Ski pass/school

laraido

Any tips on sites or agents to contact for packages for Ski school, gear and passes? We're based in Innsbruck and have flights, cars and Hotel organised in advance.

Thanks
LarA

mikedragon32

Hi Lar,

This would probably get more/better answers in the winter sports forum.

M

5starpool

As far as I know the official website for each resort should have information about the ski schools that are in each location. Google is your friend.

sharingan

Friends of mine who have done this, have just turned up at a resort, bought lift passes and found the nearest winter-sports shop to rent gear. Having knowledge of the local language might be an advantage for the second bit, or you could just annoy a rep as to where they direct holidaymakers to (which is likely to have attendants with better english).

I might be overstating the language barrier a bit, but only if thats a concern for you.

The biggest deal is that you will want accommodation organised in the resort before you arrive. THough in the current ski season, you might be able to turn up to a lot of resorts and just find somewhere if your group isn't big.

uberwolf

we booked our lift and snowboard school through an agency and were stung completely by them.

we paid €130 or so for 3 days, and at the resort we could have paid €65. Now maybe in times of peak season it's worth having booked in advance, but make every effort to book direct and save yourself being fleeced. Here's looking at your directski

Imposter

You need flights and accommodation organised before you go. The rest can be organised there and is probably cheaper.

sharingan

uberwolf wrote:

we booked our lift and snowboard school through an agency and were stung completely by them.

we paid €130 or so for 3 days, and at the resort we could have paid €65. Now maybe in times of peak season it's worth having booked in advance, but make every effort to book direct and save yourself being fleeced. Here's looking at your directski

Different experience in Soll this year. Locally available tuition worked out more expensive than operator provided tuition. Better *value* though, as the groups were a bit smaller, but not hugely.

Tuition is not something they are likely to drop the costs of, or lift passes for that matter. Its the hotels that act as the cost variable during low-peak times, and operators too.

uberwolf

sharingan wrote:

Different experience in Soll this year. Locally available tuition worked out more expensive than operator provided tuition. Better *value* though, as the groups were a bit smaller, but not hugely.

Tuition is not something they are likely to drop the costs of, or lift passes for that matter. Its the hotels that act as the cost variable during low-peak times, and operators too.

to clarify - the the two prices were for the one class, with the same school.

Literally I would have had the same class mates, same instructors, same bruises had I shown up on piste with 65 in hand, instead of 130 to the operator.

sharingan

We already got a resort thread going here, and this is a direct/budget thing thread, perhaps we could make a thread about tuition/gear rental prices per resort? I always found it a bit funky that some operators (and yeah I spotted DirectSki's prices here) only offered 3 days board-school. Which is something that you need a full week of.

Learn to ski packs (school & equipment) tend to be a bit odd, heavily bundled to give an appearance of value to first timers. But these aren't offered by resorts, so theres a lot of opportunity to put in a lot of stealth costs.

Frankly I am getting a bit tired of tour operators forgetting to post us out all their voucher crap (last 2 years), and making us jump through hoops to sort out all the stuff we paid for. It would be easier to just turn up at the shop anyway and rent direct - they are hardly going to charge us more.