Weekend ski trip

A snowHead

I am looking to organise a weekend ski trip with work but have only been skiiing once before and am pretty much in the dark about the resorts in Europe.

Where would be good for a group of about 6 beginners to intermediates to go any time in Jan/Feb. Crucial concerns are

1: not too much hassel getting to and from airports etc in order to maximise time.
2: Costs to be kept to a minimum.
3: Self catering chalet prefered.
4: Night life doesn't have to be amazing but we would like to have a few beers in the evening and eat out if we want.

Also, notwithstanding the fact that we're only there for a weekend, I would possibly like to get some lessons in the mornings.

Also, not everyone owns their own equipment so would probably be looking to hire some.

A snowHead

You need to come to Ski Amade - Austria,

its 45 mins down the motorway from the airport, (Ryanair from Stansted arrives early and leave late giving you maximum time on the slopes on travel days) accommodation is cheap,
ski lessons are flexible,
hire equipment is a good price and new gear,
night life - varies from town to town, some places are party central, others more traditional,
loads of varied skiing
loads of fun and very quiet in January

Very Happy

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

leu00so, welcome to Snowheads. Ski Amade sounds just right. But be aware that a weekend skiing doesn't cost much less than a week...

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pam w not sure about that, at least it's only 2 nights beer instead of 7 wink

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

leu00so, Where are you flying out of, this could determine which countries/resorts to consider.

Finding suitable accommodation in some resorts can be difficult during peak season, for this reason try and stick to January if you can.

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leu00so,

Where are you flying from/to?? - I think that's most important. For a weekend, you really want to minimise travel costs - i.e. cheap flights and cheap transfers - then minimise travel time - i.e. Vancouver is probably ruled out and you want a swift transfer.

You don't want to be in school holidays as you're unlikely to find weekend accom at all, let alone at reasonable prices.

"Chalets" tend not to be self catering. Most places will have a bar and restaurant or two. Most ski resorts have ski schools. But if you're only there for a weekend, you'll almost certainly be "private" (and almost certainly want to be).

Soooo, more info please - specifically, where do you want to fly from? Heathrow clearly easy but painful, Prestwick quiet but a little limited.

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Thanks for the responses everyone.

We're all london based so would be willing to go from any of the london airports, ie Gatwick, Heathrow, Stanstead (although this is the least easy to get to), Luton and also City Airport so one of the low cost carriers is bound to be available.

We would even consider hiring a car in the UK and getting the Chunnel or hiring one on the continent and driving.

We'd leave after work so obviously time is a bit of factor.

After all it is free

St Gervais, just one hour from Geneva and lots of apartments for self-catering. Good for beginners and intermediates.

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I'd second the Ski Amade area, having done a short trip there last year. Easy to get to from Salzburg (Ryanair from Stansted, BA/Lufthansa from Gatwick), excellent facilities and infrastructure, great skiing area, and Austrian people & prices make the whole proposition much more attractive than anything France has to offer...

http://en.skiamade.com/

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Since accommodation in resort can often be a PITA if it's not 7day HB sat-sat, the other option would be to fly somewhere like Innsbruck, get a hotel room there, rent a car and drive the 40mins to somewhere like Zell am Ziller or Mayrhofen, or St Anton, or maybe a day each in 2 parts of Innsbruck. Zell am Ziller conveniently has big carpark and some rental shops right by the lift station. No doubt you could do something similar from Salzburg, or maybe the same from Geneva.
Certainly handy if you book flights in advance and gives flexibility to go where the snow is.

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leu00so, I would recommend you get flights into Geneva and use the Solutions Room board on www.chaletsdirect.com to find suitable accommodation within 90 mins drive of geneva.

If you stay out of peak periods you should get a good few options for catered or b&b, as others have said s/c is difficult to get for a weekend.

Many of the companies will arrange all you need including transfers, ski hire and instruction, taking a lot of the organisational stresses off your back. If you're new to this game then that is a huge bonus.

You know it makes sense.

pam w, certainly right about the faff. Anywhere new will feel like you're wasting good ski time, even if it its only 15mins getting sorted plus another 5 trying to get your head round the piste map. I only did Zillertal cos I'd been there before, and 40mins autobahn / main valley road with carpark right by the road is not *that* much different to faffing about getting ski bus from chalet into town, finding ski shop (if you need it - I did), then lift office etc. Plus proper hotel in Innsbruck was more geared up to someone staying only 2 nights reserved 2 days earlier, and more geared up to an 11.30pm arrival.
Depends on low/peak season and school holidays too.

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

I like the sound of Ski Amade because it's got a lot of slopes within easy reach of each other. But which resort would be best to stay in or are they all more or less the same difference?

Flights on Ryanair seem to be about £100 but I've had trouble pinning down prices for accomodation. Perhaps in the off-seaon in mid-Jan it would be reasonable.

Once you add on the cost and hassel of sorting out your equipment hire and lift passes and ski school- i do take the point that it starts to get expensive per hour to ski and you may as well take a week - so I guess it depends on what sort of money the whole wknd would cost as compared to a week's package.

A snowHead

A snowHead

leu00so, I've stayed in Flachau and visited Wagrain, Zauchensee, Altenmarkt and a couple of other small places, and can recommend all of them - it depends on what you want from your stay. None of them are huge, with Flachau and Wagrain the largest and most popular, but basically you can choose anywhere in the area and have a good time. For a short break, hire a car - it makes it so much easier to get to the other areas, especially as the lift links, while OK, won't get you from one end to the other, and it also means you don't waste time waiting for buses.

