The Andorra Experience - A Game of Two Halves (El Tarter Hotel Nordic)

A snowHead

The snow was falling thick and fast. Our intrepid explorers prepared their gear, and walked out into 6 inches of floaty light powder. In the carpark just north of London. They had waited weeks for these conditions, and with everything ready to go, the sun shining, and a week of being relaxed with some skiing thrown in.

The UK doesn't deal with snow very well. Especially the airports in the UK. So we were nervous. Only 2 days previously we'd built a rather impressive snowman outside our window, and we were watching tales of 48 hour delays and cancelled flights.

We arrived at Gatwick in good time to get to the Thomas Cook desk. The sign said we were going to Toulouse, and the check in was open. Good sign. We handed over our incredibly heavy bags, skis, boots, the kitchen sink, and at this point Mrs Monium notices that the luggage tags all say BCN - "Just a minute, we're going to Toulouse!!!! Stop those bags!!!" - "No you're not, you're going to Barcelona, the road to Andorra from Toulouse is closed" - no problemo I guess, at least we are leaving past the people asleep on the floor at Gatwick.

The check in desk seemed to think we were on time, we were delayed by an hour(ish) but no major drama. The seats on the plane were actually acceptable for a 5'11" bloke, and time flies while you listen to people from daaaaaan saaaaaaaf blabbering on very loudly at each other at great length about how they are the best snowboarder in Britain, and like nothing better than pulling forward flips off huge cliffs onto solid ice. Ho hum. The flight was only a couple of hours. When we got to resort somehow all these international snowboard stars disappeared, only to be replaced with a lot of people who looked a lot like they were in their second week on snow...

After the 5 hour transfer, I was pretty much ready to get off my backside, and even though the coach was comfortable, it was still not a nice warm bed and it was past midnight, and we'd been travelling for 14 hours in one form or another.

We arrived at the "4 star" Hotel Nordic - note the inverted commas, not entirely sure who does the grading of hotels in Andorra, but I was sorely tempted at least twice to go out the front door and rip a couple of the stars off that sign. I have no doubt that it is one of the better hotels in Andorra, on the return transfer we heard stories of people having to switch off the lights and hold the trip switch to be able to boil a kettle in their rooms in other accommodation, unfortunately the place seems to be desperately short of good quality places to stay (and strangely a shortage of chalet accommodation, we only saw two the entire time we were there, and both were a long walk from the lifts)

Next morning we woke up excited, as always, and there were blue skies and sunshine out there. We were all set to go and find the ski guiding group and get a look see what was around, unfortunately as I put my foot down into the binding things went a bit wrong. Binding basically didn't click in. And the root cause was my idiocy in not checking my gear before I went away - I'd not used these skis before, and the binding was adjusted too far out (boot was too big) and basically the rear binding was out of the back of the threads. Off I tootle to Nordic Esqui (right next door to the ski in/out access) who helpfully rent me a pair of decent skis for the week with a discount as we were Hotel Nordic customers. Decent edges and decent bases, cost me £60 for 6 days. There goes the lunch fund for the first couple of days, but nothing too drastic. All the delay meant we didn't meet up with the group, but instead found our own way around the various blues around El Tarter and Soldeu. Lesson one - check your gear before you go. I'd thrown things together and chucked the skis in without a second thought.

The skiing was pretty good, if a bit icy in patches on the lower slopes where large numbers of beginners groups were snowploughing any snow right down to the bottom of the mountain. Andorra seems to be a resort with a very high % of beginner and early intermediates, not sure whether this is because of the relatively low prices of ski passes and budget accommodation, or the relatively easy slopes - many of the blacks we skied later in the week would have been reds in places like Espace Killy, but I guess they need to make up the numbers so the resort looks like it caters for all levels. Anyhow it was ideal for us, two intermediates comfortable on blues and reds, and an occasional black with a bit of concentration, in Andorra every run was accessible to us and we only avoided one black run really which looked very icy at the top, and only struggled with one run which was ironically a red (very steep with patches of powder and ice right down it)

