 Poster: A snowHead
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[b]Job/Resort: Weekend Airport Rep for Folgarida.co.uk
Ski Area: Folgarida - Brenta Dolomites
Date: 5th to the 19th February (inc half term week)
I saw this ad on snowheads and decided to apply-
http://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?p=1846559&highlight=#1846559
I thought I would do this quick review for anyone else thinking about doing a similar thing as I couldn’t really find and reports of similar jobs on the web- it was all for whole season stuff!
I applied by sending a lengthy email about my previous job history & passion for skiing (noting my lack of lack of actual on snow experience) I then had a telephone interview which was fine. As you might expect, it was mostly about your experience dealing with people etc. I then paid a bond of £250 (which was returned, as promised, as soon as I got back home)
The deal: Basically it was a free skiing holiday with everything included in return for working the weekends. This entailed meeting people at the airports and also getting people on to buses in resort for their return trips. The flights, half board hotel accommodation, lift pass, ski hire and lessons were paid for by the company. The only thing you needed to sort out for was your own ski insurance.
About me: I’m not a natural skier! A fear of heights means I’m a pretty hesitant and nervous skier! Only my second skiing year! My jobs in teenage and student years were all in the tourism industry so I thought I had a good idea what to expect.
The Job: Arrived on the Sunday and met the other three transfer reps and the resort rep, who thankfully, also spoke fluent Italian! I had been learning some basic Italian which I did try to use though! We ranged in age from 20s to 50s. Person in charge was also a ski instructor in the resort and organised the lessons, as well as, everything else. All the reps stayed in the Vecchia America hotel for the first week and we all ate dinner together. I stayed in the Renzi hotel the following week. I skied all day Monday to Friday both weeks.
On one evening we had to put together all the holiday packs for arriving guests and go through all the airport arrangements. With hundreds of guests arriving for the half term the organisation behind this is pretty phenomenal. Getting every one of the right buses, in their desired groups for dinner, kids and adults in lessons at the same time etc- that is one hell of spread sheet! All that had been done though, so it was just a case of putting all the holiday packs together, with lesson vouchers, ski passes, resort information etc and double checking everything just in case!
We were all allocated an airport, Venice, Verona, Milan and I was at Bologna. One rep stayed in resort to greet the coaches. We all stayed two nights at airport hotels armed with our trusty clipboards! I got lucky with Bologna. With no buses arriving on the Saturday I had a full day to explore Bologna. Really nice medieval city but it snowed a lot, over a foot of snow whilst I was there! The worst since the 1970s apparently but then you can never have too much snow..... can you?
Essentially we just needed to greet people in arrivals and then direct them to the coach and check everyone was on and give out the holiday packs. Whilst I didn’t have any problems with missing luggage a rep had a couple of instances where a well known airline decided not to put someone’s bag on the flight. This was pretty easily resolved and bags put on the next flight out. Luckily lost luggage people speak good English!
Whilst we weren’t actually working during the week, people obviously recognising us from the airport, asked us for various information or to sort out missing skis etc when they saw us in the hotel which was fine. This only happened a few times and I personally really enjoyed chatting to people anyway. To be honest I was quite surprised how easy it was no real complaints etc. I think this was in part due to the fact the hotels and their staff and organisation were all good. Not my experience of the great British holiday I have to say.
Sorry but this it my pet hate! I only had a couple of minor complaints which were about the food, not the quality or taste of mind you- but erm the ‘Italianess’ of it. It seemed the italian way of serving the salad and veggies buffet style as a first course was too much for some people. I thought this perfectly fine, with pasta type course and main next. I thought this a little odd, as when I go to a foreign country, I want to try the ‘foreign’ food. I was reminded of my first trip to a small Greek island and being appalled that the little pretty harbour was decked out with huge signs for ‘English breakfasts.’ I was well embarrassed! That said with kids maybe I can understand it and the hotel were really nice and heated up some of the vegetables to be served with the mains English styley!!! All over I thought the service to be really good.
