Evening,

I’m interested in a week’s ski holiday in the near future with my girlfriend. I’ve not been for ages but have previously been to a fair few places in France and Austria.

Don’t need to go at school holidays.

Interested in:
– Reasonable to good location (plenty of runs at intermediate to good level blue/red I guess)
– Chalet style accomodation or similar/interesting accomodation
– Perhaps a country or location that is a bit different (Georgia, Norway, Finland, Slovakia, Slovenia?)
– Not paying over the odds

Not interested in:
– Excessive luxury
– Places that are cheap but not very good

Given we want to go soonish and don’t have a lot of spare time to organise its likely to be a book it all in one job rather than DIY arrangements.

What is the all-in cost range sensible minimum we should expect to pay?

Any recommendations/suggestions where to go or which agents/websites to look at?

Stevo posts here (they run mtb holidays too). Fairly small resort but lots of fun to be had. East day trip to say Tignes or Les Arcs if you wish. We’ve been with them twice.

http://www.whiteroomchalet.com/winintro.htm

Alternatively look at some of the “clearance” websites – early March often discounted and sunny too. For example …

http://www.igluski.com/ski-deals/o1373

Re budget, I’m happy if the whole thing costs less than a grand each. That’s including all food, lift pass, carriage, chocco chaud, evening beer, parking and fuel. You could add 500 to that with rental and lessons.

I budget £130 per day for travel / accom / food / lift pass. try looking on the big aggregators like igluski, ifyouski, alpineelements and choosing the countries that interest you

Sweden?

just booked a break in Dolomites for early March
Flights Man to Burgamo = £40 return
Car Hire (Focus, 6 days) = £50
Hotel next to ski lift just outside Madonna di Campiglio (B&B for 5 nights) = Euro400/2
Just add lift pass, rental, fuel & meals
Think that’s as cheap as I’ve ever had TBH.

Chat to Skifix they are decent.

Jasna, Slovakia.

A brit, Paul, runs four chalets there – search ‘Propaganda’. Came back from there Sunday. Been 5 maybe 6 times now

Thanks all, useful stuff. Any other ideas appreciated.

Any suggestions for where in Sweden?

A grand all in sounds pretty good to me. The Igluski deals seem to start at about £600 so I guess by the time you do travel to the airport, additional food and drinks £1,000 seems likely.

Åre is my local resort in Sweden and is fantastic in March and April, long days, plenty snow. easyjet now don direct flights from Gatwick for about 80 quid each way. its well good!

£1k , for a weeks skiing?
I know its gone up alot this year but even so..
Rocketski for no thrills basic accomodation but so cheap you can afford to eat out if you want nicer food.
SkiSolutions do some good discounting for some better quality hols.
Mark Warner or Neilson also good.
Then look into Crystal, Inghams or Skiworld.
Never been to Sweden or Norway , but I would guess Italy would be better for you.
Sella Ronda or Milky Way, maybe Cervinia

Singletrackmind – I don’t really have a clue about the cost so interested to hear all views. Cheaper good for me!

Going to try and get something booked this weekend 🙂

Yeah, £1k. That Rocketski deal was a steal – £500 including lift pass. Parking, fuel and airport food at both ends adds about £100 for me. Six coffees and lunches on the mountain at least £100. Evening meal on chef’s night off and seven night’s apres would take most of the remaining £300. Now if you start with that Igluski “deal” at 600 quid you can easy go over a grand and loads of ski package holidays are nearer a thousand before before you buy your first vin chaud.

Been with rocketski a few times. They’re at the basic end of the scale

Check out http://www.action-outdoors.co.uk/

Have a look at Crystal, late deals in the Dolomites. They’ve a lot of chalet places still available at very reasonable prices, catered chalet week in March including travel from about £345, just add lift passes and lunches. There are several bonny small villages just off the main Sella Ronda circuit, all feeling very much more relaxed than a typical French mega resort.

Check out http://www.action-outdoors.co.uk/

I’ve seen these mentioned a few times; not quite sure what it is. Is this a sort of club/association. Prices look good especially those with lessons (not sure we need those) but is it bunkhouse or private room style accommodation?

Dolomites also sounds good – are those the sort of places where conditions hold up later on (20th March)?

