Nightmare to/from resort – planes,trains,automobiles

A snowHead

Getting to (or from) a ski resort isn’t always without hiccups.

From missed flights, to avalanched mountain roads, many things can go wrong between your doorstep and the resort.

Indeed, at your doorstep you may trip over and dislocate your shoulder. (I dislocated/broke a shoulder the day before departing for a 10 day trip to Banff – I still went, and snowboarded in a sling)

Or, as you disembark the transfer coach at a resort car park, you may slip over on the ice and break your wrist. (This happened to a fellow passenger many years ago)

Conversely, instead of inopportune injuries, illnesses, or other disabilities impairing ski fitness, there are plenty of things beyond your control that may impact upon transport: strikes, protests, weather, traffic jams, accidents, pandemics, riots/unrest/war, breakdown, landslides/avalanches, etc.

Of course, there are also the cock-ups, like booking your transport/accommodation for the wrong dates or resort, e.g. flying to Montreal for an hour's train transfer to Whistler, or arriving at St.Martin de Belleville to find your booked hotel is in Bourg St, Maurice.

And then there are the combos, where many of the above may befall you or your party in the same trip.

Have you experienced any notable nightmares when it comes to getting to or from a ski resort?

Have you finally arrived 3 days late? Or have you been trapped in resort due to heavy snowfall, unable to leave, and unable to ski?

Amusing, nightmarish, incredible, whatever, here’s a chance to get it off your chest.

There have even been Snowheads bashes that have been waylaid:

A snowHead

Not me (yet) touch wood.
On my first trip to Banff in the late 90s, our Absolute Beginner boarding group included a Brit who had already done 1.5 days of lessons (enough to maybe start him a group higher), I think in Canada, but that trip had been cut short by a broken coccyx. He was now back to restart his learning, and felt it better to start over.
Two days later he was waggoned off the mountain with a broken wrist.
How trips can be very long yet very short simultaneously.

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

Ironically, I have twice been delayed a day or two by too much snow in getting out of the UK to go skiing [once in Canada, once in France].

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Worst one I have had was on a trip to St Johann, where I managed to leave my wallet at home.

I only realised when I reached the airport, which was Birmingham, 2 hours from home. So no possibility of going back for it and still catching the flight. And this was in the days before contactless and being able to pay for things with your phone.

So I was heading for resort with about 20 Euros (that were with my passport), and no way of getting more cash. On eth coach they said they could give a lift pass if I could give them my card number, so I phoned my wife and she read it out. I asked her to then post it to the hotel, hoping it would only be a couple of days.

The hotel was booked half board, so it was a case of picking up extra stuff at breakfast to manage for lunch, though when I told the hotel what had happened, they very nicely advanced me €50, which paid for most of my lunches for the week. I had stayed at that hotel previously, so they knew me a bit.

It seems the Austrian post is not great though, and the card finally arrived at the hotel on the Monday after I got home, so I authorised them to take the €50 and postage costs to send it back to me.

A slightly fraught holiday, being constantly worried about cash (and a rather pissed off wife), but the skiing was good, and I had bought the kitzalps pass on the bus, so was able to also ski Kitzbuhel and the Ski Circus.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Not me..or if it was me it was sufficiently insignificant that I've forgotten

..oh...driving back from Austria in a blizzard the day before an interview. Followed a snowplough for endless miles, got home at midnight, wrote a presentation and went straight to London...to find the interviewers were struggling to get in from Surrey after 3 hours delay I had the interview...didn't get the job.

But...if I could have just gone to bed when I got home it wouldn't have been all that.

I also was on the last flight our of Geneva on a Sunday night which was cancelled. Messaged the boss as couldn't get in on the Monday, had to take an extra day's holiday and he wasn't best pleased but so what.

Finally...I think...when I broke my leg non-skiing, didn't go into the office for 2 months but wfh everyday and brucie bonus got my holiday days back for the 5 days I was in hospital

So I realise I remember incidents but I'd largely forgotten them

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Many to mention, a sample.

- March about 10 years ago we missed early Sunday Gatwick flights to Marseille by one minute, due to the BST clocks change and all our alarms were old school and we used to maximise sleep (last minute charleys at that time). The blunder cost a large ££££ wedge, we flew out from Heathrow 6 hours later.

- Getting as many last day runs in as possible in a lads trip to Ischgl, we then took a wrong turn where that road joins the Innsbruck to Zurich autobahn, resulting in we got to the Easyjet desk Zurich one minute late. It was empty, when the last flight of the day, do the staff disappear in a flash to swerve aggressive late customers? Not us btw, our fault entirely. We slept on the concrete floor and flew home the next morning.

- A huge blizzard in Obertauern in March 2000 meant waiting for the police to give the go ahead for vehicles to leave in one small time window. Then 100’s of Thomson/Crystal guests were gathered in a rammed Radstadt hotel, finally we were bussed to an awful hotel The Vicky in Niederau for a sleep. Home 24 hours late?