The skiing: The two weeks I was there it was pretty cold but with lovely blue skies which was great. Nice ‘easy’ snow for me and none of the dreaded slush! One day it snowed so I got my first taste of skiing fresh snow- lovely! I though it really a really beautiful resort, really pretty mountain views and nice runs through trees. There were lots of nice wide easy blue runs, including Azzurra run, which was really long all the way back to the village. Families with small kids were able to ski this together getting the full mountain experience. There were a couple of good button tows just up from the main lift up and ski school meeting point. First week skiers were able to ski some of the easy blues by the end of the week. Despite being half term week as there weren’t any lifts queues so it was pretty easy move about the whole ski area.
I had lessons with Fabrizio (sp?) an older guy who I thought really good, he set a good gentle pace suited to the group. Nice balance of skiing lots of different runs and working on technique. If I fell at any point we went back and did the run again- nice confidence boosting technique. By the end of the second week I was skiing reds so I was well chuffed! Okay, okay - I guess they might not have been the steepest reds but that is not the point - to me anyway! I particularly liked the reds of the Orso Bruno lift-tricky but not scary!
I think there would be more than enough runs to keep to keep you occupied for a week but if you are a very experienced skier I think you want to extend the lift pass to the full area. The are apparently some much more challenging runs over in the Madonna di Campiglio. The threat of a ‘very’ steep red link put me off. One step at a time! Hopefully one of the other reps can comment. They were all very experienced skiers included one training for Basi 2.
Mountain restaurants: Plentiful! I personally like the self service at the top of the Folgarida lift, nice and cheap and lovely views! 1 euro for coffee and 4-5 euros for a big panini. Also worth mentioning the massive pizzas at the top of Monte Spolverino- banging tunes a plus or a minus depending on your point of view! For something a bit posher the Solander was very nice 3 story resturant-10-12 euros for a main.
Apres Ski- There we are few bars with varying quality of music at the top of the Folgarida lift including some bad karaoke and even worse dancing as viewed from the Spolverino chairlift. I suspect some of the excellent bombardinos were to blame!
All the hotels had bars but other than that there was just the Eta Beta bar. I really liked the people who ran it they were really friendly and fun. And happy at 2 Euros a pint was especially good. They also had a party night where the college groups (I guess) enjoyed their Bacardi Breezers!
Eta beta was also the venue for the end of ski school presentations, not seen any before, they were great. The bar owner was really great with the kids and even those teenagers, too cool for school, seemed to enjoy it!
Snowhead alert: Good to meet Graham - ADMIN skiing the half term week. Thanks for my Snowheads neckwarmer/buff thingy- I shall be wearing it with suitable Snowheads pride- not sure Snowheads would want to be associated with my level of skiing but still! Also nice to see Graham ‘blending into’ the furniture at a hotel- who knew they had choosen ‘Snowheads’ interior design!
And Finally.....
The good: The ‘free skiing’ of course, the lovely snowheads I met- you know who you are!, & being able to ski reds!
The bad: Nowt really- getting a nasty cold at the end of the first week- didn’t stop me skiing though. Getting back home, commuting to London, sitting an office all day wondering what exactly I’m doing there! Career change???!!!!
Not all bad though....just had to book another trip! I’ll be in Les Deux Alps for a week from the 10th- so if you see anyone looking tentative at the top of a red wearing afore mentioned Snowheads buff - for Gawds sake give me a shove (nicely please) or I’ll be up there all day!
PS I've got some lovely pretty photos but I can't work out how to add the them.......I only work in media
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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sillyskis, Top report. Thanks for posting. I'm sure lots of people will find it usefull come next year. Enjoy your next trip.
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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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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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sillyskis, thanks for that. I've been considering applying should the offer crop up again next year and that report's swinging it for me...
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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nbt, I missed it completely the first time around, but seriously tempted after reading the trip report
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Yes i am trying to work out my strategy for next year
Work i think i have got a chance with - mrs sev112 and little sev112 might be a different proposition though
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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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Really good report! I went away with Waynes company last year and had a great time. If I hadn't been spending this season elsewhere skiing, I'd have applied for the position you went for!
