Voss- Norway...questions?

A snowHead

We're off to Voss next month, staying in one of the cabins in Bavallstunet (which seems to be right by the baby lift, which suits as as we have a 3 year old).

Does anyone have any particular tips firstly?

We're well aware of the perils of trying to buy alcohol in the Nordic countries, so we're planning to take an extra case full of reserves (I've never tried before, but being in the EEA I presume there's no issues with that).

Food wise we'll probably do our own breakfast, sometimes lunch and eat out for dinner.

Skiing wise...I'm very tempted to ditch the snowboard for this trip as I had a pretty good session skiing in Zell am See and suffered a lot of pain on the board...undecided, but am very tempted to stick to skis this time, however what surprised me, when I asked is that there is no ski school for 3.5 year olds Sad

I assumed (based on Austria) that ski school was for 3 and over, but it seems not here, which is a shame as it means private lessons are the only option and I think she'd enjoy classes more.

The other thing we're struggling with is...getting there! Flights are all booked (Gatwick to Bergen), but every website seems to suggest a different way to get to the resort, mainly no one seems to be able to agree how to get from the airport to the train station in Bergen!!! It seems very close, but the light rail seems to take about 40 mins to get there, which is odd if the bus is potentially quicker. So if anyone has done the route before and has suggestions that would be appreciated. We could get a direct transfer from the airport, but that seems to be about 2 hours and I think with a 3.5 year old I'd rather be on a train for the inevitable toilet! toilet! as soon as the doors shut!

We loved Are in Sweden last year, so we're looking forward to the next leg of our Nordic adventure, but would massively appreciate any pointers!

A snowHead

Can’t help other than to suggest call the resort. I find in Scandinavia you can actually find a phone number, speak to a real person, and they are really helpful! Surprised there is no ski school for 3 year old, even if it’s just 1.5 hours or so a day.

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

You need to Login to know who's really who.

Been to Trysil 3/4 years ago.

Booze you can buy on the way in, there is a duty free shop on arrival, that said if you have the spare kg allowance in your luggage, UK wine is a bit cheaper, and no problem with bringing in any amount for personal consumption. Duty free on arrival is handy for stocking up on a case of beer though.

Supermarket food and beer etc was more expensive than Uk but not crazy. You can’t buy wine or spirits in supermarket, only at govt off licence. Restaurant food was quite pricey, restaurant /bar alcohol was silly Money, like £10 a pint, £40 for bottle of Aussie plonk.

Seem to remember kids ski school was only 1.5 hrs rather than usual 2, but very good tuition.

It was cold, but snow was excellent and not too busy despite being half term

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

In Oslo there was an ok duty free selection and ok priced but not sure Bergen airport will have a big choice so maybe bring your own if you are fussy.

You'll need to Register first of course.

The duty free at Oslo isn’t badly priced (unlike the resort which was mad expensive). I agree about ringing - just so easy as they all speak at least some English. I chatted to a Swedish lady and said how wonderful it was that Swedish people spoke such good English. She replied they had to because nobody else in the world spoke Swedish. Good and obvious point I hadn’t thought of before.

I digress. Ref cold, yes it really can be and trysill (where we stayed a few times) was shut a few times because of high winds and the fog was a problem sometimes (which is why they have so many drags apparently). However, as you don’t have many queues, you aren’t hanging about as much so it’s easier to stay warm. Use lots of layers.

We found Scandinavian skiing to be very safe and courteous and Trysil is a fantastic family ski resort if you are interested for next time.

We are going to Austria this year so the reverse of your holidays. It will be interesting to see the difference.

Have a great time.

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

@vjmehra,
Bus from airport to city center is fine, there is a bus stop in Christies gate then walk across the park to the train station.

I would ask the cabin company for a taxi phone number for when you get to Voss, or maybe make contact before you go and confirm in Norway.

I did Voss about 10 years ago, everything's straightforwards, enjoy Very Happy

Hot chocolate is usually the best value drink in Norway.

After all it is free

Bavallen Cabins are a long way from Town, an expensive taxi ride too. There are free buses up in morning and back down in afternoon and a supermarket in skulestamo but I would not want to walk it!
I ski Vosss nearly every year and have been going there since the 80's! Its a very nice place but as every with Norway it is not France or similar to European resorts with everything to hand. I stay in the Youth Hostel, excellent food and free bus to the lifts. The nightlife is minimal but on a saturday night at Bavallstunet its great, half price beers and a nice mexican buffet normally. At busy times there can be a free creche on the hill, ask at the ski school.

@Bigfeesh, as we're taking our 3 year old, we were planning to take a lot of our own drink and stay in the cabin most evenings (well maybe after dinner, I think there is one restaurant nearby)?

