Which Resort/Country?

A snowHead

I have finally managed to persuade the missus to let me book a skiing holiday for this season and now need to decide where to go. I am a competent skier (in my own mind) but she has never tried it before. I am yet to meet somebody who has been but doesn't really like it so I'm sure she will if we go to the right place.

The plan is to go for a week somewhere that is good for beginners so I can show her the ropes on some nice easy blues. The timing is not too important but I thought March would be best as the weather should be a bit sunnier. Bulgaria looks quite good and is extremely cheap compared to bigger European resorts but not sure whether I'd rather pay the extra and go to a resort in the Alps.

We are both not too fussed about nightlife and I'd say the main things I'd be looking for are non-skier activities in case she doesn't like it, easy access to slopes (bus stop outside or ski in/out), easily accessible beginners slopes in one area so we could vary the runs but not have to travel miles to get to them or down difficult runs and a short transfer time.

Thats all I can think of now!
Thanks in advance
Chris

A snowHead

superchoward,

I've never skied in Bulgaria and nothing I hear from people I know who have been or what I've read will change that anytime soon. Where have you skied before? You say you're competent in your own mind, what does that mean to you? Can ski the entire mountain on/off piste? Tackle all pistsed runs or only comfortable on reds and blues? Allot of Brit skiers will call themselves intermediates but this is a group that cover a vast ammount of differing abilities.

A good beginner resort to me is somewhere that has easy access to nursery slopes, with easy home runs. What will your other half do in resort? Get lessons separate from you for a few days to allow you to ski together for at least some of the holiday? I'd get your wife to an indoor slope for a intro lesson half a day or full day and she should be able to go up and down the main indoor slope, from there just get as many hours in as possible, then when in resort she should be comfortable on the vast majority if not all blues and go into lessons at a higher level rather than spending a fortune on a holiday just so she can be taught how to put her gear on........

Getting somewhere to match 'all' of your requirements is a bit of a quandry. I'd recomend a proper town rather than a purpose built resort to have plenty for non-skiers, taking this route limits ski in ski out options as a general rule pointing you more towards Austria and towns like Kitzbuhel-has to be one of the prettiest towns in the Alps? There's also a massive ski area to play with.

What would your budget be per person? There are literally hundreds of resorts, all offfer different things. As an overall package I like Austria, cheaper food and drink, apres ski is a different league, etc etc.

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Princesa Parc Hotel Arinsal. Good hotel, in house spa, good nightlife if you want it, excellent ski school for beginners, close to shopping in Andorra La Vella and the Caldea mega spa. Also cheap(er) than France etc

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How about Flaine, Grand Massif in France? Slopes on the doorstep and free lifts for beginners for the first day or so. Zero nightlife/village charm mind you but if you're not worried about that then there's no point in a paying a premium for resort that does have it. Have been myself and there are lots of greens and easy blues - I was with complete beginners and they weren't overwhelmed by it all and had a great time. There's a UCPA there if you're on a really right budget. It used to be a Club Med hotel so quite a good standard and reasonably sized rooms. Haven't been to Les Gets but hear that's pretty good for complete beginners too... If you want a resort by resort guide to how good places are for beginners, resort convenience, pros & cons etc it might be worth investing in the 'Where to Ski & Snowboard' bible to help narrow down your search.

Be careful with Bulgaria, I was reading an article this weekend saying that there are so fews lifts that the queues were literally an hour and a half long on a good day and 3 and a half on a bad day! This is probably at peak times but even so, worth looking into - a 3 hour queue would certainly put me off ever going again if I was a first-timer!

I'm sure your gf will love it - I was in the same situation 5 years ago and was dragged kicking and screaming for a week in Val d'Isere. I absolutely loved it and we go 2 to 3 times a year now and completely forego our summer holiday.

Happy booking.
Blush

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

superchoward, actually, Nadenoodlee's, suggestion isn't a bad one. One can have a good walk around Arinsal (proper town) as a non/new skier and that hotel is fine. My SO was in exactly the same position when she learned and we went to Arinsal for her first trip. There are also quite a few BASI instructors based there in the season and I'd certainly recommend getting some 1:1 instruction for your partner if you do go.

For you, Arinsal may be a little limited, but a small price to pay for getting the OH hooked snowHead

Besides, if the link to Pal is open, there's enough to keep one happy IMV.