So, the highlight of any ski trip - lunch. I do like a pizza on the top of a mountain, and there were plenty of options to choose from. One thing to note about Andorra generally, is you can pretty much smoke anywhere, and that includes in restaurants, bars, hotel receptions, hotel rooms, the bath, in ski shops, everywhere. And people do. Sitting outside on the mountain is often better, however this is a popular option and even in the relatively quiet week we chose it wasn't always possible or practical. In short, if you don't like smoking and the smell of cigarettes, go to another resort - my mother for example would have booked a flight home on day one, there really isn't much escape from it other than getting out on the slopes. Luckily I am a smoker and Mrs Monium a fairly recent ex-smoker, so it doesn't bother us much, but even I at times was bothered by people smoking cigars at tables next to us while we ate.

I was pleased at the relatively cheap prices for lunch etc on the mountain - the record spend for two of us eating anywhere and everywhere we wanted was 24.90 Euros - compared to Espace Killy which was costing easily 15-20 Euros each for main course and a drink, this was a cheap place to eat - it does mean that the restaurants tend to be busy as it's not really worth doing packed/cheapie lunches when you can get a sandwich or pizza for £7-8.

I won't harp on about lunch, but one place to definitely look up is the KSB (Kamikaze Surf Bar) right on the top of the mountain, has panoramic views, and was just as cheap as everywhere else. In somewhere like Espace Killy it would have been 25 Euros a head, instead we paid that for both of us to have a good meal. No idea why they called it that, because it had a few people in there most of which looked pretty middle aged and drinking coffee, but it was my vote for best location/lunch all week. For decent food at a decent price the restaurant next to the bottom of the Soldeu gondola was cheap, decent view, and when the sun shone glorious. Can't for the life of me remember the name, you just ski down to Soldeu and cross the bridge and it's right there on your left.

On the food front, the Mercat de Pi seemed like a good idea - self service pizza, pasta and other stuff, in reality it was packed, extremely smoky, and seemingly filled with people holding tables for large groups, if there's only a couple of you you've got no chance. Only one I'd avoid for the future. Otherwise everything else seemed good and worked out reasonably well.

Anyway, back to the skiing. On Wednesday we met up with Jamie, one of the reps and our ski guide for the day, and he really opened up the mountain for us. The group was all happy with scooting down the blues and reds we enjoy and kept a good pace for everybody throughout. We left the group at lunchtime, as we had arranged to go dogging.

This was something I've seen advertised at a few resorts, and always kind of thought it would be quite difficult, and to be honest the chance had never cropped up. I've always been a bit embarassed to try and talk Mrs Monium into dogging, I guess we'd always been happy enough without that in our lives. We'd got our strobes with us so were ready to flash our lights, we'd come prepared with goggles in case of any "accidents" and as always, it could have lasted a bit longer and everyone would have been happy. Instead I got my 4 biatches (or at least I think they were, and aggressive ones too!) and got them into their harnesses ready to give me the ride of my life. As it was, they turned out to be rather gentler on me than I was expecting, and easier to handle than it looks like when you see them doing it on the telly. They also had a couple of illegitimate kids kicking around, which added to the atmosphere...

Back to the hotel for cigars and medals, with our new driving licences in hand. We were clearly dogging professionals now, with licences to prove it. Plus nobody came out of it feeling dirty, which is important in any wholesome family activity.

I think it was at this point we decided to investigate the hotel swimming pool and jacuzzi. Big feature for us, we like to relax and have a swim. Well, one toe in the swimming pool revealed that they clearly fill the thing by bringing in a couple of tonnes of snow and waiting for it to melt, and at the precise melting point they let people go swimming in it. Not sure whether this was designed as a treat for the Russian guests in the hotel who might have been missing their daily swim in a Siberian lake, but there was no way on earth I was going more than ankle deep in there. Genuinely, if Chemmy Alcott was frolicking about in there calling to me I think I'd have thought for 3 or 4 seconds before jumping in.

