TR Val D'Isere - Half Term 23

A snowHead

Drive To Val D’Isere

We split the drive into three sections leaving on Thursday; Southampton -> Ashford -> Annecey -> Val D’Isère. As this was our first time driving we didn’t want to do it all in one go. As we got nearer the date we decided to also go to Ashford the night before as it only cost £40 in the Premier Inn and negated leaving at 2:30 in the morning.   We were due on the 7:36 tunnel and turned up around 5:30 and was offered the 6:30, started to queue up a few minutes after the call but ended up getting one that left around 7:20ish. It was all a bit of a rush, not really enough time to grab breakfast from Starbucks in the terminal. You could see that it actually didn’t matter what train you were scheduled on as once you started queuing you just got put on the next (provided you were not early which would be hard).   Once into France drive to Annecey was painless, nice quiet roads, slightly busy as we got near Geneva but it was rush hour so was expected. I decided to go with the “If we stop I fill up” as it was just easier so I filled up after a couple hours when we stopped for some morning food and then again when we stopped for lunch. Services were very busy, finding a car park spot was a real challenge.   There are so many rest stops on the motorways but the service stations are much smaller than the UK so can’t really handle volume when it does happen.   In Annecey we stayed at the Novotel which was OK, quite expensive for what it was and you could hear the trains through the night, not sure I would recommend it. We parked in one of the town underground parking which was fine and only 12 euro for the night.   We left Annecey at 7am which was amazing looking over the lake as the sun came up, we stopped as we joined the main road for some breakfast and then headed up. No real traffic any of the way and got into Val D’Isere sometime between 10-10:30.  We had a tag for the journey (emovis) which going out didn’t make too much difference as there were no real queues. Was still handy to not have to faf about with cards etc. That first toll is always fun, not knowing if it will work but that beep came quickly as it was a 30km toll so was nice and slick.

Accommodation

Chalet Skadi are apartments on the upper end of the scale but did not dissapoint, we couldn’t fault the apartment.   We arrived very early - around 10:30 and thankfully were able to park our car in the underground parking without any issue. Car park was very spacious, lots of space round the cars for packing. Noticed a Q5 with roof box so good head room too.   Just as we were about to walk into town to kill some time until the apartment was ready we found out the room was ready for us which was great as it meant we could get unpack all our stuff before heading into town for the rentals. Certainly not the hard late check-in that many apartments enforce.   We had a 2 bed, both rooms well equipped, nice bathrooms and TVs in all rooms (not that we used them). TV did have some English channels which was nice when chilling out although half way through the week we did loose BBC1 which was a shame.   The block had a nice lounge but it was mostly wasted space as no-one really appeared to really use it, I suspect because there was no catering. By just adding some coffee / tee I suspect it would become a much busier communal area.

Boot room was good, each room had its own lockable cupboard with boot heaters in them. Only a couple benches but even though we were there during half term we never had a problem getting ready or at the end of the day so all good.

The in-house spa was a nice addition. Used it a couple times for the kids to have as swim, never very busy or crowded

Location wise it was a small walk - 10 minutes max to the main learner area. In the mornings it was possible to do a 5 minute walk to the top of the lesson meeting points and ski down for the kids (or walk for us snowboarders as it was so flat). There is a spar just round the corner which had most things. If you want to do a bit more of a shop it’s worth a walk down into town for the Sherpa which has more variety. There is a great Pizza shop also next door which was really nice, great service if you want to have a meal in but needs booking as it’s small and gets booked up and we also had a takeaway from there on the last night. A rental shop; Sport 2000 is next door so worth checking them out (we used one in town as they had a great deal during the summer).  Overall highly recommended and would certainly use again if we visit Val D’Isere again

Resort

For a half term trip I was amazed at how good it was. It was our first trip during half term and had heard the horror stories so were expecting the worst but actually it was no where near as bad as expected. In the mornings we were often able to get 2/3 runs down when it was virtually empty and you were able to shuffle onto the lift without too much hassle.   The only time we found it busy was around 10:30 to 12:00ish on some of the main lifts i.e. Glacier, Borsat etc but other than that it was fine - the same lifts were virtually empty if you went out at 1pm.  The slopes were kept in great condition, as it stayed cold the slopes stayed in a consistent way, didn’t mogul up or anything, even if you went out at 3pm they were almost as good as 10am which was great.   Nice and sunny every day which mean it wasn’t too cold and could eat outside if we wanted which was good.   We eat at a few different places. Was disappointed to see that the Grand Cocur has changed hands as previously it was somewhere we would often go with a great variety of food but never too expensive but it’s now going for much more higher end. Had some good mountain snacks that didn’t cost too much. Really nice meal in Sur La Montagne would highly recommend.   It’s a shame there aren’t that many places in the sun for the end of day drink, as a result they charged the earth i.e. Le Yule - 1 Aperol Spritz, 1 coke and 2 hot chocolates.. just over 40 euro! We only went there once.
 
Lessons

We used Evolution2 for the kids lessons. Went for 5 days starting Sunday and the sessions were 9-12. This was great as it meant that we could get up the mountain early before the main rush but equally could get back into town or back up the mountain with the kids for lunch before the masses descended which is important given the amount of families out for half term.   The instructor “David” was great with the kids. Really came on over the week and although there were a day which was a challenge due to uncomfortable boots, he worked wonders such that the child that was crying when we saw him at snack time had a great big smile when they arrived back at lunch. They stopped for a hot chocolate / snack each day which was great for kids & was 2 euros so good value.

Drive Home

Left Val D’Isere at 6:40 and were doing well but then quickly hit the traffic and then it became a bit of a standstill after Bourge. We ended up trying to take a detour too which I think did save time, ended up going parallel to the N90 on the D88 - very windy.

After lots of further traffic we eventually got onto the main roads but then kept hitting traffic after traffic, some just due to load others due to the 1 lane tunnels. In the end it took us around 6 hours to properly get out of all the traffic above Lyon instead of 3. This meant it was busy for the rest of the drive but not too bad - was able to stay at 130km/h for much of it.  
Did find the services a bit chaotic around lunch. So little parking for the amount of cars trying to stop and also coaches which completely overwhelmed them. Didn’t really find anywhere good to stop for dinner so we decided to just hammer on to get to the Eurotunnel.

On the way home having the toll tag really was handy as there were a few where the queues were 10/15 cars deep and nothing on the tag entrances.   Eventually got to the Eurotunnel at 8:30pm and after expecting it to be chaos with the strikes, it was very smooth - I booked onto a 9:37 and went onto the lounge to grab the expensive freebees - In the end we didn’t have much time so had to rush but actually had more than we thought as we ended up catching the end of the earlier train so got back to the UK even earlier. By 11:30 were back home near Southampton (after a quick stop for some proper food)

(Slight downer of the day was to walk into our conservatory to find one of our inside panes had smashed everywhere - not what we wanted to return to)

A snowHead

Amazing - glad you enjoyed your trip. The main admin manager of EV2 is my next door neighbour so will pass on your comments to her. Great

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

I did keep an eye out for you in the mornings doing your videos when we got on the Gondola but didn't manage to see you in action Very Happy

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Lovely write up.

Ah ha. The old 2 euro hot chocolate trick. I spoke to an ex ski instructor in Val d’Isere at half term whilst on the funicular. He said the cafes were still charging him the instructor rate when he stopped with kids, of 1 euro. He explained the extra pocket money from the 2 euro charged to parents.

Mind you I wouldn’t be sat with a bunch of small kids on a regular basis for all the tea in China. Possibly a well deserved little extra.

Help!!

TR Val D'Isere - Half Term 23

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