 Poster: A snowHead
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Overall - Fabulous family ski holiday in a favorite resort at a bargain price.
Our Party
A family of three:
• Mum (me) - Happy on Reds (forever an intermediate), good level of fitness and likes skiing from first lift to last lift
• Dad - Happy on Blacks, wants to go off piste!
• Mini Skier - Age 8¾, with 8 weeks of skiing, completed 3 star (December 2017) , keen cyclist so fit enough to ski all day
Booking
Booked July 2017 with Crystal Ski, £900 for flights, transfers and one bedroom apartment for the three of us (apparently the under occupancy supplement was missing!). Two for one adult lift passes (£230) and child lift pass (£185) ~£10 cheaper than booking direct. All passes just for La Plagne (we skied Les Arcs at Christmas) . Ski lessons for mini skier booked direct with Oxygene on-line (£180). Skis booked via Alpinresort from Sport2000 in La Plagne 1800 (£140). £1615 excluding food - the cheapest Ski holiday we’ve had in our 9 years skiing as a family.
Travel
TUI flights Birmingham to Chambery – uneventful (thankfully after Christmas and a 36 hour journey to get home). We were in resort by 1pm on the Saturday.
Accommodation
Plagne Lauze P&V apartments in Plagne 1800. We arrived at 1pm and our apartment was ready for 2pm (3 hours early). We got unpacked and then headed to open air swimming for when it opened at 4pm. The apartment blocks are dotted around the village. We were in Ellebore block. It was accessed down a step path form the top, but also access to ski lockers at the bottom. It was about 300 metres walk to access the pistes. We had apartment with one bedroom. Bedroom was big with a sloping roof, we had a double and single bed, perfect for the three of us. There was a small bathroom in the eaves (couldn’t stand in the shower). The kitchen / lounge / dinner was cosy a sofa for three a table and small cooking area. The cooking area lacked workspace, but there was plenty of pans and crockery. We cooked 6 of the 7 nights. There was only one supermarket a Spar, it was small and lacked choices compared to other supermarket in mountain villages we’ve shopped in.
Skiing
Our fourth trip to La Plagne so this made navigating easy. The ski area has lots of Blues (many are more purple), plus a handful of reds and blacks. It’s great a ski area for a family. It snowed most of the week on and off, the runs were in good conditions in most places. The runs down to the villages were a little slushy but not unpleasant. We skied all over; all the La Plagne villages, Champany, Mont Albert, Mont Chauvain, La Roche and the Glacier (145 miles with 27 miles vertical descent during the week). The ski area is well linked and it was easy to ski a different area every morning while the mini skier was in lessons. The mini skiers skied with us all afternoon, most afternoons we had a short coffee/chocolate stop. As long we avoided the few and far between black he was happy skiing. We had choice of two home runs; Mines (Red) accessed the bottom of Plagne Centre or Jean Marie/Lovatiere blue from Aime. The blue from Aime had better snow and was less busy, but Mines Red was never a problem for our group (perhaps less suitable for less experienced skiers). Lift queues, mostly short apart from the bluebird day when we queue everywhere for 5-15 minutes per lift, a bit of shock and we almost late for the ski school pick up, despite using Verdons Sud rather than Colosses to get back to Plagne Centre. Overall the resort was busier than expected, we thought it was going to be quiet as it was the first week after the French school holidays.
Mini Skier’s Favourite Runs:
La Bois – A narrow red with soft snow from Les Borseliers (1800) to Champany (1250)
La Combe – The red down from the Glacier, includes a couple of very narrow sections
La Source – A red with a few steep bits, from just beloewRoche de Mio to above Belle Plagne
My Favourite Runs:
Andre Martzoif / Emile Allais – Long reds through the tress down to La Roche, interesting as the snow conditions changed through the run
Inversens – Wide open red from just below Roche De Mio with lovely soft powdery snow , down to a very slow chair.
Pierre Blanche – Quiet tree lined blue above Mont Chauvain, easy skiing, quieter than Mont Blanc on the other side.
Also loved doing one of the blues off Colarado first thing in the morning as warm up with Mini Skier!
Restaurants
Les Borseliers (Champany) - We booked on facebook for Mothers Day /Birthday lunch, this meant we had full table service, the waitress was very attentive. The restaurant in nicely done out and cosy. I had the Plat jour which was Lamb with potato gratin – delicious. Hubby’s Steak Hache was good too. We treated ourselved to the Tarte Tartin which was yummy.
La Loup Blanc (Plagne 1800) – We went here twice once for lunch on arrival day and once for afternoon stop. The pizza for lunch was good. The service in the afternoon for waffles was a little slow.
La Cantine (Plagne 1800) – Our one night out. Good pizza, slightly odd fajitas, nice decor. Very busy so you need to book.
Les Coquettes (Plagne Centre) – A lunchtime time treat. Expense but fabulous food – Steak Tartre for me, Baked Cheese and charcuterie for hubby and adult Spaghetti Bolognese for Mini Skier.
Deli (Under Spar, Plagne centre) – Amazing patisserie, cheap pizza/croque monsieur and good coffee. Perfect for quick stop.
Scottys (Plagne Centre) – Disappointing with slow service.
Croq Neige (Plagne Centre) – OKish for a snack. Slippy floor and I fell over.
Glass Box Restaurant (Le Fornelet) – Coffee / Chocolate stop. Nice views but too hot.
Hotel Carina (Belle Plagne) – Tried to get an afternoon drink, after 20 minutes sitting on the sun deck we gave up and skied off!
Hors Piste (Belle Plagne) – Horrid coffee and no loos.
Ski Lessons
We used Oxygene for the fourth time for Mini Skier’s lessons – love that the lessons don’t start until 10am, plenty of time to get up from Plagne 1800. He was booked into the Bronze group, but was the only one so he was in with the 3 star group. He like being the smallest/youngest but the best skier in the group and also enjoyed the social aspect skiing with other English children. We saw his confidence and speed grow over the week and he achieved with Bronze badge.
I booked a private lesson as I was fed up struggling with moguls. I had a female instructor called Manuella who was a fellow cyclist. The lesson was 2 hours, it progressed nicely through baby bumps to bigger ones and at the end I skied a red mogul red super neatly. I felt I had really improved!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| MelH wrote: |
| Overall - Fabulous family ski holiday in a favorite resort at a bargain price. |
Nice TR - it's always good to read this as the opening salvo!
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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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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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@MelH, good TR and good choice of favourite runs 
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