Posted by IanLocke on January 8, 2010 under Ski Blog News, Ski Travel | 
It is sometimes hard to put a finger on exactly why certain chalets appeal to you, and why others don’t, but this one certainly did jump out at me for some reason! Maybe it was the “perched on the hillside” setting, or maybe the wonderfully spacious living area with a cosy wood-burner hiding away in the corner…who knows, but in any case, we’re delighted to have it on board!!
So, Cairn Lodge is the name, central Morzine is the place, and we’re talking ensuite bedrooms, sauna, outdoor hot tub and fully catered service in a chalet sleeping up to 17 people.
The dining /sitting room is open plan and enjoys fantastic views over Morzine, with lots of comfy sofas centered around a wood burning stove and French patio doors opening onto the sun terrace and hot tub.
There is also a sauna/relaxation room with space for a massage table - so no need to travel for that massage after skiing. Heated boot racks ensure toasty toes in the mornings and there are racks for boards and skis.
Food is a very important part of your chalet holiday, so a great deal of pride and pleasure is taken in serving you a great selection of culinary delights. Breakfast, usually served between 8am and 9.30am, consists of a daily cooked special, complemented by a buffet spread, including fruit juice, a selection of cereals, yogurts, fresh fruit, croissants and freshly baked bread. Afternoon tea will be laid out for you to help yourselves to in the afternoon. Freshly baked cake, bread and jam, tea and coffee or if you prefer a beer or soft drink from the honesty bar. Appetizing canapes and a glass of Kir Royale & dinner will be served daily around 8pm. Three courses are served every night, accompanied by good quality house wines. Dinner is followed by a local cheese board and tea or coffee.
Prices range from €595 to €895 / person / week for catered chalet holidays of up to 17 people.
For more details, click Cairn Lodge Luxury Chalet Morzine
Posted by Suzanne_Watts on December 7, 2009 under Ski Travel |
Skiers Heading For Eastern Europe: 154% Rise in Interest For Cheap Flights To The East
According to low cost flight specialist SkyScanner, tight holiday budgets are leading skiers to leapfrog traditional favourites in the Alps for better value ski resorts in Central and Eastern Europe this winter.
Top eastern ski hubs include Sofia in Bulgaria for Bansko – Bulgaria’s top ski resort.
Check out our newest listings for ski apartments and a luxury chalet in Bansko…..
Posted by IanLocke on November 6, 2009 under Ski Blog News, Ski Deals, Ski Travel |
With holiday budgets feeling the pinch, www.internet-cottages.com is delighted to introduce flexible skiing accommodation in the Alps this season, helping to make the annual ski jolly a little easier on the pocket.
The new ‘Flexible Ski Breaks’ section offers a selection of apartments and chalets that are offering short ski breaks, ski weekends and midweek changeovers.
With the proliferation of midweek flights from Low Cost Airlines, it is now possible not only to avoid the weekend traffic bottlenecks, but also to save yourself a considerable amount of money by flying on cheaper weekday flights.
So, if you fancy a quick and cheaper swoosh, here’s some accommodation offering flexibility:
Catered Chalet Skiing – Chalet Clair Matin, Morzine Portes du Soleil
A spacious and well-furnished chalet:
• 4 minutes from centre of Morzine and lifts
• Breakfast, afternoon cake, Three course evening meal
• Sleeps 14, 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 1 wet room
• Hot Tub & Sauna
• Toys – Wii, games, walkie-talkies for the slopes
• Molton Brown goodies
• Prices from £442 per person
Self Catering Skiing – Silver Fox Apartment, Sainte Foy Tarentaise
Sainte Foy is a well kept secret, a delightful village with fabulous skiing and no crowds yet is accessible to the larger ski areas. Villaroger is five minutes away with a chairlift taking you to Les Arcs/La Plagne, Val d’Isere, Tignes and La Rosiere are also just 15 minutes away.
• Sleeps 6, 3 bedrooms
• Open plan living/dining
• Flat Screen TV, WiFi
• South facing, all rooms have balconies
• Prices from £595
Last Minute Ski Deals
www.internet-cottages.com will also be offering late deals throughout the season for those who are able to travel at the last minute, check regularly for the latest ski bargains.
Posted by admin on October 13, 2009 under Ski Travel |
Ski Train Tickets to The Alps
Never been quite sure why SNCF won’t allow you to book train tickets more than 3 months in advance, but when the winter schedules are released, it gets even worse, as you can only book the December dates 2 months in advance!
From 5am tomorrow, 14th October 2009, you can therefore book rail travel in France for dates between 13 December ’09 and 13 January 2010 inclusive.
