 Poster: A snowHead
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Christopher, I've never noticed that when I've hired from Turin either, although car has always been provided by one of the larger companies, such as Hertz or Avis.
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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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tafflondon, Don't buy that argument as your still paying rent/mortgague, which is a fairly big cost. The cost of food for our family of 4 is about £100 a week, so even that cost has gone up.
This year the main cost, which is a personal decision is to invest in new gear. Brought myself new goggles, coat and sunglasses. For the first time getting myself boots, poles and a helmet. Thats done a fair dent to my wallet, but hopefully won't need to replace the lot for a good 5 years.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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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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Helen Beaumont, honestly how many times have you checked the small print of your rental contract?
As Targarent are an Italian company which only deal with hiring from Italy unlike Avis or Europecar who are widespread throughout Europe, this may have something to do with their policy perhaps? However we didn't actually book or choose Targarent, they were sub-contracted by Holiday Autos.
p.s. sorry to slightly hijack the thread.
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Managed 2 weeks all in for £1k each last year staying in Bourg, hire cars, getting funic to Les Arcs.
This year - about £2k for a week in St Anton
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I would say if you plan well in advance for DIY or book a very last minute with operator you can do it for 700-800£.
There are last minutes offers for half board in range 350-450£, 200£ or less ski pass, that will leave you 200£ for drinks and lunches.
Or bed and breakfast deals to Mayrhofen for around 250£-300£ and this resort is fairly cheap.
Last 2 years I manage two trips to Ski Amade and Obertauern, with cheap Ryanair flights - both worked out at around 100£ per day of skiing, after all expenses.
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Last December I had an excellent week in Livigno. Pre season offer - nice appartment with Ski Pass included!! - 210 Euros. Ryanair flight £90, car share, petrol and airport parking share £100. And I did spent around 300£ for food and drinking. All in total around 700£.
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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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My 2009 costs for family of four for 8 days skiing at Easter in Les Arc 1800.
Does not include food, but we don't eat or drink out at all, and stock up on the way in for self catering, so costs not dissimilar to a week of food in UK.
Fuel (both ways) 1800 36 € 166.93 £158.98
Ferry (both ways) £46.00
Toll (both ways) € 134.00 £127.62
Hotel Stopovers * 2 € 95.20 £90.67
Accomodation £475.00
Ski hire for 4 incl helmets and boots for 2 (Ski Republic)
€ 199.00 £189.52
Lessons (2 children) € 284.00 £275.19
Ski Pass (7 days - use free lift on first day)
€ 788.00 £750.48
Insurance £87.00
Breakdown Insurance £42.93
Green card £0.00
Total £2243.39 or £560 / person
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Season passes = free
Petrol to get up the hill = 2 quid a day
Drop in salary to live near it all compared to doing the same job in the UK = 25,000 quid a year or thereabouts 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Can't see the point of trying to calculate depreciation on a car you use to drive for a couple of thousand extra miles in the lifetime you have it. Whatever way you look at it, it must surely be less than either the taxi to the airport or parking your car for a week.
Taking your car also allows you to ski extra days, which is harder to achieve when you fly I think.
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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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Kel,
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you can't go somewhere like Tignes (and I know some of you dont want to ) for anywhere near a grand, unless of course its a late deal
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Rubbish. I've been going on skiing holidays with friends with kids for something like 12 years. We always go during school holidays, self catered chalet to one of the large french resorts (LDA, Les Arc, La Plagne ALpe D'huez, Tigne, etc.). All in for me including the extra transport i pay to get down from scotland and meet up with my friends I've never paid more than £1000 it has always come in at between £500-800. Going to Val Thoren in february and I expect it to be ~£800 again, but we'll see when its all divvied up at the end.
I've also been with other friends to Italy over xmas/new Year where we've actually eaten out on the slopes rather than coming back to the chalet for lunch and its still come in well under £1000.
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I've never managed it. Only been skiing twice mind.
First trip to Winter Park (10 days)
I don't even know the total cost but I know it was much more than 2k.
Flights = £1000
Hotel = £475
Salomon learn to ski package = something like £150
Rentals = something like £200
Lift passes and lesson $99 per day for about 5 days
Car hire = £230
So that's way over without adding spends on.
This year was to Panorama
total cost was something IRO £2350 for us both for week
Holiday package lessons & rentals = £1050
Additional private lesson = £100
Lift passes £500
Spends (and I really do no know how we managed to spend this much in only 1 week on food and drink) £700
So I can't do a weeks skiing for less than £1000 each. Ouch.
There's always next year.....
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You know it makes sense.
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v1cky24, But both of those were to North America, which is always likely to be more expensive than Europe, due to the cost of getting there & back. 6 day lift passes also tend to be more expensive in NA than in Europe, although there are exceptions.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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alex_heney, very true. I didn't think we did too badly with the trip to Canada mind. Although I am at a loss to how we spent £700 on food and drink there in one week.
