Cheapest way to do a weeks skiing at Christmas?

ManwitaPlan · 26-08-2010 03:58PM #1

Looking at Andorra at the moment....all looks good but Im a bit worried about the bust transfers. Do they coincide with ryanair flights into and out of Barcelona?

Are there any other cheap options? We were looking to go the week after Christmas.

Thanks.

Fattes · 27-08-2010 01:02PM

ManwitaPlan, my advice would be to avoid Andorra and head to Austria.

Problem with Andorra is long transfer and limited skiing and nightlift in comparison to Austria/France and Italy.

Great deals to be had in resorts like Soll, Mayrhofen and ST Johan (Austria) where you will get more for every € spent then you would in Andorra.

As in More skiing, more night life easier transfer etc.

Other alternatives are Liingio in Italy (Same transfers as andorra)

Not sure how the transfers sit in with flights etc but I really dont rate Andorra at all to much effort fot to little reward and a dubious snow record

EileenG · 27-08-2010 01:34PM

I know I've said this before, but if you want cheap, with basic accommodation but lots of good food, and decent skiing, it's hard to beat the CIS in Val Cenis. The price includes seven days full board and lift pass, and the week after Christmas includes a seven course New Year's Dinner with champagne and lots of wine.

Fly to Paris and get an overnight train to Modane, or fly to Turin and get a day train to Modane, or hire a car and drive.

ballbag14 · 12-09-2010 11:04PM

hi eileen ,any more info on this would really appreciate it

EileenG · 13-09-2010 01:18AM

www.cis-valcenis.com. The price quoted includes accommdation (basic) and full board (3 meals a day, with unlimited wine at lunch and dinner), lift pass, and stuff like ski bus to take the children to ski school. It occasionally includes ski hire.

You can get there via Paris, Turin, Grenoble or Lyon. Not Geneva. We usually go to Paris and get an overnight train, but my sister prefers Turin and get a train to Modane, or hire a car and drive from Turin.

I've been there ever since the kids started ski school, so if there is anything specific you want to know, ask me.

ducie · 20-09-2010 04:59PM

Fattes wrote: »

ManwitaPlan, my advice would be to avoid Andorra and head to Austria.

Problem with Andorra is long transfer and limited skiing and nightlift in comparison to Austria/France and Italy.

Great deals to be had in resorts like Soll, Mayrhofen and ST Johan (Austria) where you will get more for every € spent then you would in Andorra.

As in More skiing, more night life easier transfer etc.

Other alternatives are Liingio in Italy (Same transfers as andorra)

Not sure how the transfers sit in with flights etc but I really dont rate Andorra at all to much effort fot to little reward and a dubious snow record

hi. would you book these hotels direct? because through operators tese resorts are quite expensive.

TakeTheVeil · 20-09-2010 05:27PM

EileenG wrote: »

www.cis-valcenis.com.

Is it a very family orientated resort Eileen?

There's a group of looking to go in January, all aged between 23-28, and ideally we'd want some good of aprés ski too.

We went to Oberstdorf and it was fairly quiet. It was a lovely place but there was only 2 or 3 bars to choose from really.

EileenG · 20-09-2010 10:15PM

TakeTheVeil wrote: »

Is it a very family orientated resort Eileen?

There's a group of looking to go in January, all aged between 23-28, and ideally we'd want some good of aprés ski too.

We went to Oberstdorf and it was fairly quiet. It was a lovely place but there was only 2 or 3 bars to choose from really.

It's better for familes than wild apres-ski. There are several bars, and a disco that tends to get going about midnight, but the night life is not hectic.

Fattes · 20-09-2010 10:46PM

Start with the local tourist office and work from there. TO have huge mark ups on the cost of accomidation and flights.

But TO do come in handy when volcanos get ancy in Iceland.

If you log stick the resort names into google and start at the home page and you will get the tourist office there.

TO are expensive in austria Pensions are the way to go for cheap

markhenry5 · 22-09-2010 10:23PM

Novatel operate a regular bus service from Barcelona. Night life in Soldeu is very good and the snow record is excellent. They consistently open Dec 5th to April 22nd. Hard to beat combo of good weather,great snow and big mountain.