The 3 month rule applies again from 15 October until 5 November 2009, when sales open for trains running between 5 February and 8 March 2010 inclusive.
The winter timetable features increased services on routes popular with skiers, such as the Paris to Bourg St Maurice overnight service, which runs every night throughout the winter ski season.
Clear as mud? Yes, thought so!!
Probably best to visit our friends at RailEurope for bookings and indirect trains involving Eurostar and overnight train from Paris.
Posted by admin on October 8, 2009 under Ski Blog News, Ski Travel |
No, before you say it, I wasn’t struck by the photo of these jolly Swiss Air pilots (presumably implying what fun people the Swiss actually are…hmmm), but by the lead price of £77 return for flights between the UK and Switzerland, with no charge for your skis (or at least your “first set of skis”, but I’ve only got one, so don’t mind that really!).
They can probably say it better than I can though, so:-
SWISS offers up to 28 daily flights from the UK (London City, London Heathrow, Manchester and Birmingham) to Geneva, Zurich and Basel – 3 ideal gateways to your ski resort.
This winter we have introduced an additional Saturday and Sunday flight from Manchester and two additional Saturday flights from London Heathrow to Geneva – ideally located for the famous skiing resorts of Verbier, Zermatt, Crans Montana, Saas Fee as well as the French and Italian Alps.
Hit the slopes for less this winter with SWISS.
Switzerland from £77 return
As the skier’s airline of choice, we are happy to transport your first set of skis or snowboard equipment free of charge.
SWISS flight prices are return fares and include all taxes, surcharges, SWISS service and Miles & More.
Obviously you’re not going to get this super headline price unless you travel at odd times and during the week, but from what I’ve seen, it looks like there are some good options if you’re doing a long weekend, say out Thursday, back Tuesday, where you’re looking at around the £100 mark return.
Not therefore actually bad, especially when you consider that with Ryanair flights nowadays, you have to pay £10 return to check in, £30 return for your first bag, about £50 return for airport taxes - oh yes, and then the flight itself of course!! I gave up even looking at Ryanair ages ago in favour of Easyjet, but the options from Swiss certainly seem comparable.
Posted by IanLocke on March 19, 2009 under Ski Blog News, Ski Travel |
Hugely expensive Easter flights are coming up. Click here to find out the true difference in costs between air, car and train
By Ian Locke Managing Director Internet Cottages
We have to fly, drive, and fly/drive regularly to the French Alps. We’ve never been by train but recently we’ve been considering it and wondered how the costs would stack up against the alternatives.
Here is an assessment based on the following assumptions:
A family of four, travelling at high season (Easter holiday)
Departing from London, destination Bourg St Maurice for Tignes or La Plagne in the French Alps.
In order of economy
1st.
Car (driving all the way)
Mileage : 1226 (London- Bourg St Maurice)
Tunnel : £214.00
Tolls : £120
Overnight stay for 4 : £185.00 (optional)
Vehicle depreciation : £126.60
Fuel : £176.13
Total : £821.91 or £636.73 without overnight stop.
2nd.
Train (London Bourg St Maurice direct)
Fare : £836 (£209 pp)
Car hire : £220
Tolls : £0.00
Fuel : £ 5.56
Total : £1061.56
3rd
Flying (London Gatwick to Geneva)
Fares : £883.92 (£220.98 pp)
Car hire : £250.38
Fuel : £38.95
Tolls : £24.79
Total : £1246.05
As one might expect, driving is the cheapest, but surprisingly the train comes in cheaper than flying when you’re booking last minute for peak times. It’s also carbon neutral.
Notes
Calculations based on family of four travelling from London to Bourg on 28 March 2009 returning on 4 April 2009.
Flight: Easy Jet outward LGA-GVA return GVA-LGA
EuroStar Direct service for train (7.5 hours non stop from London St Pancras),
Car prices from AutoEurope.co.uk
Posted by IanLocke on January 26, 2009 under Ski Blog News, Ski Travel |
Oh Lordy! I’ve historically sung the praises of renting on the Swiss side of Geneva airport rather than the French side, but with the recent relocation of the Car Hire Desks and Pick-up location for hire cars, I’m rapidly changing my tune!
Car Hire Desks moved to far extreme of the terminal
So, firstly then, those clever Swiss have moved the actual car hire desks to a wonderful, sparkling new car hire area at the farthest possible extreme of the airport - so you turn right as you come out of Arrivals, rather than left as previously. Turn right, and just keep going, and going… past the new stylish Montreux Jazz Cafe / Bar (why, in an airport?), then the Post Office, then keep going a bit more, and you’re there!
