Reasons to be cheerful 1, 2, 3

The festive season has done little to tackle a nagging feeling of gloom in the UK. It’s not limited to the economy; we saw a lot of disheartening speculation regarding snow conditions in November. It can kind of drag you down …

… however, we believe there are three fundamental reasons that family skiers and boarders should be cheerful. The end of the world is not nigh and there is plenty to be happy about.

Snow
We can’t remember a start to the season like it. There is, in simple terms, staggering amounts of snow across the French Alps. Both of our resorts, Les Gets and Reberty Village, have seen vast quantities of snow falling over the past 10 days and conditions on the slopes are fantastic. Have a look at the snow conditions page on our website for more details. This is not a winter to miss!

Exchange rate
In historic terms it doesn’t warrant a street party, but sterling is now nudging €1.2/£1. For much of the summer it was nearer €1.1/£1. This means lunch on the mountain is now going to leave you with change for an après ski beer … or you could simply pocket the cash and sample Ski Famille’s free pre dinner drinks (new in all chalets for 2011/12 and one more reason to be cheerful – but we didn’t want to muck about with Blockheads reference!).

Flights
There’s no doubt about it, despondency is making people hold off from booking holidays. However, one man’s gloom is another man’s gain and flight prices to the Alps are looking pretty attractive. £67 per person return for weekend Gatwick - Geneva flights at the end of January; we don’t mind if we do!

Cast aside the gloom – be cheerful - and Happy Christmas!

Chris
www.skifamille.co.uk

Great snow and (lots) more on the way

I have been in Reberty Village for the last two days enjoying the Ski Famille warm up week with our first guests of the season. Ten days ago they were all a little nervous about conditions (see my last blog post) but over dinner last night everyone was reporting fantastic conditions out on the slopes.

The weather today has been pretty clear (although sadly I am now back in our Farnborough office and did not have my first ski of the season) but another weather front is rolling in. According to snow-forecast.com Reberty looks set to see over a metre of snow before the end of the week! This will give us fantastic conditions in the run up to Christmas ... and we do have space for one family in Chalet Eva from 23rd at a pretty amazing price (even if I do say so myself!).

Les Gets was open for weekend skiers on Saturday and Sunday and will be fully up and running from 17th. The slopes are already looking good and the resort won't be escaping the snow forecast for later in the week. Tomorrow may see rain at resort level but the temperature is set to drop from Wednesday and there could be a metre of powder to play in by the end of the weekend (... and I aim to have my first ski of the winter in Les Gets next week).

We have space for two families in Les Gets at Christmas staying in ski in/ski out Select Chalet Grand Mouflon. Our last spaces are available with a saving of over £1,000 for a family of four.

After a relatively precipitation free autumn this could turn out to be a pretty astounding start to the season.

Chris
www.skifamille.co.uk

Snow gods don't read Metro ...

I had a rather odd experience on Monday. At 6.00 am my alarm went off in Chalet Katie 2 in Reberty Village. I got dressed, wolfed a bowl of cereal and stepped outside; it was snowing hard.

After five minutes I had cleared the snow from our trusty little Kangoo 4x4 and started what turned out to be a snowy, sleety, rainy and generally grim drive to Geneva. I then hopped on a plane to Gatwick where I picked up a copy of the Metro to read on the train to the office.

The front page of the Metro was a little ... frustrating. It seemed to be guaranteeing that as a ski operator I was doomed. Alongside this there appeared to be a suggestion that all of our guests who had booked early season holidays were either unlucky or stupid. Fortunately I knew from my own experiences that they were very wrong - the weather had well and truly turned.

Shift forward three days and this rather ill informed and and lazy article is an utter irrelevance. Reberty Village (sitting at 2,000m in the 3 Valleys) has seen around 70cms of snow and Les Gets is not far behind.

First thing on Wednesday Reberty Resort Manager Dan sent across a picture showing a rather impressive 40cms of snow on the (fairly sheltered) Chalet Eva balcony. Five hours later that had topped 55 cms.

Today the sun is out in both of our resorts. Les Menuires opens this Saturday and Les Gets will open on 17th December (although there is limited weekend skiing this Saturday/Sunday).

My favourite picture of the day is this beauty from one of the Les Gets webcams, simply stunning!



I love the press being wrong!

Chris

www.skifamille.co.uk