After a few years of trying out different resorts me and the girlfriend really enjoyed Zell am See last year. In part this was due to meeting some good people to ride with – the guys were a similar level to me while the girls were a similar level to the gf*.

We got along well, and suggested that we all go to the same resort this year – however, they’re looking at Solden, where it would be about £300 more expensive per person for us to stay in the same standard of accommodation as in Zell. They go for DIY holidays as they’re a group so can get decent rates on apartments while we usually do packages as it’s just the 2 of us. We don’t know them well enough that I’d want to stay with them, so that’s out.

WWSTWD? I know my gf would much prefer to have company to ride with (I’m fairly happy on my own), but it’s a lot of money just for that. She might also meet someone in classes again if we go to Zell – that’s how we met up with this group. I don’t want to try and get the group to change their plans as it’s a bit unfair on them.

*I’ve done a couple of seasons while the gf was a complete novice on our first holiday ~5 years ago, so riding together isn’t great for either of us – either I’m a bit bored or she’s stressed out about holding me up.

EDIT – I do have other friends who snowboard/ski, but they prefer to do an hour riding, then 2 hours for lunch, then maybe another hour if they can be arsed, then get pissed. Having been away with them before we both just get frustrated with each other, as I’d rather have an early night and ride all day!

If your gf is happy, you are happy. This goes double with winter holidays, and goes triple if it is a winter holiday and the gf is inexperienced ….

How much is that worth?

That’s kind of my thinking! Only issue is that we also have a holiday to Oz to pay for later in the year (1st world problems, I know 😳 ) which won’t be cheap.

Why don’t you put together your own package. Easyjet fly to Insbruck, avoid w/end flights and you’ll save a packet, travel Republic for transfers and select accommodation from booking.com to suit your budget. Don’t get sucked into thinking you have to go 5 star everything, your there for the snow and the apre ski. Who gives a stuff about how fluffy the towels are or how many mints are left on your pillow 😀

http://www.rocketski.com seem to be the new place to get cheap but basic winter holidays. Are they too basic though? If so, I either DIY or do the painful trawl through Inghams, Neilsons and the like. The latter can sometimes be cheaper than DIY

I did have a quick look at the DIY ones, but my experience (admittedly from quite a few years back) was that it was a lot more hassle and stress to do DIY and you didn’t generally save that much – I may be wrong though 😀 . We’re also tied to leaving on a weekend as we already have the week booked off work and it can be a real PITA getting our schedules to sync up!

A lot of hotels etc will only accept Sunday to Sunday bookings anyway unless you are going to stay longer than a week. Self catering is cheaper than hotels if you aren’t interested in all the apres ski stuff.

DIY usually works out better IMO. You can often get a choice of a few flights, sometimes even a late late flight back and ride on the day of your flight too. Don’t need to go mad on hire car price as well, either go cheap small car and just do the airport transfer with kit out of bags piled up in the back or look at transfer companies. Having a car helps though as you can set off back when you like, plus if the resort you’re at is within a short distance of another resort you can do a quick day trip really easily.

Yeah, I agree with the diy route and car hire, that what I do mostly with my mates trips and its fine. All you have to do is book accomodation, then some flights with car rental.

A tip is to try and book BA but click on flight and car as it can work out very cheap…plus BA are much nicer to travel on get hold luggage included. As long as you check everything through it’ll all work out fine. What can possibly go wrong? 😉