A lovely place to be I’m sure, which you’re going to be for a while, as this lovely-looking new facility hasn’t speeded the car hire process up any - so they still ask you for all the details they asked you for when you booked, try to persuade you to upgrade, try to flog you some Excess Insurance…
Now hop on the Shuttle Bus…
Half an hour later therefore, armed with those hard-earned car keys, you’re then told you need to hop on a shuttle bus, which will take you to the Long Term Car Park P51, where the cars are now situated - not in the rather handy multi-storey across the road from the airport terminal as they were previously! The shuttle bus then seems to set off when it’s full, so little rush to get on there unless there are already a few people on it.
Roughly an hour after you first started the process, you have loaded up your hire car, and you’re on your way - probably 30 minutes later than you would have been with the previous system!
So, add an extra 30 minutes on the way back, and that should be fine - or will it?
Actually no, the drop-off process also now seems to involve an inspection of the car, entering the details on a handheld terminal, and then if you “pass”, you’re allowed to leave your car - by which time you’ve probably missed the shuttle bus!!
When the shuttle bus does therefore arrive, a nice queue has built up, so both you and your luggage can’t get on the bus, so you have to load the luggage into the luggage trailer, then squash into the bus itself, for the 5-minute drive to the terminal. Or almost the terminal, as it drops you outside the sparkling new car hire area, which of course is miles away from the Check-in desks, where you want to be!
And of course, you’re now late, so I hope you’ve got a wheelie case with inline wheels to skoot you as quickly as possible to the check-in desks.
Conclusion - leave yourself loads (and I mean LOADS) of time!
What more can I say - if you do rent from the Swiss side of Geneva Airport, leave yourself lots and lots of time for returning your car and checking-in. Me, I’m going to see if renting French side is as bad as it used to be, so will report back soon…
Oh yes, there did seem to be ONE benefit to the cars needing to be dropped-off at the Long Term Parking, which is that there’s an Avia Petrol station immediately before the car park, so you can return your car hire fully fuelled. This is, however, unmanned, and when we passed through, the automatic pumps were not accepting either cash or credit cards, which would seem to be rather a disadvantage! [easily solved though by getting back on the road heading into Geneva, then take the first turn following signs for 'Bardonex', until you reach a couple of 'normal' petrol stations. ]
Posted by IanLocke on November 26, 2008 under Ski Blog News, Ski Travel |
I’ve been flying to the Tarentaise and Three Valleys ski regions for several years with my family, and I know the airports and motor routes like the back of my hand. I’ve also picked up plenty of handy insights into the way the different airports are run, and where the best deals are for motor hire. When you’re booking from far away, it all looks simple, but many a slip from the cup to the lip…so read on for some tips that could save you precious hours on your quest for the slopes…
Insurance Excess – don’t get caught out
In the majority of cases, your car rentals package will include Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) and Theft Waiver(TW), which will insure you against the costs of the vehicle being damaged or stolen, beyond a stated excess.
It is well worth checking what this Excess amount is though, as for some car hire companies, it is a significant amount - more like £250 than the £50 you expect with your normal car insurance at home.
When you pick up your car at the airport, you will generally be given the opportunity to ‘top-up’ your insurance to cover the Excess as well, although this further adds to the cost of your car rental for the week, so that ‘cheap car hire deal’ that you got, doesn’t seem quite so cheap any more!
For this reason, if you’re likely to rent a hire car for 2 weeks or more during the year, we recommend the Annual Excess Car Hire Insurance product from Insurance4CarHire. We’ve used this product ourselves for several years, and have been glad that we did, as we’ve had 2 occasions when our hire car has been damaged, through no fault of our own, when without the Excess Insurance we’d have had to cough up twice for an excess.
Queue tips
One final tip - if you are booking your car hire direct with the rental company, possibly via the Low Cost Airline that you are flying with, it’s possibly worth considering avoiding the airline’s recommended ‘partner’ rentals company, simply because a lot of people arriving with you on your flight will have booked through them, so often they will have a massive queue, while other rental desks alongside will be deserted!
The Ski Airports
While it’s not likely that you’ll change your choice of airport just to make your life easier in terms of car hire, it is worth knowing the pros and cons of each, so that wherever you do fly to, the process at the far end will be as smooth as possible.
Geneva Airport
The French car hire minefield
The key thing to consider with car hire at Geneva Airport though is whether you want to rent from the French side of the airport or the Swiss side, as there are significant differences!
As regular users of car hire companies at Geneva Airport, we’ve found that you can invariably get cheaper car hire through car hire agencies / brokers such as Auto-Europe (Swiss and French side) Holiday Autos Car Hire (French side) than you can by going direct to the car hire company themselves.
