 Poster: A snowHead
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What to pack? Are jeans sufficient? We're staying in a Stanford Ski's chalet 'Rond Point' in Megeve.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Usually you just wander around in your pants, and slippers if you're posh. Honest.
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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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If I had a chalet in Megeve I'd be more than happy for you to wear jeans, erica, but I'm not Stanford.
Who is Stanford, and is he/she a fashion icon?
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In my experience, the only thing that chalet owners/operators care about is that you don't wear ski boots on their nice floors - which is fair enough!
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| Quote: |
In my experience, the only thing that chalet owners/operators care about is that you don't wear ski boots on their nice floors - which is fair enough!
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and that the punters, sorry Guests, leave a nice fat tip! 
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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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David Goldsmith, yes, please bring your slippers with you, ski boots are far too noisy on wooden floors and wake the staff up at too early o'clock.
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David Goldsmith,
Jeannie Stanford..!!!!
Shame on you...!!!
erica2004,
Yes, jeans are ok... , take slippers or something for your feet as the chalet stuff don't want snow all over the place when you come into the chalet everytime.
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JT, actually I knew, and I think I've met this nice lady sometime in the long distant past! Can't remember if she had jeans on.
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erica2004, Short black dress, 4 inch heels should IMHO be compulsory. The women can dress in jeans and slippers.
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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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| hyweljenkins wrote: |
| Usually you just wander around in your pants, and slippers if you're posh. Honest. |
I tend to wear trousers as the sight of me in my pants is enough to turn the strongest of stomachs
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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erica2004, Dont put yourself down. The sexiest women in the world are all over 40.
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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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boredsurfin, good man!
Let's not forget the most important item. Tips. The staff work hard and don't get paid much. Yes they get to ski all winter and the whole package is quite attractive. I'm also aware that it's the chalet staffs choice to work there.
It doesn't make any difference. If you have a good time and the staff have worked hard give them a tip. I work really hard during the winter to make sure the paying guests get everything they want and more. I take you / them skiing. I try to observe people eating preferences. And I'm never nasty to people, when, as I've proved, I can be a complete barsteward. 
If you have a good week, or two, in a catered chalet please leave a tip. It is the normal practice and why we try never to expect it, we are working for it, hoping for it and I for one, bloody deserve it.
The difference between having good staff and bad staff is so easy. On transfer day (hell's own) if I get a tip I'm in a good mood regardless of how rubbish the next guests first appear to be, how late, rude, fussy or whatever. During the week I always put in the same effort, but then I love it and I've done 5 winter seasons, I always try to produce really nice food and I go out of my way to make your stay a good one. Not tipping is rude. And god help you if you come back... We get lots of repeat business through our chalet and I have had discussions with those that haven't tipped that come back on why they didn't tip originally - and it's mainly because they didn't think about it, forgot or were too embarrassed, not because we didn't deserve it.
I know not all staff are as hard skiing, oops, I mean hard working  as my wife & I. If you get an 18 year old boy who's out there to snowboard and get drunk you might only have an average week, you might have an amazing week if that was your plan too but it's horses for courses.
I did my first chalet boy season as a 19 year old (9 years ago) and got tipped a fair bit considering. My wife is slightly older than I am, as we both come across as settled and well established our tip rate has reduced. I know this often comes down to jealousy. We can't have kids and have chosen to take a different lifestyle. This is what we are currently doing. We work very hard, maybe too hard as everything seems to run very smoothly from a guests point of view.
It doesn't mean we don't deserve a tip!!
Also, as a tip for you, give it to us on Friday evening after dinner and I'll make you the best breakfast you've ever had and if you need a snack for the transfer - no worries. If you leave it in your room I grump (not really) as I carry your bags to your car / taxi / coach. If you give it to me as you get on the coach you miss the b'fast.
