 Poster: A snowHead
|
With next season flights starting to come out I am trying to decide whether to fly or drive. I know the driving thread has been done a thousand time but all I need is some pricing info. I am taking the family at Feb half term (yes I know) and was wondering if anyone here drove this half term and how much it cost, roughly.
Jet 2 flights to Chambery from Newcastle and large car hire coming out at roughly £1900. What do you think the drive (chunnel or Dover Calais ferry) with a cheapie hotel stop (Formula one, etc.) will be? Tunnel and ferry prices not out yet, which is why I am asking how much this half term cost.
Thanks in advance.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
|
|
|
|
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?
|
|
Having endured two trips by plane this year I am sorely tempted to drive and hang the cost. Why are airports designed and run by the same people who look after purgatory?
|
|
|
|
|
|
You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
|
|
willow 15, Sea france prices are out, £70 return 10/02/2012-18/02/2012. looks like thats going to be the route for us.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
|
this is one of those unanswerable questions. When flying goes well, it's easier than driving through the traffic hell which is half term travel, especially if there's a little snow around. When driving goes well, it's much preferable to having huge delays and hassles at airports. I drive back and forth to the French Alps at least 5 times a year, and generally quite enjoy it. But no way would I drive at half term - but then I'd never go skiing at half term, either, so that's really not a lot of help. 
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
|
|
willow 15, how many are in your party ?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
willow 15, agree with pam w, too many variables. IMHO travel is becoming more unpleasant at peak holiday times, plane, train, automobiles  its all the same.
If you really must go at half term (why  ). I have done it and go by car but don't rush. So depending where you live, a cheap sea crossing thurs (it won't ruin the kids education) check in to F1 a few hours down (a bit of sightseeing and a nice meal), a few more hours drive on fri and another F1 (more sighseeing and meal), a few more hours drive sat - arrive refreshed and relaxed, ski in the afternoon. Ski sat pm, sun, mon, tues, wed, thurs, fri am. Set of home fri pm with F1 fri, sat nights, crossing sun mid morning and home.
Its all reasonably relaxed, the timetable allows for road delays etc, and your kids won't hate you forever. 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
willow 15, If you are spending £1,900 on air travel and car hire you can self drive to the French alps far more cheaply.
|
|
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
willow 15, My advice is to book early and travel on the overnight P&O Hull to Rotterdam, family cabin. Travel down through Netherlands to Germany, avoiding French motorway tolls and go to Austria, much better experience IMO than French bottleneck roads as you enter the Alps and also much better when you get there. Fill up at ASDA/ Tesco in Hull and this should get you well down Germany.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
There is two adults and two kids. Its a long story but I have to go at half term. I was in La Plagne this half term and it wasn't that bad, the poor season probably helped keep the numbers down.
All I was after is a rough estimate of channel crossing prices as have never driven at half term and was wondering if they operate a mask-on, guns out policy the air carriers/holiday companies use, i.e. rob the parents/teachers and anyone else who has to travel holiday time.
Thanks ricfrench on the heads up on the ferry. At that price driving is a no brainer.
For everyone elses info Easyjet flights upto end of Feb 2012 are out.
|
|
|
|
|
|
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
|
willow 15, would agree with sunnbuel that timing is critical, but personally I wouldn't do two consecutive nights in a hotel. Ideally you should aim to stay overnight very close to resort, drive up Saturday morning (all relevant hotels will be booked solid - needs planning in advance) and be organised to ski from your car as access to accommodation is not usually possible till around 4 pm, when the roads up will be clogged. However, the best plans don't always work out. Family members who drove up to our place at half term were held up by 3 hour delays at eurotunnel and though they'd planned to drive overnight and arrive early morning, the delay meant they arrived in the very busy time, and crawled the last 50 miles. My niece works in a school so they hadn't been able to leave home in Dorset till school was finished. Friends who drove out at christmas (on a Tuesday, to avoid traffic hassles) spent 2 hours absolutely stationary in snow on the motorway in Northern France, then did 100 miles at 25 mph with only one lane open, following a snow plough. They had a very similar journey back - northern France is no better equipped to cope with snow than the south of the UK.