UCPA (Union national des Centres sportifs de Plein Air) is a non-profit organisation set up byt the frnch government to encourage people to get out and do things

The UCPA is a large French not for profit organisation providing very affordable, all inclusive, adventure sports holidays. Originally the UCPA catered for young people aged 18-39 but recently they have expanded the range of holiday and course options to suit all ages. The all inclusive packages include accommodation, meals, lift pass, equipment hire and instruction, making the UCPA the cheapest way to go skiing and snowboarding. To learn more about the UCPA and what makes the holidays so cheap read more here. The UCPA experience is very unique so let us explain what you should expect from your UCPA holiday.

http://www.action-outdoors.co.uk/about-us/partners
and
http://www.action-outdoors.co.uk/about-us/what-to-expect

Some places have dorm style rooms where you sleep 4 to 8 to a room and have showers / toilets down the corridor. Some place have en-suite facilities and some (e.g. flaine) have twin rooms available.

it’s *always* worth having lessons. However even when you pay for them they’re not mandatory and a trip to UCPA includes lift pass and gear hire (though the headline prices don’t include travel & transfers) so might well be better value than a UK tour op

Ah I see, thank you. Sounds like a good way to go and incidentally meet people.

Still have not sorted this but back on the search now. Given I want to go in a couple of weeks I have reined in my expectations but since I would rather avoid French megaresorts I am thinking Italy or Austria might be good options.

I’m not familiar with the names of Italian and Austrian resorts. It would be appreciated if someone could name a few of them that I can base search on.

Jasna, Slovakia seconded.

But don’t go with Propoganda, go to Dan at Chalet Slovakia instead:
http://chaletslovakia.com/

Stayed with him three times now and had an absolute blast every time. Much less “business” than Propoganda, the chalet is basically just the downstairs of his house. And it is in the town (Liptovsky Mikulas) not stuck out in the burbs as I hear some of the Propoganda pads are.

Dan’s a very sound bloke (mountain biker too) who has a garage full of boards to try and will happily ride with you and show you all the best bits.

Jasna is fairly small by alpine standards, but has a LOT of easily accessible in-bounds off-piste. Cheap as chips too. WizzAir/RyanAir/EasyJet flight out. 3 course meal on the piste for six euros. Beer for a euro.

Sounds like an interesting alternative. If the Crystal options consider to confuse it certainly looks simple!

In recommending Jasna have you been to a lot of other European resorts – ie. you think it is decent having been to them.

As someone said a few weeks ago, check out SkiFix, based in a lovely village in Austria an hour from Salzburg.

Yeah I’ve been snowboarding for more than twenty years (for the usual 1 or 2 weeks a year). Ridden all over the Alps, plus Canada, America and New Zealand.

I’m not saying Jasna is perfect. A quick scan of the piste map will show you its a limited resort if you are sticking purely to the pistes.
If you go expecting something like the 3 Valleys or Ski Amadé then you’ll be disappointed. It’s definitely not that.
And it’s not hugely high either so the snow/weather can be unpredictable. And the apres is pretty non-existent.

But I’ve always had loads of fun there. Everything is just a bit different from the homogeneous alpine experience. It’s cheap. Loads of the locals can’t ski for shit and are big on their tight 80’s onesies. There are hardly any Brits at all (if you hear other Brits then it is almost always Dan or Paul’s guests). There is loads of accessible in-bounds off-piste and tree riding (looks at the big yellow “freeride” areas on the map) that hardly anyone touches. Plus Dan’s place is a proper home from home – sitting about in the living room, log stove burning, listening to his CDs, helping yourself to beer, talking bollocks and generally chilling. My kind of place.

If you can get a cheap flight to Munich, you can get the train to Garmisch for about €40
Lots of places to eat and sleep. Free resort bus/train ticket with ski pass.

Here’s an SCUK review I wrote on Jasna after my first trip in 2012. Has some pics.

Note: some of the info has changed since then. WizzAir is back so it is easier to get flights direct London-Poprad now. And the resort has added new lifts to access back face.

Oh and Action Sports Club seemed to have messed up the formatting when they converted the post over from the old SCUK forum 🙁

FB Video posted today from Chalet Slovakia. Snow looks good at the mo:

Posted by Chalet Slovakia on Monday, March 6, 2017

Right,

Many a phonecall later and availability has been narrowed to:

Cortina, Italy
Chatel, France
Sauze D’Ouix, Italy
Bardoneccia, Italy
Selva di Val Gardina
Sestriere, Italy
Serre Chevalier, France

Any final opinions valued!

Selva is prettier and cheaper than Cortina – both are on Dolomiti super pass thing

My experience of The Dolmites is that they are really beautiful, there are lots of nice little villages to drop into when you do the circuit and the food (Italian and Austrian) is great. But I found the actual skiing a little dull. Lots of long cruisey blues and reds

CaptainFlashheart will be along in a moment to heartily recommend Serre Che. He has lots of good things to say about it.

Sestriere, Italy

Was there yesterday. Loads of snow. That end of the Alps has a good base so any fresh dumps result in decent powder. It was knee deep in the trees and very pleasant on the pistes. Its not the best connected resort but that means there’s some nice boulevard runs and hardly any borders. We didn’t go looking for apres ski but it seemed a bit lacking and not many cosy mountain huts. Cheap eats and drinks though