got some hot soup. Straight onto a train once we left the lounge though.
Crossed on Friday last week without it. Departed just 15 minutes after our booked crossing, although we did seem to be in the departure lane for a while. I considered adding it on the journey if I had reports of long delays, but it wasn't necessary.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Warning about kids on "screens" or phones.
Its fine gliding along the motorways, but come the multiple hairpin bends up the mountain to the resort there is a serious risk of travel sickness even among the toughest of travelers.
We found an audio book the best way of keeping peace in the back seat. Harry Potter especially good.
Or Martin Jarvis reading Just William for short stints.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| tomb wrote: |
Thanks for all the great advice!
Bit of an update.... After hours of searching we found a nice apartment in Alpe d'Huez which is plenty big enough and at the bottom of a blue run in town.
We'll likely now drive out on the Friday hoping to catch an early morning Eurotunnel and drive down as far as possible leaving a relatively short drive to resort the next morning.
What will the Eurotunnel be like early Friday? A few people have mentioned a Flexiplus, is this the best option? |
If you left on the 26th, stopped at Ashford or Folkestone for the night - both have plenty of hotel options - you'd probably be able to book a room for considerably less than the FlexiPlus fare. You could then get an early train and be fresh for the next leg of the trip.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| knackered knees wrote: |
If you left on the 26th, stopped at Ashford or Folkestone for the night - both have plenty of hotel options - you'd probably be able to book a room for considerably less than the FlexiPlus fare. You could then get an early train and be fresh for the next leg of the trip. |
another option ...i did this once ..is to travel over to France in the evening and stay overnight ...lots of nice hotels ..cheaper than the UK.. and you get up on continental time ..it made life much easier
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@DaveD, staying at the French side of the Channel is always preferable IMO. We've only stayed in Folkestone when we've left home after work, and not got to Folkestone until after 11.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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^ agree with that, i'd get over the channel on the Thu PM and do a hotel an hour down the road, makes for a much more pleasant day the next day
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Yes - at school holiday time, get away from home the first moment you can, and into France as soon as possible. There are lots of ways of doing this trip, depending on family circumstances and preferences. Lots of ways - none of them easy.
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Each to their own in the end, and it doesn't have to be difficult at all. We've done it many times, in many different ways, only a handful have been problematic.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I would be tempted to spend the night in Ashford, get an early crossing and then drive the whole way. Stop for fuel/pee once and maybe another pee stop.
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Stop for fuel/pee once and maybe another pee stop.
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 It's a long way to consider going on one pee. Stopping briefly every two hours or so is FAR safer an option. I've driven the whole way to and from home (near Portsmouth) to the French Alps quite often, with no overnight stop, sometimes solo. But I always try to avoid driving much more than 2 hours without a brief stop. Not necessarily to pee, but some fresh air, a short walk, probably a coffee. And I've never done that on a peak day when there is no prospect of driving to the speed limit the whole way, even on a dry day (and on a wet day the limit is less than 70).
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Hells Bells wrote: |
| ... staying at the French side of the Channel is always preferable IMO. |
Not sure how you manage that given your starting point. From Yorkshire we are horribly aware from experience that it is stressful to aim for a booked crossing time given the likelihood of multi-hour delays on the M25 and other roads. Easier to avoid that stress by planning to stay the night on the Folkestone side and then get an early crossing, though the time difference works against you.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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@j b, that’s exactly our strategy, staying in Ashford on way out. Funnily though we have more faith in French roads and we do the reverse on the return, aiming for a 19.00 crossing and staying in Ashford again.
Was annoyed in the summer, as I pulled up to the house, trip showed 1000.3 miles door to door.
Now I’m going to be constantly challenging myself to make it the exact 1000 miles.
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The whole calculation is different, I guess, if you are driving from Scotland! I have done lots of drives myself, but none of them was from Scotland, none for just a week, and none on peak days. I really don't think that's ever going to be "easy" but then the alternatives aren't easy either. Skiing holidays with kids are not for wimps! I sat in the back of a van being driven back and forth for a week last Christmas (and will again this Christmas) but I was just a passenger, and on the way out we stopped overnight.
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You know it makes sense.
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We drove last year. We opted to leave the UK on Friday, with a 1pm Le Shuttle crossing. We then drove to Auxerre, which was around 5-6 hours from Calais and stayed in a B&B Hotel chain. There are two in Auxerre, literally opposite each other, two minutes from the motorway junction, and with a bowling alley/pizza place a five minute walk away for something to do in the evening. There's also a Lidl there, so you could arguably do you shop for the week whilst there. That was our plan if we drove this year, but we got the train instead. Children were 9 and 11 at the time.
For lunch, we just stopped at the various services along the motorway. People inevitably needed the toilet/coffee/food at differing times, so we just went with it. My husband did all of the driving, so he definitely needed the overnight break and enjoyed regular breaks.
On the Saturday we didn't leave Auxerre until lunchtime. We could see the traffic jams around Albertville on the sat nav as we left, but by the time we got there they were clear as we left so much later. We got into Arc 1800 around 5pm.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Aim to kip in Dijon, and stay as close to the lifts as humanly possible - even if it’s a rabbit hutch!
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