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

I was in Voss about this time last year. Learned to ski there as a teenager, and you will still here lots of Geordie accents on the slopes when you are near the ski school groups!
Being out at Bavallen is good for proximity to the Bavallen chair (which is the only lift up the mountain while they are still re building the cable car) and good for access to the cute little nursery slope. Norwegians are generally a very child friendly bunch, even if there aren't lots of ski less groups for teeny ones.
Drink is indeed very expensive, take your own if you are planning nights in Happy

. There are a few restaurants in town, and there will be a couple of early opening child friendly options if you can make your way into Voss. Prices for food aren't so terrible, by the standards of Alps or south-eastern England.
Getting there - I would 100% go on the train. It's a lovely journey, clean / spacious carriages and of course toilets. Get a taxi from the airport to the train station, takes about 15-20min IIRC. If you have to fly to Oslo, you could probably also catch the train (Voss is on the main Oslo-Bergen line I think) but it will be a longer trip.
One more tip - take plenty of layers and plan on good quality gloves & balaclavas - when it gets cold in Norway it can be properly nippy.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

@grimupnorth, luckily we're flying into Bergen...that train ride sounds fine...from Oslo it would be a bit too far!

snow reports

If you're there for a whole week, you could look at bussing over to Myrkdalen for a day, for a bit of variety. I haven't been, but it looks nice, and you will have skied all of Voss after 2 or 3 days.

@grimupnorth, we're there for 4 nights, with the times of our flights its only really 3 skiing days, so with a little one I don't think we'll have time sadly.

But we're quite keen on exploring the Nordic countries, so very likely to be back for more (or maybe Trysil) next year!

You know it makes sense.

Train journey will be spectacular @vjmehra. Voss/Myrkdalen is very Norwegian compared to Trysil which is very Scandi. The difference is that the Swedes/Danes have bought into the whole customer is king thing, whereas for the Norwegians, the customer has to be stoically endured like drizzle.

On the whole I probably preferred the Norwegian attitude, refreshingly direct and good company.

Trysil is the easiest resort of any note to get to for a lot of Swedes and Danes but still involves quite a drive so it empties on the Saturday and gets busier in the week. Whereas Voss & Myrkdalen are within easy reach of Bergen and was rammed during the weekend and empty during the week.

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

Ok so we have sorted out our train tickets...the train is very cool, it even has a children's play area (although no idea if we can get a later one if we're delayed)!

However the resort itself is even sparser than we anticipated...we weren't expecting much, but there's not even a shop or a restaurant open it seems (except on Saturday's). Having checked there was a restaurant on site I didn't even think to check it wouldn't actually be open during the week, so it looks like we'll be getting quite a few cabs!!

The next thing that has caught us off guard a bit is the price of taxi's! I know Norway is expensive, but it works out to (I think, almost) £3 a minute based on the calculator from Bavallstunet into Voss!

Then when we tried to call up a couple of hotels with restaurants nearby they said they don't stay open for dinner in the low-season (I had no idea February was low-season, so I can only presume Voss is actually more popular in the summer).

Anyway, as weird as all that seems to us, it is what it is, so does anyone have any suggestions about where to go with a 3 year old, after skiing?

I couldn't see a water park anywhere, but that's not the end of the world, is the only option simply to head into town and go to one of the restaurants there, or are there any alternatives (we'll do some self catering, but want to eat out in the evenings)?

A snowHead

So as everything is fresh in my mind, I thought I'd do a quick write up, in case anyone else is thinking of heading to Voss and is looking for some tips.

Costs:

We were prepared for the food/drink cost so took our own, but we did have a couple of meals out, which came to £70 & £80 respectively (2 adults and a 3 year old), a 500ml beer is about £8.70 based on current exchange rates as a rough guide.

We also took a good amount of food, but did buy more whilst we were there, with basic ingredients (i.e. meat and veg plus a few extra bits) for 3 (very basic) meals coming in at around £20.

Ski hire felt very cheap, with 3 days (children) hire working out to about £35 (and no lift pass required for under 6's)!

For reference, flights were roughly £650 for 3 of us (including 3 checked bags and a snowboard bag...which I never actually got to use)!

Accommodation was £650 for 4 nights in a Bavallstunet cabin.

The train from Bergen to Voss was surprisingly cheap, with return tickets costing around £70 for 2 adults (under 4's are free), but what we ended up spending most on was probably taxi's as the meter seems to start at around £10 and tick up from there...so even short journeys aren't going to be cheap.

Roughly speaking from Bergen Airport to Bergen Train station it was £50, from our cabin to the ski hire shop was £13, from our cabin to the town was about £18 and from the cabin to the train station (at unsociable times which may or may not have bumped it up a bit) was £35.

Oh and linen was £45 for 3 people.

I think thats about it!

Accommodation:

As I mentioned, we stayed in the Bavallstunet area and ended up with a large (about 75m2) 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 2 storey cabin, when we were only expecting a 2 bedroom cabin (there were only 3 of us after all, so I assume it was just simply what happened to be available).

I think for a larger family or group it offers very good value for money and to be honest we were happy with the price for the 4 nights, especially during half term (it wasn't the week for Voss school holiday's which may have helped).