- After leaving Puy St Vincent on the busy February Saturday, the A48 north of Grenoble was completely blocked due to an accident. Literally 10,000’s vehicles diverted to a de facto car park …. the road to Valence. I knew we’d miss our Reims motel, so I drove straight to the Eurotunnel. My wife won’t drive overseas, so I was incredibly tired to the point of dangerous thus kept stopping for coffees. When we got to Coquelles we were greeted by a vast jam of returning British skiers. By luck we had a Flexi ticket, so drove past the lot.

- Driving Coquelles to Puy St Vincent one February the French Alps received an unexpected blizzard, we were caught out by the just closed Col du Lautaret. Trying to be clever, I tried a route through Ecrins National Park, but closed in winter. Finally the Gap detour. Ended up driving 900 miles, which equates to Coquelles to Warsaw! Again I was the only driver. I limped out of the car in Puy as if I’d visited the Blue Oyster Bar.

Just remembered, we had a full blown puncture on that leg too. Ww had winter tyres, by luck/foresight I had a full size steel wheel in the boot with a 5th matching winter tyre. I’d deliberately left the skinny drive slow spare that came with the car at home. The Continental ContiWinter tyres were incredible on snow even though it was just a Front Wheel Drive car, able to drive on mountain inclines with 2 or 3 inches of fresh snow.

Plenty of others including I forgot my driving licence for the rental car, other blizzards on travel weekends, a flight moments from landing at Innsbruck in January 1999 when the captain changed his mind. No one said anything at all until 20 minutes later he said over the PA “Sorry about that, prepare for landing at Munich”. Then a tedious traffic jam coach journey with half of Bavaria from Munich to the Tirol on their ski travel day.

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

When I saw the thread title all I could think of was the clip where Steve Martin and John Candy end up sharing a tiny bed... Laughing

http://youtube.com/v/aHNCEJ4DtpA

After all it is free

Two ski holidays. Two cancelled return flights.

Austria. February 2020. After a lovely very first ski trip ever, I checked the easyjet app as I was eating my breakfast to do a final confirmation of our flight time only to be met with a banner that told me that my flight had been cancelled due to adverse weather in the UK. High winds. We got home to find our trampoline had moved into next doors garden. It was blue skies and beautiful in Austria. (Trampoline has since been secured).

We spoke with EJ who agreed to our suggested move of a flight from Vienna to Bristol on the Monday, as they only operate Salzburg to Bristol once a week, on a Saturday. We, along with the sprogs, then aged 8 and 6, hopped on a train to Vienna, where we had a great couple of days! EJ paid back the cost of the hotel, trains, and meals.

Italy, last Christmas. Parked the hire car at Turin airport. As we were unloading our stuff, Mr. O gets a notification. Cancelled flight. BA shuttled us to Milan Airport and put us up overnight before flying us to LHR the next day. We then had to get a taxi to rescue my car from Gatwick before doubling back on ourselves as we live in the West Country. BA refunded us the taxi and gave us food vouchers for the hotel.

We also had a flight cancelled at the end of a trip to Tuscany in May 2023. On the train headed back to Pisa Airport and I get a notification. Cancelled flight due to problem with the aircraft. Got ourselves a hotel in Pisa for two nights and were flown back to LGW. V. pricey taxi to get my car from Bristol Airport due to rail strikes that whole weekend making it near impossible to get from LGW home to collect Mr. O's car so we could then get mine. EJ told us that hiring a car was an 'unreasonable expense' and they only covered public transport and taxis. So we held them to that and got a taxi directly to my car.

EJ refunded the taxi, food, and hotel for the extra two nights in Pisa, plus gave us £200 each compensation as it was an aircraft problem. Our original 4 night trip had only cost £800 for the flights/accommodation. So we ended up with 6 nights in Italy for the cost of two days food and drink, plus alcoholic drinks in Pisa (we never claim for those).

We're so used to having return flights cancelled now, we just roll with it. Better than having the outgoing ones cancelled.

In over 4 decades of skiing? Lots of hiccups. Here are a few I can remember off the top of my head:

1) First snowhead bash: Flight was cancelled due to weather at home. At least I knew about it ahead of time so didn’t have to find out after gotten to the airport. The next flight was exactly 24 hours later. But, since skiing was only planned for the day after, I knew I would arrive midday and should be able to squeeze in half a day of skiing. So I phoned admin to leave my lift pass at the hotel desk for me to pick up on arrival. Everything worked out.

Since then, for trips across the pond, I opted to fly in a full 24 hr in advance, AND 24 hrs post skiing. There’s always some interesting sights to be been at the destination city to occupied me. No more stressing out on miss ground transfer, miss skiing days, or miss flights.