Oh yeah, wear pretty much what you want. Our chalet is toasty warm so you don’t need loads of thick clothes. Just comfortable and hopefully revealing! (If you are female and pretty you don’t get to see enough flesh in ski resorts  )
I cook and eat (we join are guests for supper) in a chefs outfit and nearly always end up in a dinner jacket at least once during the week!
edit: it's all blending in to one winter, or something.
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parlor, What would you consider a reasonable tip for an average couple to leave in an average/nice chalet and that have had excellent service.
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You know it makes sense.
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parlor,
So do you want a tip or not?
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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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parlor, We only leave a tip if the Environmental Health Officer that we take with us, is satisfied with all aspects of his stay and particularly standards in the food prep areas and yes, he does bring his temperature probe and sampling kit with him 
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Poster: A snowHead
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boredsurfin, I love probes...  No problem in my chalet anyway, it's in Switzerland
Peter Leuzzi, Tip please.
It depends on the staff numbers / ratio. I consider a catered chalet to be run by either 1, 2 or 3 people. Anything bigger starts to become chalet hotel or whatever you want to call them - this makes it harder as there are more staff members.
So, anywhere between 15 ChF / 10€ and 30 ChF / 20€ per guest per staff member makes everyone happy. Minimum would be 10 ChF per person. The rules are hard. If you are a family of four, for instance, 50 ChF is an superb tip, 20 ChF thanks for the effort, nothing hmmmm... don't come back. And any more, I love you. It's not unusual for a family of four to leave us 100 ChF.
Oh and please leave the left over booze! Thanks.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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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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parlor,
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No problem in my chalet anyway, it's in Switzerland
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The significance of the country being?
The worst catering staff and food hygiene we have ever come across in a Catered Chalet was in Verbier. The Tour op refunded 75% of the total cost after the exchange of letters and evidence (video and photo's)
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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boredsurfin, your
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| Environmental Health Officer |
Is not recognised in Switzerland!
A Swiss one might...
As a partially trained chef (the rest is all trial and error but I'm yet to have a complaint about the quality), I have a GNVQ in food preparation / hygene. Our chalet and specifically the kitchen is cleaned to the highest standards (vetted by my wife). We observe rules in our kitchen that are not legislated for, for instance, different chopping boards for veg / fish / meat etc. Standard good food practices are observed and I would have no problem if Switzerland want to take it one step further with inspections and so on, apart from the hassle of the admin I know that we would easily surpass any specified requirements. This is second nature to me having worked, albeit briefly, in commercial kitchens in the UK.
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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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parlor, I was so moved by your posting, and so impressed by your argument that I've decided to leave you a tip.
It's a solid gold 20 franc Swiss coin.
Whatever you do, don't spend it, because those cunning Swiss will only sell you a pizza for it, when in fact it's worth a lot more than a pizza.
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| Frosty the Snowman wrote: |
| erica2004, Short black dress, 4 inch heels should IMHO be compulsory. The women can dress in jeans and slippers. |
I can't get the mental image of you, in a Short Black Dress tottering around on 4 inch heels, out of my mind. 
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boredsurfin, sorry didn't read the bottom section of your post. I'm sure there are lots of chalet / catering staff that get away with all sorts, all over the world too. They're most likely to be the staff members that don't deserve a tip. They are normally the youngsters who are there for the experience and couldn't give a toffee for the actual work side of it.
Yes, I am a seriously addicted  However, we run our chalet because we love the work. We love the guests, the entertaining side of it AND we are extremely house (chalet?) proud.
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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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Oh and please leave the left over booze! Thanks.
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Last year, when i was running a chalet with my girlfriend, we had a group of guests one week who bought a load of sausages and bacon for breakfast on chalet staff day off. Even though they weren't supposed to be doing cooked stuff, due to health and safety/insurance reasons, we said "go ahead we don't mind"
When we arived in the chalet for breakfast the day after our day off, we looked in the fridge and to our delight there was 2 packs of english bacon and a pack of sausages left. Great we thought.