Linen caught us off guard, as I always think its weird to charge extra and didn't even think to check...I assumed it was just a French thing...but clearly not! £45 for linen felt a bit steep, but nothing comes cheap in Norway (and its worth noting that if you don't clean properly you are liable to get stuck with a £75 bill...luckily our cleaning seems to have been up to scratch...I hope)!

The cabin itself was pretty nice inside, had well set out living/cooking area, which again would be great for large groups (the table had 8 chairs and looked like it could have been extended). The wifi seemed fast, no connection or speed issues the entire time, the shower was good (i.e. didn't go cold/hot randomly or anything like that), the beds were comfy and we didn't use the Sauna, so can't comment on that.

There was a balcony at the back, with decent views, albeit partly obscured when sitting down and no heater, so we didn't really spend any time out there. At the front there was a huge mound of snow and I had to spend a bit of time each day shovelling to make sure we could get out in the morning, which was a new experience....but added to the adventure Happy

Location wise...with hindsight we probably would have booked somewhere else in all honesty. Although we have no complaints about the cabin itself, for us, with a 3 year old and no car it was pretty much in the worst place possible. There was apparently a drag lift at the bottom of the nearest slope, so theoretically ski-in/ski out...but the ski hire shop and ski school was a cab ride away, so a bit impractical for us. When booking we wrongly made the assumption from the piste map that the drag lifts would be walkable from the carpet lift...which wasn't the case...we also (wrongly) assumed the distances were much shorter and once on the mountain we could walk around...next time we'll be more diligent with Google Maps!

By the cabins there is nothing, no shops, no restaurants, nothing, so you really need a car to get around, or be prepared to donate to Voss Taxi on a regular basis as we did Happy

Skiing:

Weather wise, we had tons of snow, but it was surprisingly warm, to the point that we ended up wearing 2 layers including an open jacket on occasions, although of course when the sun disappeared it did change quickly, but it never got ridiculously cold!

Now...because of logistics we essentially gave up on trying to ski and simply booked lessons for the little one...but don't let that put you off, the main chair lift is right by the baby carpet lift...unfortunately (and slightly oddly I thought), ski school starts from 4 and upwards, not 3, so we had to get private lessons instead (about £70 for 50 minutes, no discount for children, which is fair enough as they take up the same time and don't have to pay for a lift pass anyway). This meant that she only had short lessons and we didn't get the chance to go off on our own...we could have all split up of course, but instead just decided to watch the lessons and then head into town afterwards (she always wanted ice cream of all things after lessons)!!!

So apologies, but I can't comment on how the skiing actually was, but I'd imagine, based on the weather probably pretty decent! Lessons wise, she seemed to make good progress in the limited time we were there and came away asking when she could go skiing next, which was the main priority, so happy to forego sliding on this occasion if it makes it more likely we'll all be able to ski/board together in the not to distant future!

Town/Resort:

There really isn't much in the resort in terms of food and drink options, it also seems to shut pretty early (although from what I understand, thats pretty normal for the Nordic countries due to losing daylight early) most days, but there are some night skiing opportunities over the weekend.

The hire shop seemed friendly (I say shop...I may be wrong, but we only saw 1) and was very reasonably priced, although for those taking little ones the smallest size was European 26, whereas others go a couple of sizes smaller.

Voss town itself is nice enough, but not as pretty as Bergen and has a limited choice of places to eat, although we didn't explore too much, so may have missed some options (also we were often there a bit too early for some places to be open).

There isn't really the whole 'apres' scene that you get in Central Europe and whilst that wasn't really a big deal for us, it may be for some.

Overall:

So would we go back...well it probably wasn't the right resort for us, but that doesn't make it bad, merely that we need to think about our criteria a bit better next time round!

Cost wise, you could easily spend far less here than in France without too much effort, yes the alcohol and taxi's are probably more, but the accommodation and ski related costs are probably less. Piste skiing is somewhat limited (from the map as we didn't even get that far of course), but we saw plenty of off-piste guided groups and the hire shop seemed to have more fat ski's than piste skis on display, so maybe its more for that market. In terms of crowds, it beats France hands down...we saw so many empty chairs go up the lift it was ridiculous.

If you do go I would absolutely recommend hiring a car (no idea of cost), as having to get taxi's everywhere (and I mean everywhere) is a bit of a pain...that said with a group its actually not that big a deal, all the trips are short, they are just expensive per minute relative to what you'd pay in the UK.

A snowHead

@vjmehra, thanks for the write up. Sounds like Norway! Shame about all the taxi costs. Ive found pretty reasonable car hire in Norway.

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

@Themasterpiece, ha yeah, car hire would have been smarter with hindsight, but I rarely drive even in the UK, so am slightly apprehensive about driving in heavy snow, so tend to avoid it generally!

But for most people it is definitely a far more logical option!

Help!!

Voss- Norway...questions?

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