So I decide to warm up a bit in the jacuzzi. What a lovely idea. My feet were colder than they had been all week when out skiing, so a nice dip in a warm jacuzzi would be ideal to warm up a bit. And warm it was. And completely, utterly filthy. I do a lot of diving, and have dived in several of the dirtiest harbours around the UK, including Dover harbour in winter. And the visibility was better in Dover harbour. Oh, and it smelled better. Frankly, I spent 5 minutes in the water trying desperately not to get any of the bubbling filth in my ears, and gave up and got dried. I had to have my weekly shower after that it was so manky. Complaints to hotel staff fell on deaf ears and shrugs of shoulders.

After an unsuccessful attempt to track down a rep from Neilson on Tuesday (having searched through reception and asked staff at reception, no sign of our rep who seemed so enthusiastic in the little folder we found abandoned on the information desk) it was their day off on Wed. We weren't getting far with hotel staff, so we decided to track them down the next morning, when they were due to be back at the hotel. They didn't turn up. Ho hum, nobody to help deal with the "4 star" hotel standard which seemed to include lights not working, radiators that for all the world sounded like particularly unpleasant flatulence, a jacuzzi that the World Health Organisation would have condemned, and the smell of sewage throughout two of the lower floors. Oh, and a room advertised as a double that in fact was two separate beds - there are no double rooms at the Hotel Nordic, they weren't even fixed together, so one wrong move in the night and you drop 2 feet onto cheap laminate flooring.

Anyway, on the upside, it was snowing. Hard. We went out and had a great day building on the routes we'd seen the day before. We had the play chase the visibility, as there were several runs lower in the valley that were distinctly flatter light, but there were several patches of clearish piste that we could enjoy with a fair bit of fresh snow on them. The icy patches had pretty much gone, and though there was still quite a lot of snow coming down and temperatures were pretty low, we had another good but fairly short day on the slopes.

And we were reassured that when we got back we'd have loads of time for an afternoon snooze, recharge the batteries, and then go and grab the rep that might be able to deal with some of the issues that were starting to take the shine off an otherwise good trip fixed. Hopefully they could help out with my skis as well, as I was looking for a decent shop that could drill a few extra holes and move the back binding back an inch. Down we tootled that afternoon, at the allotted time, our rep was bound to be there. Of course they were, because Neilson isn't the kind of company that would just dump you at the front door of a hotel past midnight and then just leave you there for 4 days assuming everything was ok. Are they? They wouldn't miss out on the opportunity to sell all kind of apres ski trips for a whole lot of money, and give themselves every chance of a godawful review on the internet, would they? Oh yes they bloody would.

So, RepWatch day 4. We were hoping at this stage that there hadn't been a nasty accident or that someone's nearest and dearest hadn't been taken ill or something, because no rep in their right mind ignores guests who've paid over £700 each for a week in a luxury resort, they've got to be the easiest route to free drinks and big tips that there is! If nothing else the guests who can afford to spend this kind of money on a week away are likely to be successful articulate people who are more than capable of sharing their thoughts if you ignore them for days. More than capable of sharing their thoughts with your UK head office and anybody who could care to listen on the internet. Oh well, how short sighted.

Now at this point it all turned very very snowy indeed. Like loads of snow. From when we got back to the room all the way through to the morning it had snowed. There was tons and tons of fresh powder to play in. And the sun was shining on a clear blue day. It doesn't get much better than that. We headed out to go play in it, did up the powder skirts and readied ourselves for some fun. And fun it was. The pistes had 20cm of powder on them, and where they'd been skied were forming loads of powdery moguls to have some fun in. By the end of the day we were happily traversing across mogul red runs and hopping off the powdery lumps. It was fun.

This was about the least bumpy, probably one of the early runs down this black (I know, it looks very shallow slope and easy, and it was on this bit, definitely not a black run and good fun for everybody really)

I can almost smell the jealousy. I know. Some of you haven't even been away this season, and we're telling you about a perfect ski day. But it was great. I was just hoping that the sun would shine the next day and we could go and have another day to play in that stuff, hoping that it wouldn't have been pisted to oblivion in the night.

