Arcalis, Andorra 12-20th Feb

A snowHead

Resort: Arcalis, Vallnord
Country: Andorra
Dates: 12/02/10 to 20/02/10
Who: Family of four (kids aged 5 +7) - beginners 2nd or 3rd trip for all of us

Transport: Scheduled BA flight from Heathrow to Toulouse, then hire car to Andorra. Journey there was without incident apart from snow chains drama. Following post on here about chains not fitting hire car I took the time to fit one to the car as was snowing in Toulouse when we landed. Spotted one of the chains was broken when I got them out of the box so took them back and got new set. Checked them over to make sure no broken bits, fitted one to car, failed to spot the rubber bit was missing from chain I didn’t fit. Needed to use the chains halfway up the mountain out of France... managed to improvise and make them work but was a bit stressful! Thankfully didn’t need them for way back to TLS and got a full refund without quibble from National. Is about a 3hr drive – should be quicker but hasn’t been any of the times I have done the journey. Transferring from Barcelona is preferable in my opinion but our flights didn’t work out that way.

Accommodation/Food: Stayed with friends about 10 mins down from ski area... afraid no comments on restaurants/bars as we didn’t go out! Good little supermarket just outside La Massana so reasonable priced grub available if self-catering. Wine and booze in general cheap when buying in supermarkets...a litre of gin is 8 euros!

Ski area: The Vallnord pass covers Pal, Arinsal and Arcalis.... we stayed in the Arcalis sector as met our needs perfectly (a variety of Blues where we could build our confidence levels moving onto Reds for the end of the week). The Arcalis sector isn’t the biggest in the world but was great for us as our key requirement was to be able to ski together as a family – well placed cafes + toilets (which are ‘public’ loos rather than being part of a restaurant) made everything very easy. There were plenty of lumps, bumps and trees for the kids to dive in and out of at the edge of the pistes so they enjoyed themselves greatly! My husband went up to Pal on the Friday with the little one as it was snowing and they didn’t fancy skiing – he found it a lot, lot busier there so I personally would take the smaller, quieter sector every time! You need to drive up to Arcalis or use the local bus as no accommodation up there – roads kept clear from snow and parking easy as long as not late morning at the weekend.
Lift system is split between drag lifts and chair lifts... a couple of the drag lifts are quite long and not suggested for little legs imo! The Magnestick system is installed on the 2 main chairlifts and was great (our instructor got us vests from the ski school and they were happy for us to keep them for the week). All of the lift operators had obviously been trained to pay attention to small children getting on and off and were very attentive. Pretty much zero queues all week... didn’t ever wait more than a couple of minutes anywhere which for Feb half term week was brill.

Lessons: I learnt to ski here last year so booked 2 x 2hr sessions with the same chap – these were fab and great value at 82euros for the 4 of us for 2hrs. As stated earlier our main aim was to be able to ski together – Miguel did a great job of giving everyone bits to work on and us parents lots of confidence that the 5yr old was safe to be let out with us alone!! The two adults also had an hour each just to have some focussed tuition – had to settle for another instructor but this was no hardship as she too was great. (Ladies in the booking office are very good at making sure you get a competent English speaker if you ask for it). Somehow or other I managed to really build on the great start that Easiski gave me in my sole lesson at Xmas and gained some self belief through the lessons - I really didn't think I would ever be quite happy following my bonkers daughter down a red run!

Summary: Arcalis is a lovely quiet place to ski for peeps with young kids who are skiing with you if you don’t mind not having ski in-ski out. All of the instructors we have had have been super. The snow was fantastic (1m30 deep at the bottom of the ski area... quite a bit deeper higher up) and the lifts are open to the end April. The Vallnord card is def worth getting as the 10% bits add up across passes/ski hire/lessons etc. Not sure how good Arcalis would be for a more experienced skier.... will take me a few years more to become that discerning I expect!

A snowHead

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It's a brilliant idea - the kids wear a vest with magnets inside, and one seat at the end of the lift has an electromagnet the same shape as in the vest. When the seat arrives at the top the liftie presses a button on the back of the chair which releases the magnet and thus releases the child. It makes it so much more pleasant if a small child is put on a lift with you!

Help!!

Arcalis, Andorra 12-20th Feb

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