There are some SHs who know all the traffic hazards of driving down through Germany to Austria very well - if you decided to go that way you could get some very detailed advice from them about routes and timing. I tend to agree that if I had no choice but to go skiing at half term I would go somewhere other than France. [/quote]
|
|
|
|
|
|
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.
|
Agree with advice to us Hull ferry - as you are travelling from Newcastle. Unless your kids are very small/restless you can do alps from the ferry crossing so don't need hotels. If you do need a hotel use one of the other French chains such as Premier Classe which give you a bathroom, F1 really is cutting it too fine in my opinion. Also agree with using route via Belgium and fill up with fuel in Luxembourg - cheapest around. This route avoids many tolls. We have used it to go to France but you cut back into France after Luxembourg. Book ferry early when they have some deals as it gets pricier later.
Using the car allows you to take so much more stuff and if self catering some foods which are more expensive in France
Good luck we have driven out (from Scotland) at least twice each year for about 20 years.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Given the overall cost of a family ski holiday, the marginal saving made by ducking in or out of Luxembourg for a tank of petrol always seem a bit irrelevant to me. If it's on your optimum route, fine, but otherwise, and especially with kids, you need the most straightforward and fast route. IIRC the state of some of the Belgian and Luxembourg motorways was a bit third world though I've not used them much.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You know it makes sense.
|
Look at NorfolkLine, Dover to Dunkirk, as well as Seafrance, P&O etc.
In my experience, they work out cheaper. The crossing is two hours, but that gives the driver time to have something to eat and get some proper rest.
Also they don't charge you extra if you turn up for the ferry before your booking, or the one after. You can twist this to your advantage by booking a cheap crossing but arrive at the port in time for an earlier, more expensive one.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
|
willow 15, please tell me you are not planning to drive from the north east to the channel and then on to alps with only one overnight? To put it another way, drive from Newcastle to dover, sleep over, then next day drive from dover up to aberdeen - thats the length of journey you are going to do. Oh and its going to be in winter weather and as pam w says, its often far from a clear road. Did you ever see 'whacky races' - thats what its like. Oh and you've got 2 kids in the car. As i said before don't rush. 
|
|
|
|
|
|
Poster: A snowHead
|
We drive from the north east to the tunnel (free with tesco vouchers) and on to the pyrennees withouit ANY overnights. Pick the kids from school, 5hrs to tunnel, drive overnight on deserted roads with kids and co-driver asleep, dvd player for when they are not, arrive in resort for brunch. we feel a hotel stop is just a waste of time and money
Fuel in Ford S-max cruising at 80mph ~£300
Crossing £0
Tolls ~£60
Allowing for wear n tear, total transport costs door to door for family of 5 about £400
|
|
|
|
|
|
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
|
|
tangowaggon, bloody hell!
|
|
|
|
|
|
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?
|
| tangowaggon wrote: |
Fuel in Ford S-max cruising at 80mph ~£300
Crossing £0
Tolls ~£60
Allowing for wear n tear, total transport costs door to door for family of 5 about £400 |
That's impossble... having just driven back today.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
|
|
have to use a lot of non toll roads for that, otherwise more like £60 each way to the Pyrenees I would have thought
|
|
|
|
|
|
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
|
|
Colin B, Exactly, cruising at 80MPH on non-toll roads, wish I could do that... tangowaggon, can you really??
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Yes quite right I only allowed for tolls one way but the trip computer reads an average of 70mph from Calais to Andorra without breaking speed limits, average 34 mpg with roof box on, 2000 miles round trip = 267 litres @ average £1.2/ litre (fill up in Andorra @£1/litre), fair enough more like £340 for fuel but if you drink wine and the car is big enough we fill up with about £200 worth of wine in France and always bring more than our allowance of spirits out of Andorra so saving about £100 so the sums still add up to about £400.
We've done the trip in the same way for 15 years, 10 with kids.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
PS we're Whitby, N Yorks not Newcastle
|
|
|
|
|
|
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.
|
| Quote: |
an average of 70mph from Calais to Andorra without breaking speed limits
|
Sorry, but as a regular driver to the Alps I simply don't believe that. For a start, if there are wet roads at any point, the limit is 68.35 mph. Then you have to stop to pee/refuel, you have to slow down for péage, it's rare that there are no road works at some point, with lower limits.
In the UK it is self-evidently impossible to average 70 mph even on a short trip without breaking the speed limit. either this is willy waving or your trip computer is way off the money.
And this is all silly talk when it comes to half term, anyway, when "normal" trip timings are highly likely to be out the window even without bad weather.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
We drive down every year at Christmas and I find it much better than when we flew, certainly less stressful.