Fattes · 22-09-2010 11:15PM

Average snowfall in Andorra is 3 - 4.5 meters over a season compared to Lech 9.5 meters and Engelberg 10.5 meters

Andorra has it's charms but long transfers and inconsistent snowfall in comparison to the alps make it a gamble. Also allot of the austrian resorts are alpine meadows and can survive on very little snow

France and the pyraness resorts are rock based and need more snow depts for good conditions.

Soldeau biggest asset is that the head of the ski school is a Brit and the level of top class instruction delivered by native English speakers is hard to match in the alps

markhenry5 · 23-09-2010 05:54PM

We can agree to differ on the snow record, but Soldeu is meadow based. Check out the summer golf course.

Fattes · 23-09-2010 07:16PM

Here is the Snow Facts from www.wetterzentrale.de showing average snowfall over the last 10 years. Should show up the diffrence in what a good and an average snow record is for a resort and the two Austiran resorts I have picked are of comparable height to Soldeau. Its alomost Double in some weeks.
Zell em zee

Mayrhofen Feb average 270 cm

Zell Feb Average 280 cm

Soldeau Feb Average 120 CM

Even resorts like Saas Fee with 14 4,000 meter plus peaks and lots of Rocks (My ski bases are proof) has an alpine meadow that is used as a golf course in the summer. Most of the slopes in France, Italy Switzerland and Andorra are the same.

markhenry5 · 23-09-2010 08:35PM

I live in Soldeu for 4 months of the year. I've walked there in Summer. Its 95% meadow. I'm aware that some Austrian resorts get a lot of snow. But it is simply untrue to say that Soldeu is unreliable for snow. They consistently open early Dec and close at the end of april ( with everything running ). Its one of the reasons that BASI choose it as a course centre.

danthefan · 23-09-2010 08:59PM

EileenG wrote: »

www.cis-valcenis.com. The price quoted includes accommdation (basic) and full board (3 meals a day, with unlimited wine at lunch and dinner), lift pass, and stuff like ski bus to take the children to ski school. It occasionally includes ski hire.

You can get there via Paris, Turin, Grenoble or Lyon. Not Geneva. We usually go to Paris and get an overnight train, but my sister prefers Turin and get a train to Modane, or hire a car and drive from Turin.

I've been there ever since the kids started ski school, so if there is anything specific you want to know, ask me.

Is this place good for beginners?

EileenG · 23-09-2010 09:10PM

danthefan wrote: »

Is this place good for beginners?

Brilliant. Apart from the usual stuff, it has the longest green run in Europe, which zigzags across the mountain and brings you back down to the village. Everyone, no matter how timid or tired, can safely ski down on that without terrifying themselves.

It's best for beginners and intermediates, but it has a couple of top-to-bottom black runs for experts, and the off-piste doesn't get skied out quickly.

Fattes · 23-09-2010 09:18PM

BASI use every resort in Europe to run couses also they use Norway, Usa, Japan, New Zeland and Bulgaria (Which is Sh**)

And as I said above there is a top notch BASI level 4 is the head of the ski school in Soldea, with goods links to BASI.

The point is you get twice as much snow in the alps and up to 3 or 5 times as much in higher resorts, especially in early skiing when we where skiing powder in the the alps november 2 years ago Andorra was still closed.

Not saying there is anythin overly wrong with Andorra but it gets less snow than the alps Fact, It has longer transfers than 99% of Alpine Resorts Fact, Its not really cheaper then SOME austrian resorts.

danthefan · 23-09-2010 11:04PM

EileenG wrote: »

Brilliant. Apart from the usual stuff, it has the longest green run in Europe, which zigzags across the mountain and brings you back down to the village. Everyone, no matter how timid or tired, can safely ski down on that without terrifying themselves.

It's best for beginners and intermediates, but it has a couple of top-to-bottom black runs for experts, and the off-piste doesn't get skied out quickly.

Cool, thanks.

Would anyone know what the story with car hire is? I see it's pretty close to Turin but would you have to hire the car for the full week? Surely that would end up being quite expensive?

EileenG · 23-09-2010 11:57PM

Depends on how many will be in the car. My friend with four children and her mother hired a people carrier from Turin and it worked out cheaper. Normally I just get the train from Paris or Turin to Modane, where buses to Val Cenis meet each train.

