 Poster: A snowHead
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Hi,
We need to ski in Feb half term 2023 due to GCSEs. Easter and Christmas definitely ruled out. So I want to limit the amount of driving just to make life easier.
What resort recommendations are out there? We're a family of 4, good intermediates (have skied Chinaillon/GB, Espace Diamant and will be going to Tignes in April this year).
My gut feeling is steering me towards La Clusaz (although never been) - obviously do a day trip to GB area (which the kids will be thrilled with as they learnt there). But worried if there are too many drags in La Clusaz or not great lift system. We don't need nightlife. Are there any other resorts I should be thinking about that are just as quick/easy to get to?
Note: I think our half term clashes with Paris week in 2023 (great).
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Generally, is there much in it? 10, 10.5, 11.5 hours, one week break, repeat is much the same.
I agree the difference between 11 and 14 hours is significant.
Pick some resorts you like and play with Google maps for journey time?
My own suggestion; try to avoid those with narrow wiggly roads at the end, they are horrible after a long drive (and more likely to be snowed in). Eg drive to Morzine but not the last bit up to Avoriaz. Just an idea.
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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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Grand Massif, 8 hours from Calais.
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For PdS, staying in Champery is roughly 50km closer to Calais than Morzine because of final approaches.
Even Nendaz for 4V ski not far further either. I know not France but may offer attractive alternative in that busy period.
Morzine & Flaine within 10km of each other.
Val Cenis is further, but generally easier drive at the approach than the closer French areas with overall time not much different to Maurienne valley ski areas.
Valley Tarantaise, generally more tortuous approach along with significant zig-zag after Albertville to extend total kms. Probably worst case journey experience here to access excellent ski areas.
Champery to meet OP question as best combined mix.
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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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French, or French-speaking? As mentioned, some of the French-speaking Swiss resorts like the 4 Vallées (Verbier, La Tzoumaz, Nendaz, Veysonnaz) and the Vaudois resorts like Champéry and Aigle are within 8½ hours drive of Calais.
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We always avoid half term but if I were going at that time I’d probably give the evasion Mont Blanc ski area a go. Peak retreats do self drive to places like combloux which must be one of the easiest places to get to.
The grand massif is also easy to get to but I prefer to go there when it’s less busy later in the season.
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@snowymum, I don't do half term either but I have driven out of the Evasion Mont Blanc area at the start of it, the traffic queue up stretched all the way down to Sallanches at 10am.
Stations in the Jura and Vosges are closer still but French-speaking Switzerland or the Aosta valley in Italy would be my choice.
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Gerardmer. A touch over 6 hours from Calais.
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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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We are on our way back from Flaine and it’s been ok except for some holdups around Geneva. It was about 8-8.5 hours total driving on the way there. Having done half term a few times, my best tip is to try to get a Sunday to Sunday holiday, there’s practically no traffic. They are more difficult to come by, but we have done Saturday bookings and arrived a day late. We have then checked out Saturday morning, skied all day and left late afternoon in our ski gear, driving 2-3 hours for a night stop, then having a shorter drive to Calais on Sunday.
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I'd blast through the Mont Blanc tunnel and go to one of the Aosta Valley resorts, rather than Paris half term. Motorway almost all the way.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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We are lucky enough to own an apartment in the Maurienne valley and have just spent half term here and skied Valmeinier and Valloire- takes us 8.5 hours to drive from Calais and even during Paris half term there have been hardly any queues, the longest was probably about 3 minutes. Can’t recommend the area enough with its easy access to Orelle for the 3 valleys, the Les Sybelles ski area and a host of other small resorts.
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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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Bardonecchia is just the other side of the Frejus tunnel, it really is motorway all the way there. Same as the suggestion for Aosta above, you should escape the worst of the half-term French ski resort crowds by going to Italy. Cesana Torinese and Sauze d'Oulx nearby could be other viable options.
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La Clusaz, Grand Massif, Chamonix Valley, PDS all +/- 7.5-8 hours driving time from Calais. A few Swiss resorts e.g. Villars about the same. Add on tunnel/ferry faff, your U.K. journey, a number of stops and the inevitable delays and it is a full (longish) day on the road. If you rule out Vosges/Jura that is it.
