Austria - Good resort - All in less than £1K?

A snowHead

I am looking around and cannot see any real options that fit the bill.

I fancy Austria for a change as I have only stayed in France so far. So can you get-

Good ski area so we can enjoy a range of runs, clock up some kms as skiers and boarders
Decent resort with reasonable Apres
Accommodation that is not too far from slopes
Prefer catered chalet if possible as I can't be bothered cooking and cleaning and eating our gets pricey

This year we have a decent package to Val d'Isere with flights, transfer, ski hire, lift pass in catered accommodation for about £900.

Anyone got any suggestions?

A snowHead

You tend to get hotels rather than chalets in Austria.

I don't know if Neilson's still do the Chalet Juliane at Saalbach. It would suit most of your requirements. We did a couple of Christmas trips there and loved it.

snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Hotel is OK if it is half board. (I don't go on holiday to cook and my friends are useless)

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@Chris Bish, Don't think they offer that hotel anymore.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

We went to Mayrhofen with Crystal on the 3rd of Jan for a week.
Stayed in the only catered chalet they have there (Chalet Haus Tirol), which was basic, but clean, tidy, and the food and wine were plentiful. It was a 2 minute walk to the penken lift (main lift) and we left our skis at the Crystal office (outside the penken) every night.

Flights / Transfers / Catered Accom (incl wine) cost us £430 per person (booked mid December).
Ski pass €230 per person (approx. £190)
Ski hire (via alpinresorts) £60 per person (for gold skis) - have our own boots so no hire needed.

Total cost (before buying beers / lunches) = £680 per person.

Absolutely loved Mayrhofen and will definitely return in the future.

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I did a DIY holiday in Zell am See over NY week for less than £750pp inc all SC accom (£100pp), ski hire (£70), lift pass (£180), all food and drink and other spends (£300) we did drive though - eurotunnel and fuel split five ways (£70).
Accom was 2 mins from the main gondola - you get Zell and Kaprun's two mountains on the pass too and we ate out 6 nights out of 7 and most days ate on the mountain at lunch.
It was also New Year, so plenty of drinking. It's easily done in Austria tbh. There are cheaper Austrian resorts as well - Zell is pretty average for Austria regarding prices.

If you go through the tourist boards of most resorts you will be able to find plenty of places doing HB maybe FB with packed lunches for 50-75 euro per person per day. Somewhere like Schladming or Saalbach would be good - both decent apres, well priced, both approx 1-1.5hr from Salzburg. Schladming is regarded as one the best places in Austria for Snowboarders as it has very few "flat slopes".

If you REALLY want Chalets though - Ski Total does Austria inc St Anton and Ischgl.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

@jellemr, That sounds great. We may be a small group of 4 to 6 so not sure last minute deals will be our best option. Using 09/01/16 as a guide this price is £614 plus about £300 for ski hire and lift pass. One of my party has been to Mayrhofen and seems to have an issue with the queue for the lift up the mountain. I may have to give him a swift kick in the man veg.

After all it is free

@Mike-H, re "last minute", as a group of 6 you might be right, probably worth giving them a call...

Also, we had a much better deal on ski hire by booking ourselves rather than booking through Crystal - we saved 40% or so compared to others in our chalet who'd booked through Crystal. We also waited and booked ski passes on the transfer bus (through Crystal) and paid in Euros rather than their sterling price - again saving money.

We were warned about the lift queues before we went, but other than the first day (sunday), when we hit the queue at 8.45am (peak time I'm guessing), we didn't have a problem. On the sunday we had to wait for 10 mins (max), and on one other day we had to queue for 15 mins to come down at the end of the day (we timed it badly)...other than this, it was fine.

You can also get the ski bus to the other access points / lifts in the resort, and your ski pass covers the rest of the Zillertal valley, so there's masses of skiing away from Mayrhofen too (Crystal ran an away day to Zell am Ziller which was amazing).

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@Mike-H, also worth noting, they are going to replace the Penken (main) lift once this season is over, with the replacement in place for next season with a larger capacity (i.e. less queues)...

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Get bus over to Horberg to skip any Mayrhofen queues. Especially if down at the Neue Post / Kramerwirt / Neuhaus end of town. Zell am Ziller is good, but best of all, has a compulsory black run to access the Königsleiten sector Smile

Or hit Kaltenbach for heated 8-man chairs (and the best for rookie skiers in that valley, imho)

Would have said anywhere in the Zillertal valley (Mayrhofen best for apres I think). Or Saalbach (but I've never been there, but it seems to get good reviews).