We have a big 4x4 so costs are high: Based on last Chrimbo:
Fuel = £330 (1430 miles round trip door to door, incl a few miles at resort)
Tolls = 113 Euro (Le Havre to 3 Valleys) = £102
Ferry = £330 (Includes cabin 1 way, not on the return)
Hotels in France 2 nights = £180 approx (IBIS m/way motels)
We leave a day early so we can ski the Saturday upon arrival and leave on Saturday evening thus get 8 days skiing for a little extra
Change over days are a lot quieter so you can bed in quietly on arrival and enjoy the last day when leaving...
It takes us between 9 & 15 hours from Le Havre to the 3 valleys direct without overnight stops (yes 9 hours was speeding..)
I tend to cruise now within French speed limits, staying on the peage toll roads, so as to cruise and make best fuel consumption, as we can make it easily in 12 hours with several stops and stay close to the 3 valleys in ibis or F1.
The bonus is also we can take friends additional luggage (helps them save on their luggage when flying), their wii, our skis without extra costs involved and thus we also save on hire costs when we are there.
last year with the snow before Christmas our friends spent the Saturday sat at Birmingham airport, we left Saturday night and they were only 10 mins behind us in their hire car when we arrived on Sunday evening - although they had been in transit for 2 full days & we had had 6 hours sleep on the ferry. Their daughter was not impressed...
Noisey
|
|
|
|
|
|
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
|
|
so nobody really can put a reasonable estimate on the time it takes to drive at half term, except that it may take anything from 15 to 30 hours one way door to door from Newcastle to (say) 3V excluding the crossing
|
|
|
|
|
|
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.
|
It is really depending on the traffic and if you want to risk getting stopped for speeding !
Reims is one area people tend to get caught (not me but friends who go down via the tunnel)
When it took us 15 hours it was very heavy traffic from Lyon down, due to all the French changing their holiday plans at the last minute, 2 years ago, as they had had a few really good dumps of snow. It took over an hour to get through 1 toll road ticket machine it was so heavy.
last Chrimbo we did it in 12 hours and we didn;t hit tarmac until Paris due to snow.
Luckily our son is a very good traveller - I know some kids can be very travel sick - which would not help.
The other side of the coin is if your plane gets diverted to Llyon. One couple a few years back sat for 4 hours at Llyon on the tarmac, in the plane with door open, whilst their cleared the Llyon allocated planes before off loading the planes diverted from Chambery / Grenoble, by the time they got off, the baggage handlers had a break as they were now in overtime, finally when they got their baggage all the hire cars were gone, trains had gone & all the taxis were taken.
Noisey
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Quote: |
so nobody really can put a reasonable estimate on the time it takes to drive at half term, except that it may take anything from 15 to 30 hours one way door to door from Newcastle to (say) 3V excluding the crossing
|
No they can't, and neither can anyone put a reasonable estimate on the time it takes to fly at half term - SHs who do the transfer driving regularly have spoken of hours and hours of jams on the roads in and out of resorts, when a little snow is thrown into the mix. And unless you fly into the Courchevel altiport, even the flyers have to tackle those sections, which are the worst of the lot. One disadvantage of flying is that you can't generally time your journey to arrive in resort around 8 - 9 am, which is the best way to beat the traffic up.
Flying can also encounter big delays, as noted. The last two Christmas/New Year periods have seen horrendous airport delays because of heavy weather at both ends. I spent two hours in a jam driving my brother in law to Geneva airport on a Tuesday one year, then arrived panicking about missing flight, only to find entire airport closed by snow. After 10 hours in Geneva he managed to get a flight to the wrong UK airport, then had to get by train from Luton to Birmingham, where his car was. And that journey was entirely uncomplicated by holiday traffic levels.
Much depends on personal attitudes. Some people dislike long boring car journeys and/or hate to be stuck in traffic jams (that type would be ill advised to drive to the Alps at half term). Others can't sit themselves in a corner of an airport with a good book and sit out a long delay and want to have everything "under their own control". Though travelling "under ones own control" can also entail doing 25 mph for hours along a motorway behind a snowplough, or sitting for an hour inching through the péage at Reims.
Simple answer is that there is no easy way at half term, and if that really is the only time you can ski then you either put up with high prices and miserable travelling conditions or you don't go.