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Wayne, cheers, I'll keep an eye out then 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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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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Great report!
| sillyskis wrote: |
Sorry but this it my pet hate! I only had a couple of minor complaints which were about the food, not the quality or taste of mind you- but erm the ‘Italianess’ of it. It seemed the italian way of serving the salad and veggies buffet style as a first course was too much for some people. .... That said with kids maybe I can understand it
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Don't blame the kids! Certainly on our last couple of single parent ski trips to eastern Europe apart from one or two almost terminally fussy eaters would turn their noses up at English food as well its been the kids diving into everything foreign and unfamiliar on the buffets and certain groups of the parents whining about having nothing they 'could' eat!
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You know it makes sense.
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A great post by sillyskis with which I mostly concur.
I thought I'd add a bit of my personal experiences of the 'Italian job' as I like to call it
It's been a VERY brutal time at work, hence the delay in writing this. I'm going to write these in installments when I get home at a reasonable hour. Hope y'all find it useful and any questions / critique most welcome.
Firstly, all my plans to brush up on my Italian before my trip went out the window thanks to Mr Michel Thomas. Honestly, he did my head in after 2 hours and no doubt some of my fellow train commuters too. I persevered during the trip and I definitely noticed an improvement. It was not essential though because everybody there spoke English to some degree. The locals were more than willing to help me try to speak Italian and were super-friendly. I enjoyed daily chats with Samuel and Simon, the ski bus drivers as well as the hotel staff in the America and Gran Baita (where I stayed for Week 2 in a fab room in the eves with pine cladding); we'd talk about football and I would teach them English phrases in exchange for some choice Italian phrases.
I thought we had a really cool group and we all got along really well. As you can imagine, we were all unsure of what to expect, what would be required of us and worried about royally c*cking-up. I felt a bit bad for Richard, my roomie, coz he was a youngster, liked to partay and is a cool boarder-dude; while I skied, dance like a robot and liked watching Italian football highlights (in Italian) and the 3 hours of post-match analysis (in Italian). Footie really is like a religion over there and almost every (male) local I spoke to had levels of punditry, be it Serie A or Premier League, that would make Hansen look like a third division hack.
Meeting Wayne is an experience in and of itself. There aren't many people with whom I could have a 2 hour conversation about covalent bonds and the nature of neutrinos. It was a pity I didn't have a chance to meet the rest of the team as I would have liked to have put faces to names.
Day 1 for me was pretty tough because I hadn't slept the night before due to over-packing and my continuous tracking of traffic reports, airport updates and weather forecasts for Gatwick airport. If you recall, we had a dump of snow across the UK that Sunday morning and the M25 was closed for about an hour on my way to the airport. Fortunately, I had left several hours earlier than necessary and thankfully made it in good time. So by the time I arrived in Italy, I was totally shattered and after a whirlwind tour of Venice, Wayne got us stuck in with meeting and greeting a group of customers. We all found this really useful as it was like a practice run, with Wayne in the background as support.
In week 1, I joined Wayne's morning class for intermediates and it was tough, but fun. We had a good group at about the same-ish level and from what I could see, I thought we all improved over the week. Broadly speaking, we could all ski the piste but wanted more performance. We were moving from skiing as a hobby to skiing as a sport and Wayne tried to get us out of our comfort zone (mostly by taking us down a steep-ish mogul run!!) and off our intermediate plateau (which I've been on for years due to staying well within my comfort zone).
More later....
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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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Poster: A snowHead
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| sillyskis wrote: |
| The only thing you needed to sort out for was your own ski insurance. |
Care to give details of what insurance you took out?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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sillyskis, great report - I think we were there with you (?) - my son had his skis taken by someone on the first day and we carried out the covert operation together to retrieve them! Glad you enjoyed it, we had a great time in Folgarida, too.
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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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johnnyh,
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my son had his skis taken by someone on the first day and we carried out the covert operation together to retrieve them!
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Surely you didn't have to steal your own skis back?
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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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mfamily2, indeed we did! It was a tiny bit frustrating. Picked up skis from ski hire shop, put them all together in ski room, went back to get changed came back and my son's had been taken. Eventually, as we were last out we saw that only one pair of skis were left in the room so clearly someone had just picked my son's skis by mistake (despite being placed somewhere else, being a different size, different binding and having his name on them). Ski shop were fine and leant him a new pair for one day, we then "reclaimed" his original skis and locked all our skis together in the evening and returned the borrowed skis to the ski shop. Inconvenient for us, but not the end of the world.