Fun and games on the French side
The one and only benefit we can see in renting on the French side of Geneva Airport is the cost! Even this is however not quite what it seems, as rental cars on the French side don’t generally come with snow chains as standard (so an additional €40 a week to add for those), nor a carnet for the Swiss motorway (so 35CHF if you want to use the short stretch of motorway through Geneva).
If you decide not to buy a carnet for the motorway, it’s quite a difficult task to avoid the motorway when leaving the airport, and you’re adding about 30 minutes to your journey - assuming you don’t get lost in Geneva itself! Getting back to the airport is an even bigger nightmare, probably adding an hour to your journey.
Another complication is that you’ll land Swiss side, go through Swiss Customs, then have to go back out through French customs to the car hire desk. Finding how you get to French Customs also isn’t easy, as it’s through a little door at the right hand (as you’re looking at the departure gates) end of the Departures level of the airport!
And if that’s all not got you truly wound up, the car hire parking area on the French side is total chaos, with a lot of the hire cars double-parked, thus delaying you further!
Swiss car hire benefits
Stop Press 26th January 2009 New changes at Geneva Airport create extra hassle for car rentals. Read more>>
As you’ll have gathered, we much prefer the organization on the Swiss side - and if you book early enough, the prices aren’t that much more than the French side, especially as they automatically include winter equipment and a carnet for the motorway.
The whole rental process is that much simpler - you just come out on the Arrivals level, go to your left to the car hire desks, sort out the paperwork, then walk back to your right, cross the road and collect your hire car from the civilised multi-storey car park!
Then out of the airport, hit the motorway, and follow the sign to Annemasse or Annecy, depending on which ski resort you’re going to. There’s a good step-by-step of the route at Driving from Geneva Airport to Val d’Isere, which is relevant for the Three Valleys, Paradiski and other Tarentaise resorts as well as Val d’Isere.
On the Swiss side, we’ve in the past had some good deals from Auto-Europe and AutoReservation.com (need to book early though, and check prices regularly, as they do fluctuate quite a bit).
Lyon airport
Not a lot needs saying about hiring a car at Lyon airport - it’s a big airport, close to the motorway, and on the ‘right’ side of Lyon for the ski resorts, so no need to get into Lyon itself. Access to the airport and its car parks is very easy.
Again, you can book through a broker such as Auto-Europe or Holiday Autos, or shop around direct with the major car hire companies.
Grenoble airport
The main thing to say about Grenoble airport is that it isn’t in Grenoble, or even very close to it! It’s stuck in the middle of nowhere about halfway between Lyon to the north, and Grenoble to the south.
It’s a very basic airport, and as yet isn’t that well equipped to handle the volume of skiers that pass through it in the ski season!
The car hire offices are across the road from the airport terminal in a portacabin - if you wish to book direct, Hertz, Europcar and Avis have car hire desks there, or book via Holiday Autos Car Rentals or www.auto-europe.co.uk.
When you leave the airport, if you’re going to resorts in the Three Valleys (Meribel, Couchevel, Val Thorens etc) or Tarentaise (Val d’Isere, Tignes, La Plagne, Les Arcs, Sainte Foy Tarentaise), it’s best to head north towards Lyon rather than down towards Grenoble, as the ring road round Grenoble can be a nightmare for traffic.
Chambery Airport
Again, not much needs saying about car hire at Chambery airport - it’s a small airport, not far off the motorway outside Chambery itself, and a number of car rentals companies operate there. Or again, book through a car hire agency such as Auto-Europe Car Hire or Holiday Autos.
Hope that helps. Got any comments? Please post to the blog or if you prefer, email me at iml @ internet-cottages . com
Posted by IanLocke on November 25, 2008 under Ski Blog News, Ski Travel |
Eurotunnel announced this week that they have increased their shuttle frequency to a minimum of one train every 90 minutes, although as this still represents only one quarter of their ‘normal’ operating capacity, it will still be difficult to get bookings during peak periods such as Christmas and New Year. Full details of the announcement are shown below:-
Maintenance work is on schedule and the target date for reopening the last section of the North Tunnel is mid February 2009.
We are pleased to have increased shuttle frequency from one departure every 2 hours to a minimum of 1 departure every 90 minutes.
Please see below the current revised departure frequency:
One departure every 90 minutes Monday – Friday
Two departures every 90 minutes Saturdays & Sundays
Due to the revised departure frequency, we have limited spaces available in the run up to a very busy Christmas and February half term. To avoid disappointment we would therefore urge you to make your booking as soon as possible in advance of your preferred dates.