2) A few years later, on a package tour to Crested Butte: Again weather at home caused flight cancellation. This time, because it’s a package tour, we were advised to wait for the TO to sort it out. Except a few hours later, we were told because Crested Butte is such a tiny airport, there were very few flights going there. We would miss 3 days out of the 6 days of skiing! Shocked

Fortunately, someone in the group mentioned another airline had seats available, and I happened to have massive FF points on that airline from a lot of previous work travel. So I booked my flight for free, and booked two more seats for my mates. (We all got our flight cost back, which my club mates sent my way. So I effectively “sold” my FF miles to my mates). My roommate was too slow and didn’t get the low cost seat. She had to pay 3 times as much to get there, as she didn’t want to give up 3 days of skiing.

That was the worst travel hiccup I can remember. I had not used a TO for skiing before, and have not done so ever since.

3) Booked a weekender, yet once more, weather at home closed the airport. Although the weather was forecasted to clear the next morning, but the backup of stuck passengers means I wouldn’t have been able to get there till afternoon, missing 1 of 3 days of skiing. I opted to cancel the trip. Phone the hotel and pleaded. They were understanding and allowed me to cancel with no penalty (or was that a credit for future stay? I forgot). But at least nothing else was paid in advance, no other expense to worry about.

4) For a change, weather related flight cancellation at the destination! Forecast was for storm starting late afternoon of the day I was to fly out of Aspen (Aspen airport is a very finicky airport, affected by weather in all possible ways one can imagine). To make matters infinitely worse, the X-Game was due to start the next day, so not a single spare bed is available within 50 miles of Aspen that night! We had to leave! rolling eyes

I got to the airport, was pleased to watch our plane came in, we got on the plane (I knew my skis wouldn’t be making that flight, they told me right at check-in. But that’s not a concern as I was going home). But after sitting in the plane for nearly an hour, we were told the weather was too bad for the plane to have any chance of taking off. Sad

So we dutifully de-plane. Waited for our luggage to come back out to be collected. In the mean time, the full plane load of strangers organized ourselves into groups, hired whatever available cars/trucks/vans in Aspen. Then set off on the 200 mile drive to Denver in a raging storm! Shocked

It took something like 5 or 6 hours, not able to see much in front of our bumpers! By the time we got to Denver airport, it was so late all the hotel shuttles had stopped running. And all the taxi also retired. So no hotel even for those of us who’re willing to pay. I ended up pulling my 2 pairs of skies out of the bag to made a “bed” out of it on the floor of the terminal. It was cushy enough I even managed to get a fistful of sleep. Until I got woken up by the sound of cleaning crew’s vacuum! Flew back to NY and went directly to the office, ski bags in tow. Only missed half day of work! Very Happy

5) Also another flight cancellation at destination. This time, no problem finding hotels. So it ended up being 3 extra days of skiing. Even better, I bumped into a friendly local who offered to “show me her secret powder spots” the next 2 days! snowHead

To top it off, she soon moved into a bigger house, so I got to visiting her for the next few seasons with free lodging and a ski buddy!

Traveling has it challenges. But also its rewards.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

On a uni ski trip (many years ago!) our bus 'crashed' on the way down the mountain. Not a major one, no injuries but the bus did end up wedged up against the side of the mountain at quite an angle rendering the doors unusable.

They told us we weren't allowed off, but eventually those blessed with smaller bladders ended up exiting via a window.

Missed our flight as a result.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

Appears to be many flight derived delays so far.

Not skiing, but return from Belfast for working trip, EJ opened check desk late for full flight as later evening departure was popular. Roughly 50% checked through when announcement came that check in was closing ! To which a chorus from the "audience" responded "oh no you're not" Very Happy

and further pantomime rhetoric added, eventually to hold the departure, open two more desk and get all of us away on that last flight.

Someone probably looked pragmatically at the potential bill incoming from us rabble lined up.

Hardly any runway slots were being used anyway, more of a check before pulling out scenario for the "driver" Laughing

snow reports

Not me but a friend of mine slipped walking out her front door to get in the car and broke her ankle. That was after she'd broken her leg while skiing on her previous trip. Not sure she's skied since!

I can't think of any particularly bad travels for me. I got took the train from Bristol to Hintertux in December 22 and the night before I left there was an email announcing a French strike which meant the train I was supposed to be on Friday morning was cancelled. In the end I went through to Stuttgart on the Thursday night rather than staying in Paris for the evening so that I could catch up with my DB trains on the Friday. Wasn't the end of the world, but the trainline were useless with their information telling me to claim a refund on my ticket when in fact I could have just used my Friday ticket to get to Stuttgart early. Cost me around an extra €100 in train tickets, plus I lost my non-refundable hotel in Paris.

My parents spent an entire day in Innsbruck airport in January this year before being put in a hotel and flown home the next day.

Thankfully any issues have been relatively minor - most frustrating was the loss of a day and bit skiing last year a AdH due to massive snowfall closing everything

You know it makes sense.