Or maybe fly into the Courchevel altiport.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You know it makes sense.
|
|
willow 15, The price if the flights are what propted me to find alternatives, £700+ for 3 of us and luggage!!!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
|
| Quote: |
£700+ for 3 of us and luggage!!!
|
pretty good for half term.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Poster: A snowHead
|
Maybe for Luton to Grenoble, been to Andorra for the last 2 years, flights into Barcelona £300 Inc luggage. Don't forget you've the got to hire a car, which in France is more expensive, and fuel. Had a good look at transfers aswell, they alone run in at 600 euro for the 3 of us. What we are going to do is pull minime out of school for the Friday, get an early sailing, take our time driving down to about Lyon or maybe chambray bed down in an F1 early start to Les Arcs and get in an extra half day
Edit
Depending of course on what price the sleeper train comes in at
|
|
|
|
|
|
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
|
| Quote: |
What we are going to do is pull minime out of school for the Friday, get an early sailing, take our time driving down to about Lyon or maybe chambray bed down in an F1 early start to Les Arcs and get in an extra half day
|
that's a good way to do it, though the motorways will be v busy on the Friday (I was astonished, driving north one year on that day, to see the road choc a bloc with UK vehicles - apparently private schools tend to have that day off) and the hotels near the resorts will all be booked solid months before. Need to check time for entry to accommodation and have everything needed for skiing handy in the car. On the last day, you can do the reverse - ski for the whole of the nice quiet transfer day, leave resort when the lifts close, get a few hours northing under your belt, then stop for the night and finish the journey on Sunday.
|
|
|
|
|
|
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?
|
| sunnbuel wrote: |
| willow 15, please tell me you are not planning to drive from the north east to the channel and then on to alps with only one overnight? To put it another way, drive from Newcastle to dover, sleep over, then next day drive from dover up to aberdeen - thats the length of journey you are going to do. Oh and its going to be in winter weather and as pam w says, its often far from a clear road. Did you ever see 'whacky races' - thats what its like. Oh and you've got 2 kids in the car. As i said before don't rush. |
I think you misunderstand me, all I am trying to find out is how much the channel crossings go up by at half term to get a price/hassle comparrison. I have done the drive a few times and if I was doing it without kids and not at half term it would be straight there with no stops, except for comfort breaks and driver changes. If its timed right hotel time is converted into snow time, if you have enough drivers obviously.
I think the moral of this thread is don't go at half term, alas I have to so tough on me.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
|
|
|
|
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
|
|
|
|
You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
|
|
|
|
|
|
"first sailing"
That's probably 00.01....
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
You're probably right, but its not only 2 hrs from dover, its also then the ferry crossing. its going to be enough hassel getting upto calais. I would prefer to leave it there for the night and enjoy a couple of biere's.
I didn't really mean we would be going through Paris, just get well past it before it empties
|
|
|
|
|
|
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.
|
| Quote: |
its going to be enough hassel getting upto calais.
|
Unless you specially love ferries, the tunnel is a lot less hassle, and by far the quickest.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Quote: |
so nobody really can put a reasonable estimate on the time it takes to drive at half term, except that it may take anything from 15 to 30 hours one way door to door from Newcastle to (say) 3V excluding the crossing
|
ROSPA advice;The safest option is for drivers to avoid driving when sleepy, when they would normally be sleeping or when they are ill or taking medication which contra-indicates driving or using machinery. It is crucial that drivers plan journeys, especially long ones involving driving on motorways or other monotonous roads. Drivers should:
Try to ensure they are well rested, and feeling fit and healthy (and not taking medication which contra-indicates using machinery), before starting long journeys
Plan the journey to include regular rest breaks (at least 15 minutes at least every two hours)
If necessary, plan an overnight stop
Avoid setting out on a long drive after having worked a full day
Avoid driving into the period when they would normally be falling asleep
Avoid driving in the small hours (between 2am and 6am)
Be extra careful when driving between 2pm and 4pm (especially after having eaten a meal or drunk any alcohol)
If feeling sleepy during a journey, stop somewhere safe, take drinks containing caffeine and take a short nap.
I suggest a read of http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/research/rsrr/theme3/fatigueroadsafetyanalysis/pdf/rswp21report.pdf which has some uncomfortable reading about the risks young to middle age male drivers will take and their inability to understand or recognise the risks they pose to other road users.
Sometimes the truth is very inconvenient !!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FAQ