Presumably the diligent student can get in a solid 6 hours plus revision whilst on the journey? In that case I doubt a couple of extra hours to go further afield makes much difference to their exam outcomes.
Sun-Sun booking not a bad idea (to make life easier for the drivers, not the student).
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You know it makes sense.
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| ski3 wrote: |
For PdS, staying in Champery is roughly 50km closer to Calais than Morzine because of final approaches.
Even Nendaz for 4V ski not far further either. I know not France but may offer attractive alternative in that busy period.
Morzine & Flaine within 10km of each other.
Val Cenis is further, but generally easier drive at the approach than the closer French areas with overall time not much different to Maurienne valley ski areas.
Valley Tarantaise, generally more tortuous approach along with significant zig-zag after Albertville to extend total kms. Probably worst case journey experience here to access excellent ski areas.
Champery to meet OP question as best combined mix. |
Châtel (FR) would be similar distance as Champery going over Pas de Morgins. We do it regularly taking 11-13 hours from SW london by cutting through the Jura (Comte) and Switzerland. Time taken is mainly varies by the eurotunnel working on time or how busy it is, or if we have our dog with us. We normally aim for the 8:20 am crossing which gets us in our apartment by dinner time.
There are also some small French resorts in the Jura such as Metabief Mt d’Or which could appeal if you were after something low key that could be reach in around 10 hours from London.
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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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@reh_stuff, sounds a sensible plan. I've been considering similar (Sunday to Sunday). Do you find the Sunday ferry/eurotunnel crossings to be relatively quiet too?
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Poster: A snowHead
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@YellowAndBlue, V. quiet coming back just now.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Sundays - definitely the way to go, after a quiet Saturday transfer-day ski and driving a couple of hours north for Saturday night. The plan outlined by @reh_stuff above is a good one.
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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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One downside to consider for Sun-Sun is that the vast majority of ski lessons at half term run from Sunday to Friday and it used to be very difficult to book ski lessons starting on a Monday.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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From our experience I wouldn't avoid Easter. We went every year at Easter and when they had exams we just stopped skiing mid afternoon and then they had study time.
No one can study efficiently all day long for weeks on end. Having a structure to the day meant there was less faff and plenty of study
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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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| Quote: |
No one can study efficiently all day long for weeks on end
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And to suggest that kids need to do anything of the sort for GCSEs - or will do anything of the sort, no matter where they find themselves, is a triumph of parental illusions over reality.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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@YellowAndBlue, we find Sunday much smoother and faster as there are only a very small number of lorries on the autoroute. Makes a big difference especially if you are a driver happy to set cruise control above the speed limit.
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Sunday does seem to make sense to me if I can escape the crowds at Eurotunnel and experience a nice quiet drive on the motorways.
@Ozboy, I've noticed lots of people on this site reporting speeding tickets received in France. Do you not have the same problem when setting your cruise control just a bit too high?
Apologies to the OP for hijacking your post. Another resort that is fairly easy to get to is Joue du Loup which is linked with Superdevoluy to form a decent sized ski area that doesn't really attract the crowds. It's pretty easy to get to, just north of Gap, and probably only another 45 minutes' driving time when compared to somewhere like Morzine.
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@YellowAndBlue, speed cameras in France are well signposted for advanced warning and have Waze turned on which provides alerts. There is sometimes a manual radar check in way back about 45 kms from the eurotunnel on a long downhill stretch before the final toll gates. There is also a sneaky 80kph camera on the central reservation very close to eurotunnel where roars are merging which catches many people.
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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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| YellowAndBlue wrote: |
| @reh_stuff, sounds a sensible plan. I've been considering similar (Sunday to Sunday). Do you find the Sunday ferry/eurotunnel crossings to be relatively quiet too? |
Outward we have left Saturday late afternoon or early evening and stopped for the night in Reims or Troyes, so not actually left on Sunday. Folkestone Eurotunnel has been significantly quieter than trying to leave Saturday morning / early afternoon though. The roads are much quieter on Sunday and Eurotunnel quieter than Saturday but still quite busy around 6-8 pm.