On accommodation, I've almost always managed to find B&B at between €30 and €40 per person per night with room sharing, and this year I've got a self-catering apartment for 4-6 at €90 per night in Flachau, so the best bet is to choose your resort, find its website, and then e-mail some likely properties. If you are taking a part week, try to go for something which doesn't screw up their calendar, so Sat-Tue can be better than Fri-Mon, as the latter wipes out 2 weeks of bookings for them. Alternatively, wait until maybe 2 weeks before you go, and try then for Fri-Mon, as some places may be desperate and will take the booking.

Equipment hire, lift passes and tuition are all priced per day - sure, you get a discount if you buy more, but if you are short of holiday or want to get in more than one trip per year, a long weekend is better than nothing, and needn't cost the earth. Have a look at http://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?p=918065&highlight=#918065 for some previous costings - I've had 3.5 to 4 days on the slopes for half the cost of a week-long trip of 6 days skiing in a group of 10-12, so I see it as good value for money.

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

I've never used them, don't know anybody that has used them, but I have noticed this company before, and thought it would be worth looking into if I was a Londoner. Coach down to resort overnight on Thursday, liftpasses and B&B accomodation for Fri Sat Sun, coach back sunday evening. All for under £200. Or there are similar ones by plane for about £300.

Of course you'll have to add ski hire food and drink onto that price... but it seemed fairly reasonable.

I don't know what it would be like getting off the coach and going to work monday morning though...

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robcraine, I don't see any mention of included lift passes? At cheapest their £169 packages, in the first week of January, sound quite good for travel and two nights in a hotel, but that's travelling down Thursday night, back Monday night. Two nights out of 4 in a coach does sound a bit tough, but I've done coach before (for a week though) and if you're young and short of time, it is quite a good deal. Still not going to see much change out of £500 including lift passes and equipment equipment hire, lunches on the slopes, food en route and a modest number of beers.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

leu00so, Hi and welcome to Snowheads. Being London based you could think about flights to Grenoble, in which case either here or Alpe d'Huez are about 1.5 hours' drive. Rent a car and it's dead easy. Also the road (to us) is very good. There are a number of snowheads with apartments to rent here, and many of the restaurants are very reasonable. So long as you avoid the holiday period you should be able to fix accommodation for the weekend. There's also a really nice B & B which is very cheap right in the centre of town. PM me if you'd like any more info. Very Happy

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

Fly to Innsbruck, stay in Stubai Valley (30 minute taxi from airport maybe) or Insbruck itself or one of the small resorts around Innsbruck like Kuhtai (20 minute taxi from the airport).

After all it is free

Go somewhere where there is a short transfer from the Airport and there is a late evening flight back so you can get in a whole day skiing before going to the airport. Obviously you also want to get out there in the evening of the day you go.
One place that this is so is Geneva (Easyjet do late flights) and there are many good resorts you can get to in an hour or less from there. For example Flaine or Megéve. Or Chamonix itself might not suit a relative beginner, but further up the Chamonix Valley, although Argentierre is for very good skiers it is beside Le Tour for less good skiers. Or other suitable resorts are only a bit further from Geneva (eg Morzine, Avoriaz, Les Gets).

The other possibility is to go by the sleeper trains to Bourg St Maurice (there are several threads on here about it). This would mean you can set out in the late afternoon by Eurostar to catch at 10 or 11pm train from Paris. You get out of bed in time for the lifts opening at The Trois Vallee (Courchevel, Meribel, Val Thorens, Les Menuires) or La Plagne or Les Arcs, or Val d'Isere / Tignes. All could suit you but particularly Val Thorens and Tignes, and La Plagne is partiucularly good for beginners and intermediates. It is not so suitable for good skiers unless they are into off-piste, which is good there.

On the day you want to go home you take the night train back after a full day skiing and arrive back in London early the next morning. If you don't want to change in Paris you can take one of the special ski trains but they only set out on Friday evening and return Sunday morning which would only give one day of skiing - so perhaps you could just use them on one of the journeys.

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Christopher, yes, a very nice resort - very beautiful mountains with tree skiing - and Ryanair do late flights back from Turin (21.15 last year when I went). But I'd have thought the transfers were longer than that (?)

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snowball, not at all. Its 1 hour 30 on the coach and about 15mins quicker in the car. Its motorway for the majority of the journey.

according to Via Michelin:

Costs 20.51 EUR
Toll 9.00 EUR | Petrol 11.51 EUR | Road tax
Time 01h18 which 00h49 on motorways
Distance 108km which 83km on motorways

http://www.viamichelin.com/viamichelin/gbr/dyn/controller/Itineraires?strStartCityCountry=612&strStartAddress=&strStartMerged=Str.+San+Maurizio+12+-+10072+Caselle&strDestCityCountry=1424&strDestAddress=&strDestMerged=montgenevre&choiceType=1&ie=UTF-8&x=38&y=5

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Yes, you are right, even my own notes at the time say so: my memory was on the blink.

hmmm...how long is a piece of string..

For the all round skiing experience I'd say Austria, maybe somehwre like the Skiwelt ( Soll ) but not quite sure how well they are geared up for weekends. The hotels and TO would be a place top atart.

Or.... Megeve, near to GVA by hire-car and a lovely little area in good snow for this group, IMV

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Weekend ski trip

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