I didn't think it was particularly expensive 
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Poster: A snowHead
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one of our group spent 15.90e on a jacket potato last week - you lose grip of reality!
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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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Dave Horsley,
Its not rubbish, I've given a breakdown of what it cost's Me. When I go on Holiday I don't want to share a room with anyone else but the missus, or one of my boys, so if they aren't there, it's a single room. I don't want to faff about in a self catered apartment, i want to have my meals made for me and I want to have lunch on the mountain every day and have a few beers in the evening. To Me it's all part of the whole experience and as long as I can afford to do it without compromising on family commitment's, then I will and make no excuse for doing so.
This is what I do and it cost's Me I reckon somewhere in the region of £1300, if it's not what you do fine, no problem. But I'm not going to start packing sarnies up and lugging them about all morning, then going to the Spar to buy a 6 pack to save a few quid.
Work Hard Play Hard.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Kel, can't help but agree. My ski holiday is my one holiday per year. I don't want to share with anyone and I don't want to self-cater. I want a single room (or a double with low supplement), with breakfast and evening meal laid on, something to eat on the mountain during the day and a couple of glasses of wine in the evening. I'm prepared to pay £1,000 for the total experience, after all I've saved up all year for it. I don't really skimp except that I search around for single rooms and tend to avoid the big French resorts in favour of Italy or Austria.
It's a holiday, there are other things in life I can budget on.
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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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Kel,
Dave Horsley has a point.
You said :
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| you can't go somewhere like Tignes (and I know some of you dont want to ) for anywhere near a grand, unless of course its a late deal |
Dave Horsley has explained he can (and has) done just that. Had you started your post with "I" rather than "you" then that would be a different ball game. So to some extent, yes, it's rubbish.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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£650 each Serre Chevalier for us, but was a late deal. This should include everything.....I'm getting a lift to and from the airport.
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| Quote: |
can't help but agree. My ski holiday is my one holiday per year. I don't want to share with anyone and I don't want to self-cater. I want a single room (or a double with low supplement), with breakfast and evening meal laid on, something to eat on the mountain during the day and a couple of glasses of wine in the evening. I'm prepared to pay £1,000 for the total experience, after all I've saved up all year for it. I don't really skimp except that I search around for single rooms and tend to avoid the big French resorts in favour of Italy or Austria.
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Or maybe if you scrimp a bit on one (or even just research properly instead of scrimping) you can get your holiday down to £500/600, then you can have two holidays...
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clarky999, that really isn't possible given the above criteria.
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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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But wouldn't revising criteria be worth it for doubling the ski time? And I don't mean slumming it, just picking your resorts/accom etc, or getting late deals. Surely when you go skiing the actual skiing is mroe important than only having cheap soup for lunch and taking 15 mins to whip up a stir fry in salf catered when you get home?
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Dolomites this Easter
Hotel (half board) £1200
Flights £800
Lift passes £450
Ski Hire £90
Taxi to Airport £30
Car Hire £140
Leaves me £2700 for lunch, diesel and wine. I suspect I will come in at under the £4000 mark. I also get to deduct reduction in gas and leccy bills while I'm away, one food shop (about £140) a week's fuel, kids lunch account, and anything I might otherwise have bought from ebay (eg a vintage sewing box) or amazon (more books/games) so that's another £350 off.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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clarky999, self-catering isn't really an option for a solo traveller, under-occupancy supplements make it totally unrealistic. I do choose cheaper resorts, I doubt I'd find a single hotel or chalet room in a hotel in Val D'Isere for under £600 per week including flights and transfers for example. Lift passes are pretty much over £150 for six days everywhere. Costs like airport car parking are fairly non-negotiable too. I understand your point but it doesn't work for someone like me.
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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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| clarky999 wrote: |
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can't help but agree. My ski holiday is my one holiday per year. I don't want to share with anyone and I don't want to self-cater. I want a single room (or a double with low supplement), with breakfast and evening meal laid on, something to eat on the mountain during the day and a couple of glasses of wine in the evening. I'm prepared to pay £1,000 for the total experience, after all I've saved up all year for it. I don't really skimp except that I search around for single rooms and tend to avoid the big French resorts in favour of Italy or Austria.
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Or maybe if you scrimp a bit on one (or even just research properly instead of scrimping) you can get your holiday down to £500/600, then you can have two holidays... |
This is exactly what we do. We get two or sometimes three weeks of skiing per year by making a few savings (and I don't mean eating tater pie for a week), and I am glad we get to ski as much as we do.
Next week we are away and it is a typical example of what we do:
Flight = £50 each on 2-for-1 deal with Lufthansa, includes ski carriage
Apartment = stay in our own or pay up to £140 each for a one bedroom apartment rental
Car hire = £80 each on the HA 20% off sale
Fuel = £20 each
Liftpass = £160 each
= £450
Supermarket shop is about £30 each, and lunch and drinks on the mountain we spend about £15 a day each (that's for a reasonably 'hearty' lunch in Austria like spag bol or Tirolergroestl for around EUR7), so around £120 on food and a meal out for £30 makes £150. We will probably spend about £30 on apres drinks as well.
