J2Ski group holiday to Tignes January 13th 2013

brooksy wrote:

Well you HAVE NOW I just hope your car has a bunk bed in it :( :(

No need for a bunk bed, I intend to drive not sleep :)

Should be plenty of room for you to get a good kip before we arrive. Mainly motorway driving anyway so fairly smooth.

As you will have gathered from the above post, Far Queue is giving Brooksy a lift in his car from the U.K. to the chalet and back :D

We have 3 cars so far driving over. I am going out by train and flying back, and pretty much everyone else is flying out and back.

The French train company released it's winter train time-table on Thursday, and I've been looking at it. At the moment you can book up to the weekend before we go, so up to the 5th/6th January. You can book on here:

http://www.raileurope.co.uk/

I have discovered that you can buy a return ticket from London to Bourg St Maurice for only £126-50 if you go out on the Saturday and change stations in Paris, and come back a week later on the Sunday, again changing in Paris.

I think this is an amazingly good price. It does actually beat flying on cost (if you're travelling from London or Ashford), by the time you add in the price of transfers and ski carriage (because you can take snow gear on the train free of charge).

You would, of course, have to stay in a hotel in Bourg, like I'm doing, but you could get 7 1/2 days on the snow this way. If you went back to Paris on the sleeper on Sunday night you could get 8 days ski-ing/boarding, but they haven't released the time-table yet for the sleeper train and it does tend to work out much more expensive than going back during the day.

Here are the times of the trains:

07-31 depart St Pancras on Saturday, arrive Bourg 17-02 total journey time 8 hours 31 minutes, change stations in Paris from Paris Nord to Paris Lyon.

Return on Sunday, several possible trains, all changing once in Paris, and taking 9 hours and 30 minutes:
09-13 arrive St Pancras 17-39
10-16 arrive St Pancras 18-30
14-09 arrive St Pancras 22-39

I reckon this is a very good price, but I imagine it will go up.

When the sleeper time-table is released I will post this up as well, not just for those considering coming on this holiday with us, but for everyone travelling from London (or Ashford) to this region of France to ski/snowboard.

Far Queue wrote:

brooksy wrote:

Well you HAVE NOW I just hope your car has a bunk bed in it :( :(

No need for a bunk bed, I intend to drive not sleep :)

Should be plenty of room for you to get a good kip before we arrive. Mainly motorway driving anyway so fairly smooth.

Are you supplying the bedding or do I bring my own. :wink:

Ally, the only thing which has always put me off the non direct train is the change of station in Paris. It does mean having to hump all your gear across on the metro, or paying an extra charge for a taxi.

Which way are you going to transfer? Do you have a price for a taxi.

brooksy wrote:

Are you supplying the bedding or do I bring my own. :wink:

TBH, if my brother drives, I usually just wear a thick woolly hat which can be pulled down over my ears and eyes. This shuts out the light and a lot of the noise, plus makes it comfy to rest your head against things. I find it quite comfortable to recline the seat and just rest my head against the side of the car. But if you really want, I'm sure I could find a pillow.

Far Queue wrote:

brooksy wrote:

Are you supplying the bedding or do I bring my own. :wink:

TBH, if my brother drives, I usually just wear a thick woolly hat which can be pulled down over my ears and eyes. This shuts out the light and a lot of the noise, plus makes it comfy to rest your head against things. I find it quite comfortable to recline the seat and just rest my head against the side of the car. But if you really want, I'm sure I could find a pillow.

You're wooly hat it is then, this will leave more room for essential supplies of the alcohol type -)

Far Queue wrote:Ally, the only thing which has always put me off the non direct train is the change of station in Paris. It does mean having to hump all your gear across on the metro, or paying an extra charge for a taxi.

Which way are you going to transfer? Do you have a price for a taxi.

Far Queue, I bought myself a single ticket for the direct, non-stop train from St Pancras to Bourg as soon as the tickets became available, which cost me £96 8)

However, I didn't like to say so because I didn't want to be too smug about it :lol:

There are still a few direct tickets left for Saturday 12th January but they now cost £169 single from St Pancras to Bourg - so they've gone up by £69. Train tickets are like plane tickets, they price them according to availability so it's a good idea to buy them as early as you can.

The direct train leaves St Pancras at 10 a.m. and arrives in Bourg at 18-51 (remember you go forward an hour to French time). If you're only going to Moutiers (for Courchevel etc.) you get there earlier at 18-12 and the journey only takes 7 hours and 12 minutes.

But I have changed in Paris several times, and the only time I had a problem was when my daughter and I were a bit overtired after a brilliant week of ski-ing and we went to the wrong platform - but we soon realized our mistake and found the right one. I've never tried taking a taxi, as we were told the RER is just as quick as a taxi.

The Eurostar comes in to Paris Nord and it's a huge station and you have to find your way to the RER line D and take either D2 towards Melun or D4 towards Malesherbes. It's all signposted just like the London underground.

What I did was buy a carnet of 10 RER/Metro tickets at the Eurostar office in St Pancras which lasted me a couple of years, and each ticket only cost me something like £1 (far cheaper than the London underground). I imagine Eurostar are still selling these. The first time I changed in Paris I had to cope with the French ticket machine and although I managed it (luckily they have an option in English) it was a bit of a struggle and also a waste of time.

Officially it takes 25 minutes to get from Paris Nord to Paris Lyon on the RER but they do say to allow an hour between trains in case one gets held up somewhere.

We've never had a problem dragging suitcases in the French stations, but then we get to St Pancras on the underground anyway and it's much the same. However, we don't bring skis with us and I have a little trolley suitcase for my ski boots.

That's one reason why I am going to use the Skis2U service - so that I don't have to drag skis around on the underground.

And the French high speed train, the TGV, is a most impressive train. The ones I have been on are really long, very comfortable, double deckers with several different restaurants/cafes down the train. The only tricky thing about using them is that you have to remember to 'compost' your ticket in the machine before you get on the train. They have signs up saying 'composter votre billet' which means put it in this machine which officially punches it with (presumably - I've never really looked) the date and time and station.

Brooksy intends to video us, and I am a very unstyleish skier and videos make me nervous, so I decided to do a one day technique course here in the U.K. before we go, to see if I can improve my ski-ing and get more used to someone videoing me :lol:

The Ski Club of GB currently have a deal with a ski school called insideoutskiing.com at The Snow Centre Hemel Hempstead, so that I can do my first technique course with them for only £49, after a 50% discount.

The day course consists of three 90 minute coaching sessions with video analysis, breaks for tea and lunch, and free recreational ski-ing afterwards. The whole day is from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. And hire of skis and boots is included in the price.

If anyone else is interested in this there are lots of different courses on different days.

http://www.insideoutskiing.com/