I guess the other person then went back to using their original skis!
Just glad it didn't happen up the mountain. We at least had the option of going to the ski shop and explaining what had happened.
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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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johnnyh, Sounds like you had a narrow escape!!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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sillyskis, No, No, No. That will not do.
We all really want to know:
A] how to ski with a hangover
B] how did this come about
C] does alcohol really improveing your skiing
D] etc
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Sorry for the tardy reply - I wasn’t avoiding the questions- honest! Been having to work way too hard, but still, I managed to slope off (sorry!) for another weeks skiing- the snow plough is nearly gone now!
Anyway Wayne, I think your questions are somewhat divisive!
Option A) I lie
Option B) I answer truthfully and appear a raging alcoholic!
Still here goes
A)Badly and slowly! Stop at every opportunity for that freshly squeezed blood-orange juice - works wonders. Whilst it perfectly possible to ski on a mild hangover - do not under any circumstances attempt a lesson! This will result in falling over and mild panic at steep sections. You will also have face questions as to why ‘you are a bit quiet today’. Also note that fast short radius turns are likely to result in feeling rather green!
B)If I remember right Wayne, you were instrumental in said hangover. After the normal apres two pints, wine with dinner, etc we went out with Graham to Eta Beta...um several pints later...er I lost count and stumbled home and accidently woke room mate up! Did manage to stay upright though, as I remember, so that was a plus!
C) Alcohol certainly does improve skiing. Well my skiing anyway! But only a very small amount! One small (1/2 pint) confidence beer- (dutch courage) makes you relax just that little bit and makes you just that little less afraid of whatever it is (heights for me)
D)A wise skiing & drinking combination is a nice few pints directly off the slope (why does lager taste better after skiing than any other time?) then nothing after 9pm- unless of course you are under 25 then you can drink what you like and feel no ill effects at all!
E)Do not accept drinks from Wayne! What was it? Grappa I think, knocked back in one, wait 30 seconds then take a deep breath in through your teeth. Frankly dangerous!
Ps I read there was something like a foot of snow forecast- did it arrive? That would have been fantastic!
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Don't blame the kids! Certainly on our last couple of single parent ski trips to eastern Europe apart from one or two almost terminally fussy eaters would turn their noses up at English food as well its been the kids diving into everything foreign and unfamiliar on the buffets and certain groups of the parents whining about having nothing they 'could' eat!
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Ha very interesting indeed- I think you might be right as in Les Deux Alps I heard someone complaining over the food which I just couldn't understand- it seemed they didn't like sauce on their meat!
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sillyskis, great report - I think we were there with you (?) - my son had his skis taken by someone on the first day and we carried out the covert operation together to retrieve them! Glad you enjoyed it, we had a great time in Folgarida, too.
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Hey John, yes it was me!
Small world- I can't believe you go all that way and find you have a celebratory connection with someone there!
It was very odd about the skis- people really do need to pay more attention! I think when I get my own skis I'll be putting massive stickers all over them to stop people doing the same thing!
I love your photos btw- the portraits are fantastic.
As was chatted about- so nice to be working in Cornwall having escaped London!
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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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sillyskis, Great report, enjoyable read and informative. Thanks for posting. Slightly concerned that you think admin could 'blend' into anything.... perhaps one too many bombardinos and resulting vision issues?
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No honest (and I hadn't been drinking at that point) The hotel we went to had those Ikea Klipplin sofas, I think, upholstered in leather, or was it pleather, in bright Snowheads yellow or black. So depending on how Graham sat he either blended in or contrasted nicely! It's certainly a 'bright' yellow to choose for interior design I thought! There is photographic evidence I can assure you! 
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A great post by sillyskis with which I mostly concur
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Good I am glad about that!
Sorry I missed you at the airport- the option of being bumped onto an earlier flight seemed a good idea with work early the next morning. It felt very odd being back in an office I must say!
Hopefully see you at Hemel sometime- I shall be back practising my one legged skiing, and other forms of torture, sorry exercises, after the Easter holidays- hopefully be a bit quieter then!
P.S i'm still no clear what a neutrino is???!!!! 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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FAQ
Slightly concerned that you think 