Only a few really memorable journeys where something significant went wrong...

probably 20+ years ago, flying Bristol to Chambery, arrived at the car parking at 5am to be told by the attendant that we wouldn't be flying out until 4pm at the earliest (he had a mate in ATC). Asked at check-in and told 'no delays', so checked luggage in, then were told that there was a delay. So a 12 hour wait at BRS (we only lived 20mins away so could have comfortably gone home and returned). To amuse the kids, treats were purchased at the airport shops - including a harmonica for my 6yr old son, who then played 'the blues' for 6 hours solid. When we eventually boarded, it turned out they hadn't fueled the aircraft, so we sat tight whilst the fuel tanker escorted by 4 fire-engines did the deed on the full aircraft, followed by an aborted take off because an ground crew vehicle crossed the runway as we took off. We have only flown once since.

In twenty years of driving to the alps, the last two years have been interesting Confused

:
2 years ago - broke down between BourgStMaurice and Moutier heading home at 5am. Recovered to garage, spent 5 hours in a portakabin in a parking lot while the breakdown companies agents failed to figure out onward travel. Eventually grasped the nettle ourselves for a taxi, train and plane home - our own 'planes, trains and automobiles' trip with the car and most of our luggage returning 5 weeks later on a transporter.

And last year, having had flu for the week & missing 4 out of 6 days skiing, we got to within 3 hours of Calais before discovering the passports were still in the appartment. bug. About turn, and repeat the drive! Fortunately, the twenty something 'kids' were on the insurance so we tag-teamed the driving, stopped only for fuel and snacks and home a day late. The car that had broken down last year performed flawlessly.

Really Looking forward to this seasons road trip in Jan!

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

Only one real epic.
Heading to Les Arcs one Easter our car, Skoda Superb broke down near Laon. After contacting our breakdown insurer Smart Rescue (excellent throughout BTW) the car was loaded onto a truck and taken back to a Skoda dealer in St Quentin. After a wait in a MacDonalds for a couple hours we were told the car couldn’t be repaired that day. The insurers couldn’t get us a hire car that day so put us (me my wife, son and niece) in a hotel for the night taxi number 1, the next morning taxi number 2 took us to the car hire place where we were given a fiat 500L. My son’s expertise in Tetris allowed us somehow to get everything, well most, from a Superb Estate in the little Fiat. This included 3 sets of skis, boots, bedding, towels and our niece’s not inconsiderable collection of T shirts.
Oh! Our friend had already gone down to Les Arcs and was waiting in the apartment for us to arrive. We tried to phone him but he’d left his mobile phone at home. In the end it didn’t worry him at all that we didn’t turn up on the day we said we would.
Considering how cramped the car was (both son and niece were substantial adults) the journey passed remarkably comfortably.
Throughout the next week we were in constant communication with the insurers who reported that the garage in St Quentin would not repair the car and we could keep the hire car for the whole of the week. I was actually glad as I didn’t fancy a 1000 mile return journey to return the hire car.
At the end of the holiday we drove back to St. Quentin and returned the hire car. This actually took quite a while as the man who ran the depot was out for lunch when we arrived. Two hours later he arrived having had a largely liquid lunch.
Taxi 3 then took us to the ferry terminal to cross to Dover. On the ferry the insurers phoned again to say that the taxi we thought we were getting home was not available and that taxi 4 would take us to Gatwick Airport and taxi 5 would then take us home.
The next week the car was transported back to a garage in Birmingham where the ECR valve was changed. It wasn’t a big job and I think the garage in St Quentin just said they couldn’t do it in case there was something else more major lurking there or simply because they thought we wouldn’t appreciate the long drive just to collect it.
At no point did any of us get depressed, upset or panicky about what had happened and just accepted it as one of those things. A bit of an adventure. I think I kept posting updates as we went along on Snowheads.

A snowHead

Just a 12 hour delay in getting to Arabba. Flights into Innsbruck were diverted due to fog. Ours went to Friedrichshafen. Others went to Munich. The TO (Inghams) had booked a coach to take guests from various different flights from Innsbruck to the Dolomites. A coach took us to Landeck where we sat for hours waiting for people who had been diverted elsewhere. It was just very dull and boring. The toilet attendant took a lot of money at the service station. The Italian coach driver declared it a, "catastrofe" many times.

A snowHead

@johnE, that's quite a story! Worth reminding people that when your breakdown service gives you a replacement car it might be FAR smaller than yours. That happened to us in the Aosta Valley (summer, not skiing). We were driven at lunatic and criminal speed quite a long way to a car hire place (they insisted there was none in Aosta, where we'd broken down) and then given a small car into which to Tetris the contents of a very full Fiat Multipla.

I hope somebody is going to entertain us with stories of nights spent on the floor of a school near Moutiers.....

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

Not me, but I'd paid for it!
We took my nephew for his first ever ski trip last year - to Les Contamines. He went to ski school on the first day, and on the very first extremely low-angled run he fell awkwardly and tore a ligament in his knee... Luckily he was old enough to sit in a bar for the week!

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Buckle-Up....Long Story ensues.