And lo, there came the snow again. And would you believe it, heavens above, the rep turned up! Rather amusing was a piece of paper with the usual "we value your feedback" scrap of paper, so being as they value it so much I was happy to provide it. Unfortunately as they explained to me in some detail it seems they only really value your negative feedback as a mechanism for negotiating next year's pricing with the hotel, as our rep managed to fail to apologise at any stage, lied to my face about being in the reception/bar every day between the alloted times (quite simply this was a physical impossibility, we were there and have 20/20 vision, she simply couldn't have been in that reception or bar at those times!) and then failed to do anything more than write down in a little book a couple of my comments with no suggestion on what Neilson might actually do to improve the quality of my holiday. Oh well. Completely useless, as pretty much expected, for someone who didn't even show up when required or arranged I don't know why I was surprised when I then am faced with someone who seemed to be completely incapable of doing anything, and dressed and spoke like they'd just woken up in someone's room in the hotel. I am sure Neilson's UK office will be happy to receive the feedback, I'm confused as to what they get to hear on a form which is handed to the very rep who is clearly a complete waste of time, I imagine they get dumped in the nearest bin at the airport - who in their right mind would hand a form criticising their own performance to their management from guests who speak their mind? Unfortunately I suspect we were spoiled in Tignes on a trip with Ski Olympic 2 weeks ago where we had 3 members of staff on hand at almost any time between a group of 10 of us, and we saw the resort manager and a number of other reps who were all very proactively ensuring we were having a great time on half a dozen occasions during the week - at one stage the resort manager came over to us as we were moving between lifts to check we'd had a good night out the previous evening! Ho hum, Neilson join my "never again" pile of crappy TOs who couldn't give a chuff about the very customers who pay their salary.

Anyway, back to the fields of powder and me gliding down them effortlessly like a calm and capable powder skiier. I'd now managed to get my skis sorted at Nordic Esports, and under my watchful eye put some very nice holes in just the right place in my skis. They charged me 10 Euros for doing so, and then gave me back half the money I'd paid to rent skis for the week when I returned them early. They didn't need to do this, but volunteered the refund of remaining days, and got a decent tip as a result. Good bunch, and helpful. They're not the most communicative at first, but they know what they are doing and did a nice job of things.

We were really starting to enjoy the cut up powder, it made for a good surface to learn how to deal with mogully runs, and improved our confidence no end. We both felt we'd stepped up a level from ou previous trip, where we were really finding our feet on blues and at most reds. Now we were enjoying punting down the easier black runs without much concentration required, and went back up to the top of the lifts for another go several times.

Anyhow, all was good in the world of skiing, and we had a good time getting on top of our game over the week. I'd say Andorra is an ideal resort for either experienced skiiers looking for some really good fun cruising around, and for intermediates who are happy cruising around on blues and the odd red in most other resorts. There's clearly loads and loads of ski school here, and plenty of beginner slopes for people on their first week away. Frankly the accommodation was a let down all round, and discussions on the transfer on the way home confirmed that others weren't all that impressed either. Of course, if it's your first trip you don't know how good it can be in a nice chalet with good staff, I hope for them that if their first week was like ours they realise that accommodation gets a whole lot better than this.

If you've come this far you are clearly either very very bored at work, or have an imminent trip planned to Andorra. I hope for your sake it's not with Neilson, and preferably not to the Hotel Nordic, however there is plenty of good skiing that we were largely unaware of before friends suggested we try here.

I hope some of the info is useful. I will let you all know if and what response I get from Neilson. I expect they'll probably give me the proverbial "thank you for your feedback" guff, but that's based on the kind of response we got in resort. Hopefully they recognise that they have at least one desperately lazy rep, a substandard hotel, and two guests who organise large group trips every year who will never travel with them again. Unfortunately the performance was dismal but it wasn't so bloody awful that I could get really unpleasant about it - it was just at that point where most customers just don't say anything and then tell everyone they know what a shoddy company Neilson are.