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superchoward,

One more word of advice. Getting people to recommend a resort can be a bit of a mine field. This isn't a pop at any of the previous posters or any more to come but some can recommend resorts where they've been where it can become more about enforcing their own choices rather than what might be best for you. My first ski trip many moons ago was to Soll as a 7 year old. It was awesome, and a good budget choice for Austria but I wouldn't go back if I was just going alone or with other advanced skiiers. To that end how good the nursery slopes are in a resort is something I haven't given consideration to for sometime. I took a group of total beginner to Le Rosiere for Christmas 2009, People wanted the whole catered chalet thing and for our numbers this proved difficult and limited our options. Le Ros was great for them, They'd all just done a few hours pre trip indoors but by mid week were skiing reds.

La Plagne this Jan I went with a group of very mixed ability. This IMO was a bit of a Goldilocks resort, early intermediates had a huge choice of cruisy blues, uppers had some great reds to play on and me and my mate got a guide and had some fantastic off piste.

After all it is free

Grizwald, very true, but getting recommendations here (provided you take a spectrum of opinion) is a lot more useful than many of the "commercial" sources of information, some of which are positively misleading.

Choice of ski school/instructor is more important, in this case.

Thanks for all the input. I would consider myself an intermediate really, I can probably ski any run on-piste although the Grand Couloir defeated me last season. I don't really venture too far off-piste very often as I'm not that confident of my own safety off-piste. I have been to Val D'Isere twice, Villars, Chamonix twice, Aviemore, Val Di Fassa, Alpe D'Huez, Les Menuires, Verbier, Mottaret and La Plagne. It is quite interesting when you write down all the places you have been because notably I have never been to Austria and only been to Italy once.

I knew Bulgaria wasn't that popular with advanced skiers but I am suprised nobody recommends it for beginners, particularly due to the low cost but it must be for a reason I suppose. With that noted and my own opinion I think Bulgaria is falling by the wayside a little.

I was taught to ski by my dad when I was young and I am a bit put off about the other half having lessons because you never really know what you are going to get with ski tuition it seems. I suppose the risk can be negated somewhat by listening to people's opinions and experiences on here but I'm not sure whether I would prefer to try and help/teach her myself because then we get to spend the time together and we can just take our time with it and go at our own pace. The cons to this would be that I can't teach as well as an instructor can and we may end up falling out, the pros would be the expense, spend time together and go at our own pace. What do you think?

I understand that everybody has a different idea of difficulty and I was perhaps a bit hasty when I said 'nice easy blue'. I was thinking we would hopefully make it to those at the end of the week.

I'll have a look at the resorts that everybody has suggested and get back to you later tonight. I think our budget will be approximately £1k each in total including flights, transfer, accommodation, ski hire, lift pass, food and drink etc so probably at the lower end of the budget for most people.

Thanks for your advice
Chris

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superchoward, would you teach your wife to drive a car? It's the same principle with ski lessons, and if you've never had a lesson from a professional you probably have a lot of bad habits and possible don't know the easiest way to start someone skiing. I'm assuming that you'd prefer your wife to enjoy the sport? snowHead

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superchoward, that budget should be fine for a holiday out of peak time (which is much the best anyway, as the pistes will be quieter). Really, budgeting for good quality ski lessons is a good investment. Yes, some ski instructors are better than others but frankly, almost all of them will be quite a bit better than you are at teaching someone to ski! And do you want to spend your entire holiday pottering on a nursery slope?

By the way, what kind of sports does your wife do at the moment, and how fit is she?

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My missus learnt a few years ago, did lessons and really enjoyed learning together with a bunch of other beginners. It can get a bit dispiriting falling over all the time - makes it easier when you see the others doing the same Little Angel

We went to Italy cos we love Italian food - Passo Tonale then Cervinia, would recommend both.

superchoward,
I went with my wife for her first skiing holiday to Vitosha in Bulgaria, it was over 20 years ago but she enjoyed it and we have been skiing every year since.

It was cheap and cheerful, we stayed in a hotel close to the gondola, the food wasn't great but the beer was cheap. The equipment hire, lift pass and instruction was cheap and my instructor was probably one of the best I have come across.
It was easy to travel into Sofia for a day out, or more if she prefers shopping to skiing.
I don't think the ski area was massive but it was fine for a complete beginner.

I can't remember which tour operator we went with or who goes there now but I'm sure google can help

You know it makes sense.

Of course I want her to enjoy the sport!!! My future skiing holidays are resting on this going well haha.