I have had one nightmare trip that is ingrained in my memory, despite being over 2 decades ago. It wasn't solely a ski trip, but a 3 week holiday in The States that included me peeling off for just over a week to ski with my Brother, while my Wife and Kids stayed with relatives of hers in LA and Palm Springs.

There were a lot of flights needed: Belfast -> Heathrow -> LA -> Palm Springs. After a week, I flew to Denver to meet my Bro, hire a car and drive to Salt Lake City...and then 9 Days later, we all flew to Chicago to meet up (My Brother had left a couple of days earlier), before flying to Washington, where we were met by my Sister in Law to go back to their house outside Richmond VA. The way back was Richmond -> Washington -> Heathrow -> Belfast.......all with 3 Kids...one of which was under 2 (We had more energy in those days).

As my Father in Law was also coming, we were going in 2 cars (Our car and my Brother in Law's car, which was to meet us at our house). I was up in good time and things were going well....until I got a phone call to say that the other car had hit such a large pothole that they needed rescuing. So I set off, picked them up and brought them to my house. Trouble is, we were now a car down at 2am.

There was my Wife's car, which unfortunately didn't have a lot fuel - and at that time in the morning, there was nowhere to get any. We now had little choice but to take it and hope for the best....and due to the unforeseen breakdown, left a good hour and a half later than I had planned.

Things went well until we got to the town just before the Motorway, where there was a long queue to get through it.....and then the fuel light came on in the second car. At this stage, I thought there was little hope of making the flight as we were either going to run out of fuel or just be too delayed....which would mean the whole 3 week holiday was at risk.

My Father in Law, who felt responsible for the whole situation, took a turn in the back of the car, turned white and started to throw up out the window. At one stage we were worried he might take a heart attack.

Anyway, we got to the airport, sorted the cars and rushed to the check in just as it was about to shut. Back in them days, you had a paper ticket.....and the check in lady had to print all the tickets we needed for the whole trip, which took quite some time. The only ticket she couldn't sort was for the toddler, which had to be done at Heathrow.

Check In took so long that the plane was fully loaded and was sitting there waiting for us to board. We were put on Electric Buggies and fast tracked to the gate and onto the plane. I can't tell you the relief that I felt once we took our seats.

You might think that was enough of a Nightmare....but it was in fact a portent of things to come. The whole Holiday had been put together by Ski Independence....who it turned out, had left us with the legal minimal transfer times, which is fine for adults....But not with 2 small kids and a toddler in a pushchair....so we were left hot and sweaty as we rushed through airports trying to get to the gate before it closed. Hugely stressful.

On arrival at LA we were confronted with a huge Immigration queue - Not ideal if you have to catch a flight to Palm Springs. It took me the guts of an hour to realize (by asking an official) that we could join the much shorter queue for American citizens, as we had a connecting flight. We got through just in time to see the small propellered plane take off without us.

There is a regular Puddle-Hopper service from LA to Palm Springs...so after an hour or so, we finally boarded our last flight and spent a relatively uneventful week - but my Daughter spent 4 Days lying in bed with Tonsilitis.

I then headed off to Denver for 9 Days skiing (fun but tiring) around Salt Lake City, while my Wife and Kids went to other relatives. This part of the holiday went well for all of us.

The final few days were spent at my Brother's house, where I kept going, playing Golf, Tennis etc. 2 Days before flying home, I started feeling very unwell....and one morning, I had so little energy that that I literally couldn't get out of bed. As a result, my Brother took me to a local Medical Centre, where it was discovered that not only did I have a Viral Infection but was completely dehydrated. A hand full of drugs and a Litre of fluid later, I was at least able to stand up without support.

The night before travel, my Brother (who did a lot of International flying for his job) took a look at my flight timings and said we had an illegal connection at Heathrow from a time allowance pov....as we had to get from the International terminal to the Domestic terminal. Due to the time difference, I had to get up in the small hours of the morning to catch the TO at 9am to sort it out.....not easy, as we were coming up to Christmas, so little availability. They did, at the last minute, sort it.

My Brother then left us to Richmond Airport to get the flight to Washington....but he warned us that this flight was often delayed. It won't surprise you to learn that this is exactly what happened and we missed our outgoing Washington flight. This was a blessing in disguise, as they laid on another flight, which was only 30% full....so as I was feeling like "Death Warmed Up" was able to collapse across 3 seats and Konk Out - Leaving my poor wife walking up and down the isle with our toddler, who cried for most of the trip. I was so out of it, that the trip back was a bit of a blur.

We finally arrived in Belfast, but our Luggage didn't....the upside of which was more room in the cars. The luggage did finally arrive mostly intact, 3 days later.

I think this qualifies under the terms of the heading.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

How long have you got? A random single one...