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We did Sauze d’Oulx in feb half term 2020 staying Fri overnight in Dijon but got stuck in all the traffic to the French alps so the last leg took ages. Chatel going via Jura as someone else has suggested is so much quicker than 3 Valleys or other PdS resorts going around Geneva.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| reh_stuff wrote: |
| YellowAndBlue wrote: |
| @reh_stuff, sounds a sensible plan. I've been considering similar (Sunday to Sunday). Do you find the Sunday ferry/eurotunnel crossings to be relatively quiet too? |
Outward we have left Saturday late afternoon or early evening and stopped for the night in Reims or Troyes, so not actually left on Sunday. Folkestone Eurotunnel has been significantly quieter than trying to leave Saturday morning / early afternoon though. The roads are much quieter on Sunday and Eurotunnel quieter than Saturday but still quite busy around 6-8 pm. |
We do same when returning home at end of busy holiday period and works well. Leave Châtel around 3pm driving through Jura via Polingy and arrive at our overnight stop at Hotel Le Val Moret, located just off the autoroute between Dijon and Troyes, at around 7:30pm in time for dinner at a nearby crepery. We leave by 7am on Sunday and usually reach eurotunnel between 10:30-11:00am where it’s generally quiet. This routine avoids all traffic avd having to queue to fuel.
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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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We just did half term for similar reasons, normally ski Xmas and Easter. Drove to Les Carroz in the Grand Massif. Left on Thursday evening Eurotunnel, stayed in Reims (we are south of England), arrived in resort just after lunch on Friday, had a glorious quiet ski day on Saturday. Left Friday morning and we were home by 8pm Friday night. Theoretically giving the teens all weekend to study. Traffic was normal.
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We drove to La Clusaz Feb half term 3 or 4 years ago - stopped Friday overnight in Reims, set off 8am and hit ALL the traffic. We got to resort a smidge before 6pm, I vividly remember as the car was in stationary traffic at the entrance to the resort, getting out to leg it to the accommodation office to collect the keys before it closed. So imo experience for those Google map times of 8hrs from Calais, take it with a pinch of salt! Les Contamines was not quite as bad but still a good 8 hrs on the road from Reims. Going back was not much better for either trip as the A40 crawls with, funnily enough, pretty much same volume of folks leaving as had arrived the previous weekend!
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You know it makes sense.
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| Quote: |
We drove to La Clusaz Feb half term 3 or 4 years ago - stopped Friday overnight in Reims, set off 8am and hit ALL the traffic.
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On a busy Saturday you need to arrive into resort either very early or very late. Same goes for leaving. On those Saturdays the time taken to drive to resorts doesn't depend on "where" but "when". And if there's heavy snow all bets are off. Local roads are not ploughed all night.
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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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| pam w wrote: |
On a busy Saturday you need to arrive into resort either very early or very late. |
+1 exactly this.
The last 2 Saturdays I have gone up to Avoriaz via SM Gondola / Proclou as there no longer seems to be a 4 hour parking limit by Skoda Arena.
From the piste and Serrasaix lift if has been noticeable that there was a huge queue of cars arriving in Avoriaz around midday, going back down to Zorre (maybe beyond, I couldn't see further).
The resort even sent Welcome agents down to Serrasaix to help manage the queue.
By 4 o'clock when I was heading back across to SM to go home, the queue had pretty much all gone.
Now what's strange is that in days of yore, P&V who own most of Avoriaz (along with Annie Famose) used to have 4PM as the earliest check in possible.
I understand that some people might like to arrive early, get parked up and then go for a long lunch and a stroll ( or a cheeky ski), but in doing so also subjected themselves to an hour+ queueing outside the resort.
The people rocking up later could just park up and check in.
It is possible that since then P&V have set staggered check in times ( so everyone doesn't arrive at once), but this needs careful management as all the units need cleaning from the previous clients who may only have checked out at 10AM. It's unlikely that the accommodation was empty from the previous week as this was during the busiest 2 weeks of the season.
as usual Pam w is spot on.
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