 Poster: A snowHead
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I'm weighing up the pros & cons of flying vs driving to the Family Bash in VT.
If I fly to/from LGW and fly out Friday and home on Sunday then I can get the cost of flights down to around £400, if I use loads of Avios £110 I get it for the two of us on BA. Most of the other flights are crazy prices.
This would need somewhere to stay in Geneva on Friday night at the start and Saturday night. Any suggestions for a good budget hotel for B&B?
An alternative would be to pick up a hire car on Friday night, then head toward VT and maybe stay the night in Albertville or similar. I've got very little experience of hiring cars, at Geneva or anywhere really.
All suggestions welcome!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I'd be very tempted to get the car Friday night and look for somewhere to book along lake Annecy
Appears to be a range of places as you drive along the West side, and to wake up to that beautiful view (one of the best parts of a driving trip to the alps  ) then short journey to VT.
Going through there, we always get out to stretch our legs at Duingt, it's so calm with a stunning view across the lake in the morning.
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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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I did something vaguely similar once visiting friends in Meribel. Drove down to Albertville and stayed in the Ibis budget. Short drive up the next day.
If you need a GVA airport hotel I have stayed at Hotel 33 on Ave Louis Casei - reasonable price, quality and walking distance to the airport.
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I've used the ibis by Geneva airport a few times when squeezing in an extra day's Saturday skiing. Not usually too expensive when booked in advance, actually a quite good restaurant and a free, frequent shuttle bus to the airport in the morning.
If hiring a car you have a choice of the French side (a little cheaper but no guarantee of winter tyres) or Swiss side (slightly more expensive and you need to remember to tell them you'll be taking it to France but you do get winter tyres). In both cases they will want to charge you extra for snow chains but I'd be tempted to make that call based on the weather forecast. If you're going to be overnighting en-route I'd probably say "No thanks", then if snow's forecast for either arrival or return drives stop at a big supermarket and buy a pair as it's usually cheaper to buy/throw away than hire! Worst case you'll likely be able to buy them in the resort. I'm just back from the tiny resort of Oz en Oisans (Alpe D'Huez) and even their livingroom-sized shop had a rack with chains in different sizes!
I've only ever done Swiss-side and use someone like SkyScanner.net and you can see who's actually hiring the car, and a little googling will tell you if they are on-site or slightly off-side. Most of the big boys are on-site and while there are shuttle buses you can walk from arrivals to most of them quicker.
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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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When coming in on a late flight before, I've hired a car and driven as far as Aix-Les-Bains where you can find cheap airbnbs close to the motorway.
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ie not long to get to them, rather than right next to a noisy road!
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I think the Stars Hotel in Ferney Voltaire is the cheapest hotel around - near the entrance to the French sector. But I'd probably pick up a car and drive out. . Lake Annecy would indeed make a nice stop over and be a proper start to a holiday (unlike a night at the Stars Hotel, which used to be a Formule 1). At the end I'd ski on the final Saturday (quiet slopes) then drive back. The Stars Hotel would be a good bet for the final Saturday night - you can just drive the car back in to the French sector (where hire cars are on the airport, unlike the Swiss side) then head through the "Alice through the looking glass" passage to the international sector to check in.
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And no trouble driving back through the border post, under the runway, and into the international sector if you hire on the Swiss side - just a couple of minutes.
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