I got to LHR mid morning for an early afternoon flight to Canada. There were rumours of snow in Scotland. More importantly, perhaps, it was cold, so LHR was using de-icers. And they didn't have sufficient. We duly got the plane loaded and sat. And sat. Several hours later, we were getting near to the head of the de-icing queue, when the crew "ran out of hours". Everyone back into the terminal, back through whatever controls, and into the arrivals hall to collect our bags. The arrivals call was completely packed out, wall to wall chaos. I spent three hours there with everyone else before giving up, and returning to the airline desk sans snowboard gear.

The desk too was chaos, it probably took me a couple of hours to get to it. They were obviously under heavy fire, but not from me. It wasn't their fault. I wanted the next flight heading left, west, away from the chaos all around me, anywhere west. I couldn't get a ticket that evening, but I managed to get on some 06:30 morning flight out to somewhere like Miami.

They had nowhere to sleep, of course, so I slept on the floor. In case you don't know, they turn the heating off at 24:00 and the floors get pretty cold, but all the seats were completely full of bodies already.

06:30 and I'm 1st in line, hoping to work out how to hack across North America once I get out of no-de-icer land. This time they shut the entire airport down about 10 minutes before we boarded. We were almost the last flight out... but not quite. The rationale for the shut down was the Scottish snow, but in truth I think they simply ran out of de-icer.
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I returned home.

BA refused to pay me basic expenses for food. This was before we had EU law. They said I needed to have collected receipts for everything I ate and drank. I suggested that perhaps we should discuss it as a small claim in the county court, because I definitely ate food, and I didn't think the judge would require me to produce paperwork to prove it. They paid in full without further nonsense, the cheeky chappies.

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I had a week's heliboarding booked, and I don't insure, so that was a major loss if I played it badly. The operator agreed to let me delay a month... should be enough time to get my gear, right? You can "write off" bags after a month, but that means there's up to an entire month when you can't buy replacements, but don't have the kit.

And then the game really started. I now had a deadline. I tried to get my gear back. I was flying in the cheap seats, so BA's Indian call centre gave me the run around for two or three weeks. I'd ring them every day, nothing ever happened, their lies tied them in knots. Eventually I had only a couple of days left...

In desperation, the day before my re-booked flight and trip, I called the US helpdesk in the middle of the night UK time. I hadn't realized earlier, but that was how to get around Team India. The US people understood immediately what my problem was, and soon had me talking to a guy in a LHR luggage shed. At 04:00. He laughed openly at the Indian call centre, and said "yes, they are paid to fob you off".

Then he said: "I'll find your bag for you". I was privately sceptical, but he called me back within 30 minutes and told me where my bag was, which was about 20km away from me. I had to wait until the distributor, a contractor, opened in the morning. Sure enough, they confirmed that they had my bag, in the middle of a floor covered in bags. I jumped into my car and drove over at Mach 2, knowing where the speed camera is. They came out with my bag, and I had a couple of hours to spare. Except it was a hard shell bag and too big for my mid-engined car. Fortunately it was a convertible, so I made it back in time to connect to the flight I needed... just a month later than originally planned.

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Over the years we do what we call "The Boxing Day Dash", involving getting up at around 3.30am on 26th Dec to get on the road by shortly after 4am for a Tunnel crossing around 6.20am

26th December 2022- travelling with a friend A who stayed over with us the night before. Off we all go at 4.15am, Discovery loaded to the rafters, 3 humans and one dog. I was driving and thinking to myself that we had set off in good time. A quarter of a mile down the road in the dark I hit a huge pothole and we all rapidly realised we had a puncture. Turned round and crawled the 400 yards home. Mr P called a 24 hour tyre repair man, who kindly turned up within the hour, only to condemn the entire alloy wheel which had a huge dent in it.

Undeterred, Mr P called his best mate James (we'd seen him on the evening of 25th) who owned a Jeep Cherokee and asked him if we could borrow it. He agreed. Meanwhile A and I unloaded the back of the car (a LR Discovery) and then once P returned, reloaded everything into the Jeep. We got back on the road by 7am and Mr P drove while I amended the Tunnel booking online. James had got us both on the insurance by then too!

Once at the tunnel-we were firmly at the back of the queue, but I suppose being 3 hours behind schedule wasn't bad. Meanwhile the rest of the gang (stepsons and partners) flew from LGW as planned. A few traffic jams on the way meant we arrived around 9.30pm, but the boys had managed to get there before us and warm up the frozen spaghetti bol from the freezer.

Supper over, I popped out with the dog for his late evening piddle walk for 10 mins. On return-everyone was a bit worried as Mr P had gone white and light headed. We thought maybe the long drive and stresses of the day was the cause. However, he, then I (at 2am) and then everyone else (save for A) went down with a vomiting bug.

James (owner of Jeep) had originally planned to drive out in said Jeep after NY week, so instead Mr P drove the Jeep all the way back to the UK on about 2nd Jan, having bought a refurbished alloy and new tyre for the Discovery online. Got the Disco fixed then drove it back out with James within 48 hours - at which point A went down with the bug.

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

Last day of skiing with pals in Les Arcs a few years ago.