I would net off from that the £30 that we are not spending in the supermarket at home, the £20 each we spend on Friday lunch out and or drinks after work, and the £60 in fuel I spend driving to work each week.
So I guess we're looking at just over £500 pppw. We take our own gear, we're not having lessons next week, get lifts to the airport, and don't really spend money in the airport as we get free lounge access with our bank account which we pay for for other reasons not related to skiing. If we stay in our own place then that obviously goes down to something like £360, but that is an unusual circumstance so I've assumed we are renting another apartment in the figures above.
If we're feeling flush, we'll eat out more in the evenings, but I'm honestly not a fan of eating out every night anyway, so would rather cook in at least some of the time, so if it came down to it, I would definitely sacrifice meals out to go skiing twice or more in a year. In any case, when we're with a big group, there is just as much craic with 8-10 of us round a big table in the apartment eating and drinking, as there is when we eat out.
I wouldn't judge anybody else's way of doing things, but that's our way and it means we get several weeks skiing a year. Obviously I am talking about Austria in the example above, but Dave Horsley has obviously illustrated that it's possible in big French resorts too, not to mention the smaller French resorts which probably offer bargains too. Each to their own though, I guess the difficulty arises with 'you can't' rather than 'I wouldn't want to'. It's a completely different claim.
D
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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masmith, I like your thinking! 
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Poster: A snowHead
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Axsman,
He's not thinking, he's just reading the receipts of our week-end trip there in december...
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| masmith wrote: |
Kel,
Dave Horsley has a point.
You said :
| Quote: |
| you can't go somewhere like Tignes (and I know some of you dont want to ) for anywhere near a grand, unless of course its a late deal |
Dave Horsley has explained he can (and has) done just that. Had you started your post with "I" rather than "you" then that would be a different ball game. So to some extent, yes, it's rubbish. |
Fair point, but I have also given an example of how my family of 4 did 9 days skiing over new year 08 for about £3k, Ok it was self catered but a very nice appt and we did eat out every other night. So yes I know it can be done, but I am not going to start doing self catered trips when I am only paying for myself. I am really not that bothered about saving a couple of hundred quid, I would rather just enjoy myself,
I know people like Axsman, who have done €200 in a day, now that is extreme, but it's funny to watch
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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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Kel, yep, with you on that. I know someone who blew €450 in one night in Ischgl. Won't say how and won't say who
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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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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Good work! Ischgl's fun, but pricey...
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| queen bodecia wrote: |
Kel, can't help but agree. My ski holiday is my one holiday per year. I don't want to share with anyone and I don't want to self-cater. I want a single room (or a double with low supplement), with breakfast and evening meal laid on, something to eat on the mountain during the day and a couple of glasses of wine in the evening. I'm prepared to pay £1,000 for the total experience, after all I've saved up all year for it. I don't really skimp except that I search around for single rooms and tend to avoid the big French resorts in favour of Italy or Austria.
It's a holiday, there are other things in life I can budget on. |
I'm absolutely with you on all that. But If I can do it in a big French resort, for measurably under £1,000 year after year, then so can you. You don't seem to be spending the money on BEER (which seemed to soak up £200 last year, and I'm no great beer drinker) , so I'm not sure how you reach that level of costs given there don't have to ?
But, it helps a lot if you have a flexible employer who is happy for you to say "I'm going to be away either the third or fourth week in January, I'll let you know 72 hours before I go which week it will be."
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As mentioned Kel said
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you can't go somewhere like Tignes (and I know some of you dont want to ) for anywhere near a grand,
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I'm just pointing out you most definetly can if you want to.
We also don't take sandwiches onto the slopes . Kids are in ski school in the mornings so we come back to pick them up for the afternoons skiing and have a very nice quick lunch of french bread, sausicon, pate, cheeses and the like and I usually have a beer and a coffee aswell. Works fine for us and, as we are a largish group each family ( or me) usually does one evening meal so only one nights cooking to do.
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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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James the Last, this year's budget:
Holiday cost (TO half board inc. flights, transfers and ski carriage) £585
Lift pass £165
Airport parking £40
Spending money £150
Cattery £40
Total: £980
That's for La Thuile in Italy in March. The spending money bit is very over-generous, I only spent about £80 in Courmayeur last season but I'd rather take too much than not enough. I've not included insurance but I pay £13 per month for my bank account that includes travel insurance, car breakdown cover, mobile phone cover and a few other bits and bobs.
I've also not included the £450 I've spent on kit this season.
Time off work has to be booked a month in advance for 1 or 2 days and three months in advance for any longer.
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| Quote: |
Holiday cost (TO half board inc. flights, transfers and ski carriage) £585
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Could this be where you're falling down? If you're willing to put some effort and research in, you CAN do the holiday yourself, cheaper, without compromising much (any) luxury.
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FAQ