If you have very keen skiers in your group, it might be worth having a car to ski other resorts. Got to say, I never bother.

danthefan · 24-09-2010 07:22AM

Sorry for all the questions but what sort of price would you generally pay for the train? The TGV from Paris seems very expensive anyway.

Fattes · 24-09-2010 10:05AM

danthefan, the trains can vary from €12 return to €80 - 120 euro return. You may be cheaper going from Milan rather than Paris.EileenG is spot on here when she talks about the trains. European trains are on time nice to travel on and well worth the money you pay for them especially when it comes to ski trips. I love travelling on train through EuropeCan be quite hairy driving up a twisty moutain road in a blizzard.

danthefan · 24-09-2010 01:47PM

Fattes wrote: »

danthefan, the trains can vary from €12 return to €80 - 120 euro return. You may be cheaper going from Milan rather than Paris.EileenG is spot on here when she talks about the trains. European trains are on time nice to travel on and well worth the money you pay for them especially when it comes to ski trips. I love travelling on train through EuropeCan be quite hairy driving up a twisty moutain road in a blizzard.

I've travelled on trains around Europe loads but I always paid student prices which are very reasonable, unfortunately I'm not a student anymore.

The flights to Paris seem the best value by far so it's a bit of a balancing act. Definitely don't fact driving anyway. And I only looked at the TGV so I don't know if there are other options from Paris.

EileenG · 24-09-2010 01:52PM

danthefan wrote: »

Sorry for all the questions but what sort of price would you generally pay for the train? The TGV from Paris seems very expensive anyway.

I usually get the overnight and sleep on a couchette. It averages about €100 return but can be less if you book far in advance. You can sometimes get first class for around the same price as second. The overnight leaves Paris at 11pm, gets into Modane just before 8am. You are there in time for breakfast and skiing.

The train from Turin to Modane is much cheaper, but the flight to Turin is more expensive. Swings and roundabouts.

danthefan · 24-09-2010 01:58PM

EileenG wrote: »

I usually get the overnight and sleep on a couchette. It averages about €100 return but can be less if you book far in advance. You can sometimes get first class for around the same price as second. The overnight leaves Paris at 11pm, gets into Modane just before 8am. You are there in time for breakfast and skiing.

The train from Turin to Modane is much cheaper, but the flight to Turin is more expensive. Swings and roundabouts.

Could you tell me where/how you booked the train?

The one way tickets I've found so far are about €120 it seems, which is just too much.

Thanks a lot for the help by the way, sorry for all the questions. If I can get all this sorted I'm there I reckon.

danthefan · 26-09-2010 01:12PM

I've decided to to to Val Cenis anyway, flights booked, in the process of booking accommodation, so just the train to sort out. Thanks for the help.

Booked on cis-valcenis.com, haven't got any confirmation or anything which seem a bit odd.

EileenG · 26-09-2010 07:09PM

They are not the fastest in the world about getting back. No harm to drop a note in the post to them.

Look at www.tgv-europe.com and you should find much cheaper tickets. They are not open yet for the dates I want, but the ones in December are now €49 one day for a ticket with couchette.

danthefan · 26-09-2010 08:51PM

EileenG wrote: »

They are not the fastest in the world about getting back. No harm to drop a note in the post to them.

Look at www.tgv-europe.com and you should find much cheaper tickets. They are not open yet for the dates I want, but the ones in December are now €49 one day for a ticket with couchette.

Great stuff, can only say thanks very much, really appreciated it. The skiing looks absolutely amazing in Val Cenis, cannot wait.

EileenG · 26-09-2010 09:19PM

When are you going? I'll be there from January 1 to 8.

Missgoggles · 27-09-2010 04:28PM

hey would be interested with how you got on with this booking - price etc and dates your going!! I was also looking at that place. Looks ideal. Eileen G, how good is it for boarding?

EileenG · 27-09-2010 05:48PM

I'm not a boarder, so I can't say how it compares but there are no restrictions on boarders or anything like that. I think I saw a boarding vid on Youtube that was filmed there.

danthefan · 27-09-2010 06:53PM

EileenG wrote: »

When are you going? I'll be there from January 1 to 8.

I'll be there at that time too, might see you there.

Cheapest way to do a weeks skiing at Christmas?

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