We had to get out of our apartment at lunchtime but were booked on to the evening eurostar (when you could get the eurostar straight through). Put our luggage in a locker room in Les Arcs for the day, so we could make the most of our last day skiing...only to find on our return to go to the station at about 9pm (after a lovely relaxed dinner, blissfully unaware we were screwing ourselves over big time), the locker room was completely locked up with all of our luggage, including passports trapped inside.

Cue manic door knocking on about every hotel in Bourg to find a room for the night and manic search for a flight home the next day. Eventually some very old faulty-towers like hotel found us a room and we managed to get a flight home from Chambery the next day...it could've been a lot worse in the end but it was a painful reminder to always check the opening/closing time of locker rooms..what a set of plums.

Shippo

After all it is free

So far only one missed trip, that was due to being caught up in a ten car smash on the M25 at 4 am on the way to Gatwick. It was deliberately caused by some idiots placing a dark brown car under a bridge on a slight slope and applying oil to the road, second time in a month the police said. My frontera was written off and only one panel not smashed in, luckily no one in it was injured apart from my daughter who bumped her head . Insurance paid out OK in the end

Because the US has been mentioned a few times above, here's a brief non skiing aside. In January 2023 a mate and his 22 year old daughter flew to the US to spend time with his cousin who lives in New Jersey. Whilst there his daughter developed pneumonia, it was touch and go whether she'd live. Thankfully she did, she spent circa 10 weeks in a NJ hospital, whilst no operations were required.

He showed me the medical costs met on his Amex Centurion card statements ...... $670,000.

Thankfully he had amazing travel insurance that met every $.

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Wow that is a scary thought, not just the cost but a 22 being that ill

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

I remember one year, I was probably around 12/13 years old and we were on a coach back down the mountain from Valmorel and something came up the road causing our coach to part company with the road. It was a double deck and we were on the top deck, the coach was sat on the edge of the road on its axle.
It was a very careful walk down the stairs to get off and we were all put up in a local hotel for the night.
I don't remember much of it other than it being quite iffy as we couldn't get any luggage off the coach and apparently a crane was used to get it back on four wheels.

snow reports

On day 2 of a 2 week trip, and our first day on skis we stopped for lunch in our favourite restaurant close to the bottom of the pistes. I was planning a trip to the supermarket, so this was my last run, hubby and kids skied down with me and were undecided whether to stop for the day as weather was closing in. I reached the bottom and son no 1 was already waiting, but there was no sign of hubby or son no 2. It was some time before he arrived looking in a lot of pain. (Yes, he did get up and ski to the bottom). He'd been hit from behind by someone jumping between 2 pistes and knocked briefly unconcious. As he was holding his shoulder, and complaining of lack of feeling, we made our way to the medical centre, and I rushed back to the apartment to collect the car. By the time I got there he was in a neck collar and as soon as he was seen he was dispatched to A&E, in our car in New Year traffic (it was 29th Dec), which was a very painful journey. Scans showed a fractured neck, and he was shipped over to Grenoble by ambulance for surgery as the weather was too bad for a helicopter. He had surgery the next morning, and spent the rest of our holiday in hospital recovering, and got back home on 6th January by air. I was driven home by a hero of a SnowHead with one of our kids, and the older one stayed to accompany his Dad. Days in between were hairy trips across the Col du Lauteret to visit the hospital, as the insurers only decided they would cover the cost of a hotel room for me as it was so far away on the 2nd.

You know it makes sense.

Mrs HD broke her wrist in Sestriere several years ago and spent most of the second week of our trip in hospital in Turin.

Nobody in the hospital could speak english with the exception of Dave the caretaker who was english and fluent in Italian.

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

A snowHead

In the late 80's we departed London on a coach headed for Val d'Isere. 36 hours later, we arrived. Some of the French folk had clearly expected the long traffic jams because they disembarked from their coaches and got out picnic tables, chairs and carafes of wine.

The return journey entailed being stuck in Val d'Isere for an extra 2 days, unable to ski due to "too much snow". No transport could get anywhere near the resort due to record snowfalls.

We saw parked cars disappear under snow in 48 hours.

A snowHead

@TopGooner, reminds me of a trip to Val Thorens by car. There was a lorry fire on the autoroute and many people were sitting on deckchairs at the roaside.

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

I've had a few short delays over the years, nothing like some of the horror stories I'm reading here...I just hope it doesn't mean I'm due a nasty surprise this year!! Shocked

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

only had a couple of memorable travel experiences.

had a scary coach transfer going downhill from VT to moutiers on my first ever ski trip, as the brakes seemed to be completely knackered and burning up, with the driver sticking as close to a scandi double decker coach in front of us as possible, presumably going to use it to slow us down if the brakes completely failed Shocked

quietest coach journey ever!!

other one was a transfer from bergamo airport to livigno in the 1994, it should have been around a 5 hour transfer, with a half way house break for a baguette and small drink for us, but a 3 course dinner with carafes of wine for the drivers Toofy Grin

, was about 3 or 4 coachloads (various T/O's) of us.

it started to rain heavily during the journey, and by the time we got to Bormio, there had been a landslide further up that blocked us getting to livigno that night.

to this day, i am still impressed that all of us passengers were found rooms in resort that evening, with food and a few drinks were laid on for us in various bars and resto's.
we ended up having a great boozy evening with all the other guests that were going to be staying in the same hotel as us, and we all socialised together that week after that bonding session.
by the time the road was cleared, we only missed a mornings skiing on the first ski day.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Had a weekend trip to Tignes with Mountainsun axed on the tarmac at LHR when GVA decided they had too much backlog from snow and they were going to enforce curfew. Skied Box Hill the next day instead.