One final note, some of you were very helpful before we went away advising against getting a ski mojo for dealing with my burning thighs after a relatively short time skiing. Well, I spent the first day or so focused on getting myself out of the back seat and getting my stance sorted. We didn't opt for lessons, part of my stubborn nature means I have to try something myself before I ask for help. Well bloody miracle of miracles, against my expectation, I got forward and my thighs didn't burn. We did a decent warm up and stretching (something I've not done since I did ski coaching as an early teen!) and I was much more comfortable and flexible than normal, and I could genuinely ski all day. We did a couple of days of 10am to 4:30pm skiing, and I wasn't hurting at the end of these. Even in the powdery stuff where I was leaning back a bit it was nowhere near the pain I was in 3 weeks ago in Tignes. Half of getting my weight forward was helped by just sticking my arms forward far more - even that shift in weight was getting me much further forward than I had been. When I sat back on long flats, the burning returned, so I shifted forwards and it went. Like magic.

A snowHead

Monium,

Great report, will put it on my list of must visit, looking for alternatives to the French Massif's myself

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

Monium, Excellent report, very entertaining. Very Happy

Seems like you enjoyed the trip with little help from the reps. snowHead

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Monium, interesting write-up. Your experience of Neilson doesn't match mine, just up the road at the Himalaia in Soldeu - also last week (wasn't the snow just superb snowHead

)

I intend to write up my own experience shortly

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Monium, Great report, we are off this weekend but with Crystal and to the Sport Hotel. Very Happy

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Great write up. We (family of 4) have been to Soldeu - Andorra twice before . 1st time we went to the Sport Hotel which was excellent with Crystal. we didnt need the rep cos everything was fine 2nd time was independent with flights to Barcelona, Car Hire with a non functioning sat nav and screaming kids and Mrs Billy in the car whilst negotiating farm tracks in the snow on teh drive up to Andorra. "its all part of the adventure" i kept saying but i dont think they agreed!!! We stayed in an apartment in Ransol just outside El Tarter. I would not do independant again as you have to drive down to the lifts in the morning and it all becomes a bit of a faff. Plus driving in the snow always caused a few screams from the others. Not what you want when on holiday and the money saved did not really make up for teh extra faffing that has to be done. We are off to Himalaia in Feb and hope that the skiing is just as good as you report.

How was the dogging? I was planning to take the kids (husky) dogging . how much was it? did you book through your rep (i bet he was there to try and sell you the trips on teh coach) or did you find a good deal elswhere?

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

Top report Monium, well done.
For the record, that restaurant close to the base station of the gondola in Soldeu is called the Sol i Neu.
BTW, I know there's a Kamikazi Surf Bar at the base area in Pas de la Casa, but I didn't know there's now one at altitude in the ski area too - where is it exactly? Thanks.

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Monium, great report.

We've stayed in Soldeu twice and also much appreciated the Sol i Neu.
FWIW, 5yrs ago our Crystal rep was poor - so I guess it depends on the individual as well as the TO.
We really enjoyed the skiing in the Gran'Valira too, and the "black" down into Soldeu was the first on which I felt confident - in retrospect because of the grading I suspect.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

Thanks again Monium, I know exactly where you mean now: it's the big 'flying saucer' on the Coll Blanc straddling the Pas/Grau-Roig sectors. Cheers.

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You know it makes sense.

I hope that on your return,you wrote to Neilson and pointed out the shortcomings of the reps and the Nordica, as in the past I have found that they took swift action on a complaint I had.

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

A snowHead

My favourite lunch was at Cortals The view from here is one of the best in Grand Valira, sharing this prize with KSB. Cortals can get very busy at traditional lunch times though.

Grandvalira is greatly underrated. I have been there 4 times and think its a superb area. There are some off piste gems, once you know your way around. We have always stayed at Llac Negre in Pas. Its low cost but very good for the money. Good food, very clean and warm. That's all I want in a skiing resort hotel.

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The Andorra Experience - A Game of Two Halves (El Tarter Hotel Nordic)

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