Which resort in La Plagne

Karen,
The drive from Geneva is no problem at all, in fact its a pleasant trip. If you have time on the way back Annecy is very pretty for lunch and a wander around.

You just have to think about your car hire and thats a whole big can of worms as to which side of the airport to hire from.

Geneva airport if you don't know straddles Switzerland and France. You will land in Switzerland but you can walk through customs (very very easy, they hardly ever even stop you to look at your passport) to France.

I personally would only ever hire a car from the French side but lots of others would say the opposite.

Either way is not too difficult.

Mike

Mike3000 For info. GVA airport. As Schengen is now being implemented there, all passports for non-Schengen arrivals (ie UK) are now being er....scrutinised, carefully :-) Passport Control is currently in one of the tunnels connecting the island gates with the main terminal. Not sure if it will stay there, but it's pretty grim at the moment with queues down the tunnel and the travelators switched off.
Never mind, once you get through that, they've opened a Burger King :lol:

bandit wrote:Mike3000 For info. GVA airport. As Schengen is now being implemented there, all passports for non-Schengen arrivals (ie UK) are now being er....scrutinised, carefully :-) Passport Control is currently in one of the tunnels connecting the island gates with the main terminal. Not sure if it will stay there, but it's pretty grim at the moment with queues down the tunnel and the travelators switched off.
Never mind, once you get through that, they've opened a Burger King :lol:

I've not noticed any extra scrutiny but it's all new so it might be changing day to day. I've Swiss id which I could probably travel on and not use a UK passport.

I can't see why it would lead to more queues, there's physically more checkpoints now and even if staffing levels remained the same I can't see why they would be slower to process. In fact, I reckon getting off a UK flight it ought to be quicker, you're not going to queue with people from a flight from Somalia or somewhere.

karen72 wrote:thanks for your replies. I have been looking in the holiday brochure and also diy. i think diy is going to work out cheaper. Have priced some fights on easyjet frmo newcastle to geneva. £270 for flights for 4 of us. is it ok going from this airport? This is the nearest easyjet flies to unless I am willing to travel to london or birmingham which is just not good. Have been looking at sites for airport transfers and it isgoing to cost over £600 return! I think we will hire a car. about £300 even if we just use it there and back and not in between we will save half the money.

Just looking on holiday rentals now for an apartment and i will nearly have it sussed. well at least until next week lol. I am still a bit uneasy about France just because I have never been there before. YOu have to try somethings once though.

Just got to convince hubby to get the plastic card out that he keeps glued in his wallet lol!

ha good luck with that!
make sure and try the solutions room (google it)-its where we got our holiday from and was excellent
also, a lot of the chalets on there will offer you transfers from chambery

Hi Karen

I've done this holiday (from Newcastle) for the last 2 years and booked again for January 2010. So......

Definitely Belle Plagne but that looks established! It has a supermarket, 5 or 6 good restaurants, a few bars, pattiserie, take-away pizza etc and for kids there is a little bowling alley.

DIY or TO - DIY for me as it works out cheaper and gives you much more choice.....as long as you are happy to hire a car and drive it otherwise the expense of the transfers might mean a TO is better.

Flights - Have you looked at Jet2 Newcsatle-Chambery. Chambery is about an hour's drive nearer to Belle Plagne than Geneva. I've done the Geneva-Belle Plagne drive - think it took 2hours 45 and wasn't difficult but without a sat-nav people do seem to get lost especially choosing the correct sector.

Car hire - try holidayautos as you should be able to get a basic car for around £160-£180. There is an underground car park but it costs around 60 Euros. I parked in the free outdoor carpark in Plagne Bellecote (after dropping off luggage) and got the gondola back up. It's a hire car and therefore, who cares if it's sat outside in the snow (though don't put the handbrake on - it may freeze!).

I stayed at Le Quartz - ski-in, quiet location, relatively comfortable and spacious. I think it was around 400 Euros for the week. But have a look at the Pierre et Vacances website as they have several properties of differing standards/prices. No complaints and they were kind enough to upgrade us from a studio to a 1 bed apartment.

Have I missed anything?

Beware of Restaurant prices in Belle Plagne, there is a restaurant there which is so overpriced a group of 8 of us got up and walked out on studying the menu and it's prices, tellingly the staff did not seem surprised!
Ironically about 100yds away is one of the cheapest take aways in the whole of Grande Plagne if not Paradiski. (There is a take away in Les Arcs charging €10 for a jacket spud!) It certainly pays to shop around or at least be aware of the average price for restaurant food, don't forget that the vat rate on eat in food is currently 19.5% in France.