Come the end of the week and transfer day (having been nice as pie to them) we walked them to the coach, helping carry bags etc. waved them off with a nice big smile and walked back to our chalet. When we got back to our horror, we discovered that the tight b*****s had not only left no tip but they had taken the bacon and sausages with them.
That feeling still makes me weep to this day.
One tip i would give to people going on a chalet holiday is take something nice and english to the staff. It will put them in a good mood, and therefore they will make so much more effort. Oh and don't take Marmite, despite what people say this is readily available in most resort supermarkets these days. I would suggest bacon or sausages, or walkers crisps, or a can of heinz finest baked beans.
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Makes a change from pot noodles
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Parlor is spot on.
To my mind £10 per guest is the basic bog standard tip (like 10% in a restaurant). If the staff have really done a good job then go higher. If I feel that I've been treated as an inconvenience getting in the way of their skiing or they've just been rubbish (food) then I won't tip.
I only worked one season but the variation in tips was amazing. And affluence was a very poor predictor of generosity. One thing I did note was that the guest we got on best with (who treated us as part of their party, helped wash-up, etc.) generally didn't tip much (although might give us a present instead). This was completely fine. The bad news was when you had difficult guests which had you running around like blue a*sed flies and still did not tip. My worst example was a party organised by a senior investment banker. They were demanding. He dislocated his shoulder part way through and I tied his shoelaces for him for the rest of the week. At the end, not only didn't they tip but they stiffed us on the "honesty" bar -
"what do you mean 7 bottles of evian, we never drunk any evian"
(through gritted teeth) "OK if you say so we'll knock those off the bill"
Later found the empty bottles in their bedrooms...
Ten years on it still annoys me.
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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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The last time I was in a chalet (run by Ski France in Val d'Isere) our host was terrific and catered for our two diets (non-veggie/veggie) very well, in a very friendly way. We left her a good tip.
Meanwhile, on the first floor, there was some major crisis going on in the next 'chalet' up. The girl was in tears, her clients were treating her like dirt, and the poor thing was receiving 'counselling' from our girl!
I guess the reps have to sort these situations out, which must be a really thankless task - do reps ever get tipped?
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jedster, We got diddled a few times on the honesty bar too. To the point where nearer the end of the season we jut didn't bother with it anymore. We had one week who left without paying despite various reminders about it. And funnily enough it's normally the more affluent guests who are tight as a ducks a**e. But i guess that's why they do have more cash!
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You know it makes sense.
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do reps ever get tipped?
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Reps get paid alot more + receive commision on sales of skidoo, bobsleigh, parapent trips etc. Also from my experience having a rep come in and tell guests what is what doesn't help the chalet staff. The guests may get irate with the rep but as soon as the rep leaves who carries on getting the tounge of an irate holiday maker? Mmmm let me think the chalet staf maybe? The reps take a load of grief yes, but it is the chalet staff who ultimately have to see the guests the most.
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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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Dress code? I'd draw the line at wandering around in a thong and a smile!
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Poster: A snowHead
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Dress code for chalets. Highway code for pistes (especially high pistes).
It has to make sense.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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The problem with tipping is that if you get to know the chalet host well, and you treat them as part of your group, then at the end of the week it can feel awkward to hand over the money. Being British, rather than have an awkward situation, we tend to avoid it altogether.
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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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Kramer, An envelope always helps.
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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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Kramer, That is the most poor excuse i've ever heard.
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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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Frosty the Snowman, I've just about perfected the subtle handshake tip.
What's the etiquette in a shared chalet if someone passes around a tip envelope? I like to give the tip myself, I'm quite generous, and I want people to remember me for that.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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FastCarver, it wasn't an excuse, see my last post.
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| halfhand wrote: |
| Dress code? I'd draw the line at wandering around in a thong and a smile! |
Depends, some of the girls who come skiing with us would make a lot of chalet staff happy if they did that instead of leaving a tip...
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nbt, Blimey can i come away with your group!
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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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nbt, any chance you could drag these along to EOSB??
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nbt, 500 snowheads killed in the rush - 3 look on
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FAQ