I also hear what you are saying about the skiing lessons and that even the bad instructors are probably better than me at teaching. Whilst I don't really want to spend my holiday pottering about on nursery slopes, I think my partner might be put off by having lessons in a group with people she doesn't know rather than spending the holiday with me. That being said, I do think I should give some thought to getting her maybe some morning lessons in a small English speaking group though and then spending the afternoons together. Is there a lady on here that teaches in a French resort (Les Deux Alpes perhaps) that somebody can recommend?

Pam, my partner goes to an aerobics class once a week but other than that she doesn't do much sport.

I had a look last night on TO's websites at Princesa Parc Hotel in Arinsal and that looks like a really nice hotel at a good price. That looks favourite at the moment but I might hang on for a late deal rather than book somewhere now. Are there any benefits to booking early rather than leaving it late and seeing what last minute deals come up other than you might not get the exact hotel/resort you want?

Thanks
Chris

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

A snowHead

We had private tuition in Arinsal and it was slightly more expensive than group ESF lessons in the French resorts I had been to. Why don't you book into an advanced group for lessons - stick the Mrs in 1-2-1 each morning and then ski together in the afternoon?

A snowHead

I don't know about you, but I can't teach my GF anything!! She doesn't like me telling her what to do...

When I drag her off skiing (maybe next year?) I'm gonna make sure she gets the best lessons I can afford.

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Hi Superchoward. I was faced with a similar conundrum this February but as well as the wife, I took the two kids (9 and 12) in their first trip. I wanted somewhere with a good number of greens and a transition to blues plus plenty for me. Budget was important too so I did my research and came up with Masella in Spain....just to the right of Andora. Flew into Girona (you can do Barcelona too) and a nice, easy 2 hour trip in a hire car. Masella is part of the Alp 2500 area which includes La Molina so you can ski until your heart's content. Considering it was such a bad season Masella keeps its snow well and there are plenty of canons to augment. It's a pretty mountain, with the accommodation a 10 minute drive away in the lovely town of Alp where there are some reasonably priced hotels. Don't forget you're in Catalonia and not Spain though wink

The people are lovely and maybe your wife will get the hunky instructor mine did. Ask for Jordi....or not, as the case may be. Highly recommended and a really excellent choice for beginners. You'll always know where to meet up after her lessons and you should be able to cruise a few blues together later in the week.

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If you want her to enjoy skiing with you for years to come I really, really can't agree enough with the people telling you to get her lessons. Quite apart from the risk to relationships that comes from one half trying to teach the other ( Toofy Grin

) learning as an adult is totally different to learning as a child and it's incredibly difficult to teach somebody to do something you've been doing without thinking for decades. Trust me, I have been (still am) the novice skier wife. And pam w's point about your 'easy blue' is spot on.

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I would suggest Soldeu in Andorra. This is the first ski holiday I went on and it was very good. The standard of tuition was excellent.

After all it is free

I'll throw my hat in the les alpes ring, few days of lessons around the village then she can shoot up to the glacier to experience the high altitude as its relatively flat up top. Then the gondy down in the evenings

Happy days

I'd be a little careful about the glacier in Les Deux Alpes. first, it would need to be really calm, sunny, weather. Second, beginners and T bars are not always a great mixture. But a trip up there to see the spectacular views, and maybe go on that tractor thing to the ice cave, might make for a fun afternoon.

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getting somebody else to teach her may remove your sense of satisfaction in having taught her, but it guarantees you will quibble less, it's like driving lessons, much better to get someone else to teach the kids! Plus when she is having a few hours tuition a day, you can zoom off around the slopes, find the fast / slow / tricky lifts or drink stops Smile

, which will help you both later on.
Otherwise you will just get frustrated, better she has a few days of continuous greens, to ingrain some good habits early on, then the blues and beyond will come naturally in time.

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For what it is worth my reccomendations are:

1/ Go for ski in ski out. As a beginer the hike to the lifts wearing strange footwear carrying unweildy skis is a nightmare.
2/ Concentrate on the primary purpose of the project - to corrupt the missus with this addiction we all have. Make a good skiing experience the target. Do not compromise on this by thinking you must have a backup plan.
3/ Let her have lessons. With a good instructor (and the vast majority are good) and a class of like minded people she will have a whale of a time.
4/ Accept that her class mates will probably want to ski with her when they are not in classes.
5/ Accept that when she skis with you she will be slow, fall over a lot, be frightened (even on blue runs) and hate you.

As to the resort - I haven't a clue. Sorry.

John

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