 Poster: A snowHead
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I am lookiing to book a break week beggining 4th april.We are a family of early intermidiates i have narrowed it down to cervivia or obertauern and would value the opinions of the good people on this site.Things that will sway the decision are likely snow conditions,easy long runs and the price of food and drink (budget a bit tighter this year)thank you.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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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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doghead, I have been to both. Both would be good choices.
A personal thing would be that I am not so keen on resorts where all the skiing is on the same side of a single mountain, where each run has the same feel. For that reason, I really loved the skiing in Obertauern, the resort is in the centre of a bowl and so you ski all around it. Each slope therefore has a different view and different feel. It also gives you the feeling that you are skiing a long distance. My wife is progressing backwards and she now prefers blues. You can ski all round the bowl on blues or on reds/blues and you can go round in either direction. We went on a popular Easter holiday period and it was only busy at a couple of the low level lifts.
A bonus with Cervinia is Zermatt, though you will only be able to ski a part of it as there are not (or there weren't) links to all areas.
I can't offer a comparison on eating/drinking as in Obertauern we were half board in a super hotel right by the slopes. Cervinia we were B&B in a lowly hotel on the edge of town. I do remember thinking that the choice of eateries wasn't that great in Cervinia, but then I was with 2 fussy vegetarian offspring so it was bound to be limited. I would guess that the prices would be similar.
I liked both, but all things being equal I would be much more likely to return to Obertauern before I returned to Cervinia
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| Ray Zorro wrote: |
A bonus with Cervinia is Zermatt, though you will only be able to ski a part of it as there are not (or there weren't) links to all areas.
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Don't understand that point, perfectly possible to ski gornergrat, sunnegga etc from Cervinia quite comfortably even by going up on the train..did that a couple of years ago. Now the lift is open from Furi directly, it will be even easier.
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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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after much deliberation obertauern it is, just need to find a good deal not sure if i have the confidence to diy it as i do with summer holidays as there is much more to organise.if anybody has done a diy to this area any tips would be most welcome.if not diy will it be cheaper to book now or wait till the last minute very hard work this booking holidays
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bertie bassett, maybe you skied faster than we did  . My youngest was only 9/10 at the time and wasn't that confident. The OP is also only an early intermediate. The run from Schwarzee is either a black (which was an easy black but which we had to do slowly), or a horrible red past stafelalp with loads of flat bits (for which once was enough). Arriving in town, it wasn't obvious how to get to the station (I presume it is by bus or walk) or easy to know how long it would take to get up and back again. I was probably also a bit nervous about getting stuck in Zermatt so I erred on the side of caution. We found the queue to get back to Cervinia fairly horrendous on the main lift from Furi (nearly an hour wait), another time we did the looooong draglift, but Zit 3 has never been good on drags and I was a bit concerned all the way that she might fall off and then we have to do it all again.
I can see that a lift to Gornergrat from Furi will make that side open right up (and cuts out the flat red down from Furi), and next time we go - with her being a much better skier, I am sure we could ski a lot further than we did that time. I probably expressed myself badly with the bit about there "not being links to all areas".
doghead, If you are doing DIY, I would say do it now. Flight prices will not get any cheaper and that will be a very popular time as almost all the UK schools have the same time off for Easter this year. If you arrive in Salzburg you could use http://www.reisen-habersatter.at/transfer-en.php for the transfers as they gave us excellent service.
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I organised DIY in Obertauern last December and it went pretty smooth. Its only 1h from Salzburg and the transfer on Obertauern website is excellent and cheap (we actually manage to ski/board 1/2 day on arrival and full day on departure!) Transfer company will call your hotel and leave the info when they pick you up. Although the resort is not huge, runs are interesting and the lift system is superb, if you want to enjoy some apre-ski staying in center will help a lot.
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I echo easiness of doing DIY for Obertauern - flight to Salzburg, transfer minibus you can book from the Obertauern resort website.
We stayed in the same super hotel that Ray Zorro did (not at the same time though!) - Hotel Schneider http://www.schneider.at/englisch/index.html . They have a very good online vacancy thingy where you just put your requirements into their website and they tell you how much and what they have available. If you can afford it is well worth it - the food was super and the hotel atmosphere was great.
| Ray Zorro wrote: |
| My wife is progressing backwards |
On first reading I thought - wow, she's good!
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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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I also organised a DIY to Obertauern and it is so easy. We actually hired a car at Salzburg airport which proved useful because the resort is not massive and we broke our 5 day stay with a trip out to Flachau(sp) which proved to be fun. The town website is very useful with lots of hotels to choose from and apartments too.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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pam w, Zermatt's lift system is a renowned mega-suck... A selection of bizarre choo-choo puffers and octeganarian cable cars. With a decent lift system all other alpine resorts might as well pack up as the Big Z is pretty darn good in all other respects.
The theory is that if they improved the uplift the bed-count couldn't cope - makes sense....
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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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Hi,
Done Cervina last Christmas and Obertauern in the kids holidays in Feb. Cervinia is high and has the Zermat and Valtourneche connections. I loved the Valtourneche runs. Fantastic fast reds. For beginners I felt Obertauern was better as I went with my friends that had not skied before and the points based card system was good for them as only 7 points for the drag on the nursery slope. Ski pass costs were a lot less in Obertauern while they learned, in Cervinia you can pay for the international pass and then they shut the lifts. For me the verticals in Obertauern were dissapointing, felt like 3 minutes and you were down by the lifts again. Apres in Obertauern all the way over Cervinia. This is not PC, but my friends smoke and that is still/was permitted in bars in Austria, so factor that in. 
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FAQ
) and pretty much all the runs are wide, long and cruisy. Lots of high class low price italian food.