Got an enforced overnight in SEA after aborted attempts to de-ice in a snowstorm (unusal for coastal Washington). Airline was utterly useless but fortunately I legged it and bagged about the last room near the airport. Anyone who waited for the airline's promised "we'll get you accomodation" ended up with 24 hours on the airport floor.

Broke my wrist before even starting skiing on the EOSB (that one's @admin's fault for being in the wrong place wink

).

None really horror stories. If you choose to do a hobby that involves chasing the worst weather conditions sometimes that weather and assoicated logistics will bite back (as will polished wooden floors).

You'll need to Register first of course.

Here's another one for us. Mr P jnr was working his first season (aged 19) as a ski instructor in Hakuba in Japan, so we went to visit in 2014. We booked a shared minibus transfer from Tokyo Narita airport. As we landed around 9am after an 11 hour flight, snow has just started falling gently in Tokyo. Our driver met us and another family from Malaysia and we set off on what was said to be about a 4-5 hour trip. I don't recall our driver speaking any english and none of us spoke Japanese.

The snow continued and started to accumulate. As we left the sprawl of Tokyo behind, there were probably about 4-5 inches on the motorways and the traffic was slowing significantly. Our driver ploughed on and went off the motorway onto main roads and then, any road that appeared on the satnav to be clear-it was still snowing. He remained doggedly determined to get us there no matter what-the epitome of the Japanese not wanting to lose face. After about 8 or 9 hours we arrived in Nagano (normally about an hour from Hakuba). We thought that might be the end of the line, but then, despite the hour, another driver took over and did the final leg to Hakuba. I think we got there at about 10.30pm. The whole journey had taken as long as the flight from the UK. A couple of days later we met some Aussies who had been due to land in Tokyo much later on the same day as us. They never made it to Tokyo, and ended up landing on Osaka and spent the night sleeping ant the airport-ultimately they lost 2 days out on their trip because of the weather.

Then, after a week in Hakuba, we were due to move onto Myoko. We were going by coach via Nagano. Again the snow gods dumped snow in epic quantities, and Nagano was under about 18 inches by the time we got there. This time our transfer bus coming from and then back to Myoko never materialised, so the very nice owner of the Hakuba based coach company-a Kiwi-offered to take us back to Hakuba, preceded by lunch at a vast sushi restaurant. We phoned our Hakuba hotel and asked if we could have a room, given that it was inconceivable that anyone travelling from further afield would make it that day. The very nice Japanese owner clearly agonised about it and asked us to wait until he was really really sure the new guests weren't coming. They didn't arrive, and so we stayed there one more night before moving to a different hotel, equally empty of the guests who should have arrived 24-48 hours earlier.

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

After all it is free

@James the Last, you are unlucky. In 40 years of skiing, usually more than 20 days a year I’ve lost one day due to weather, 4 days due to injury, and, as above, one day due to a breakdown.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

With the careless abandon of youth i embarked on my journey to Val D for my first season. I'd come in from my NZ season a week before (!) and then got the train to Paris and onwards down to Moutiers and into Bourg. It was 1995 so i think second year of the tunnel, can't remember. Anyway after crossing London with a ski bag with 4 pairs of skis and another big wheelie bag and rucksack in rush hour, with 4 pints on board. I got on the right train. All went well until we started up towards Bourg at which point i noticed there was a LOT of snow, like A LOT. Crawled along and eventually pulled into Bourg late PM. I then realised the platform was buried but they had cut channels in the snow at each door ! During the train journey i'd made the acquaintance of some irish people who worked for the TV there and were off out to do a pilot of what became that Chalet Girls docco. In Bourg it became quickly apparent that we were going nowhere. Road was shut, all hotels full etc. Oh dear. Oh well i'll sleep in the station, ah non ! Thankfully my intensive french lessons meant i actually spoke passable french and got chatting to an SNCF guy who was sympathetic. He suggested we went and got some provisions and he'd 'sort something out' as the station closed. Came back with some beers, wine, cheese etc and the legend had plugged a couchette car in to the mains and said we could sleep in it - heating and everything ! Ended up being a full carriage and it was a tremendous party ! Got to Val D the next AM very hungover which pretty much set the tone for the season !

Help!!

Nightmare to/from resort – planes,trains,automobiles

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