HB hotel will be easier to find than catered/self-catering chalet.

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@eblunt, & others. Chalet Juliane in Saalbach was demolished 18 months ago and completely rebuilt last year. It now houses a new Intersport shop (replacing the one that was in the original building) and luxury apartments, which are for sale for several hundred thousand Euros.

Ski Miguel have a catered chalet located less than 10 minutes from the Schattberg lift in the centre of Saalbach. Inghams have the Chalet Hotel Pinzgauerhof, located directly by the Reiterkogel lift in the centre of Hinterglemm, but it gets very mixed reviews. There is an excellent catered chalet in Saalbach run by a British couple, Pension Enzian. Otherwise, the Tour Operators only offer HB in hotels or B&B. The Tourist Office website or HomeAway are the places to look for S/C, as well as a couple of Snowheads who have apartments to rent.

Decent sauna in Saalbach? - Many of the large hotels have 'wellness' spas and allow non-residents to use these for a small fee.

[quote="andy"]Zell am Ziller is good, but best of all, has a compulsory black run to access the Königsleiten sector Smile

LOVE that run Smile

You know it makes sense.

@Mike-H, The Saalbach-Hinterglemm-Leogang Ski Circus answers all your requirements and will definitely not disappoint you. Unlike Mayrhofen (and many other comparable resorts), it offers ski-in ski-out accommodation with no or minimal queuing and a variety of pistes that come right down to the village (3 blues, 2 reds and a black just in Saalbach). It has gone down on record as having the highest proportion of fast lifts of any major ski resort in the world, and it is number 2 (after La Plagne) in the list of the world's most visited ski resorts (up from number 6 last year).

Prices are reasonable for Austria (and inexpensive compared with equivalent resorts in France). The après-ski is legendary and has been awarded 5 out of 5 stars by ADAC (the German equivalent of the AA - that's the Automobile Association, not Alcoholics Anonymous).

It has a fully interlinked network of runs, offering something for everybody, but generally acknowledged to be an intermediates' paradise. Long itineraries, comparable with the French Trois Vallees and Portes de Soleil are the norm, giving a feeling that you are travelling around without doing the same piste twice.

In Austria you don't need a catered chalet (which is why there aren’t many), as there are numerous good, reasonably-priced places to eat, both in the villages and on the mountain. You are made to feel extremely welcome; you get to know the people who run them, and dining out becomes part of the holiday. There is even one in Saalbach that provides a magic show! Restaurant prices are very reasonable, and the amount you save by not staying in a chalet or hotel enables you to eat very well indeed. Sampling traditional, home-cooked Austrian cuisine also adds another element to the holiday.

Saalbach has some excellent take-aways (pizzas, kebabs, burgers, etc.),as well as bars (e.g. Bobby's Pub) that do cheap but excellent bar food - useful when you are out apres-skiing or want to keep it simple after a heavy lunch or just fancy a change from dining out. For what it’s worth, we tend to alternate between cheap and cheerful and the other end of the spectrum, according to our mood – one night it may be one of Bobby’s excellent burgers or kebabs for around 5 euros, the next it may be a pepper steak in Peter’s or a mixed grill at the Backstattstall for between 15 and 20 euros, the next it may be one of the Stamperl take-away’s massive pizzas for around 8 or 9 euros. Occasionally we might allow our slow cooker to prepare a delicious, meaty hot pot for us while we’re out skiing.

Example prices from Saalbach, based on our recent experience:
• Pork cutlets in a tasty sauce, rice and salad – 7 euros (Evening, Bobby’s Pub)
• Meaty spare ribs with a jacket potato, sour cream sauce and salad – 9.5 euros (Evening, Bobby’s Pub)
• Large Vesuvio pizza (recommended!) and a couple of glasses of decent house wine (+ complimentary schnapps with the bill) – 16 euros (Evening, Wallners)
• Mixed grill (superb – steak, turkey and pork spare ribs) – 17 euros (Evening, Backstattstall restaurant)
• Gulasch soup – 4 to 6 euros (Lunchtime – mountain restaurants)
• Tirolergroestl (Bacon, egg, potato, onion fry-up) – 8-9 euros (Lunchtime –most mountain restaurants)
• Spaghetti Bolognese - 8.90 euros; Half a grilled chicken and chips – 9.5 euros (Asitzbraeu mountain restaurant, Leogang)

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Tatman, that meal myself and Kooky had with you was certainly fantastic quality and a great price.

A snowHead

@Scarpa, 8.5 euros, if I remember rightly, for an excellent and very filling omelette at the Grabenhuette mountain restaurant. (This is NOT France!)

(and made even better by the company, may I say!)

A snowHead

@Tatman, NOOOOOOOO! You mentioned the secret hut that shall never be named!It was the best value, incredibly delicious plus I learnt that a Bauern omlette is in fact, a Tiroler Gröstl.....mal anders wink

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@Kooky, Mea culpa Blush

I did wonder if I should mention it by name, but I reasoned that if the consequence is that it gets filled with snowheads, that isn't necessarily something to be discouraged.

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@Tatman, aye, and finding it isn't exactly "easy"!

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

From my limited experience, I wouold have to say I agree that the Leogang-Saalbach-Hinterglemm ski circus ticks all your boxes.

I skied there last Friday with espri, and we had a superb day, starting from Leogang, skiing to the far end of the resort and back (but staying one side of the valley rather than doing the circuit). According to Skiline, we covered 48Km distance, 7930m vertical, and I don't think we skied the same run twice (there were two lifts we used twice - once going out, once coming back).

There is a GoPro video of some of that here
http://youtube.com/v/SoO8OVoBHxM although as usual, the video tends to flatten out slopes. You might note at one point is shows the approach to a lift - the "queues" there were typical of the day (i.e. non-existent).

I would also recommend the SkiWelt area, although that doesn't have much ski-in-ski-out accommodation, and the Apres is supposed to be best in Soll, where I haven't stayed. But it has 290Km of lift-linked pistes all on one pass, and you should easily be able to get in under your cost limits unless you are going at peak times.

Or Kitzbuhel is another large area, although I think accomodation tends to be a little more expensive there.

In all of these areas, most package accommodation is half board hotels.

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Thanks guys. Sounds like Leogang-Saalbach-Hinterglemm ski circus may be a great choice. And as you point out the price for eating out is not too bad. I will look into this further.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

The secret hut is one we found for him............he couldn't find it until we took him there 2 years ago!

Saalbach is a pretty good resort for most things, extensive skiing, great apres, well linked areas, good value.
Only other resorts I would in Austria are Serfaus-Fiss -Ladis (one huge area over the back of Iscghl, hardly known to UK skiers and a bit pricey) or Ischgl itself, again very pricey but it has to be done. Ski Welt area is a big ara but a lot of the runs are shortish and very similar, the Westendorf part of Ski Welt is the most expansive in terms of length of runs

After all it is free

@Mike-H, I see that you're in Warwickshire, as are we when not in Saalbach - we're not neighbours by any chance are we? If you send me your e-mail via my below website, I'll send you an info pack including our comprehensive guide to Saalbach-Hinterglemm.

@oldsnowy, Must be mistaken identity - I'm sure we've been going there longer than that (and that we were alone when we found it).

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Soll, as long as you're young and don't need sleep

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

@Tatman - Not quite neighbours. You live on the posh side of Warwickshire. I'm in Nuneaton.
@tessaventer - Had friends who went to Soll. It was 10-15 degrees, sunny and hardly any snow. They got smashed for a week.

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My niece and family did a catered chalet in St Anton with Inghams for £520 each at Christmas (not last minute) and said the standard of food was exceptionally good value. That was Christmas, snow was absolutely rubbish of course, like nearly everywhere. He went back a couple of weeks ago with a lads trip, to the same chalet. Snow was better, not great, apparently but the chef became a firm friend.

@pam w, Do you know which one? Was it near lifts?

You know it makes sense.

It was called Chalet Markus - I don't know details, he did talk about it but as I don't know St Anton it went in one ear and out the other, but they were very happy with the position.

Apparently their website is showing it as full at times when, according to the staff, there are actually no bookings - might be worth ringing them.

At Christmas others had cancelled because of the lack of snow and they had the place to themselves. I think the "apres" scene started very early in the day. wink

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Austria - Good resort - All in less than £1K?

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