Skiing Stateside - February 2008

[DisneyMadAng]

A little background……

5 of us went on this jaunt – DH, DD, DS, DH’s brother and little ole me!

DBIL (54) has skied every year for the last goodness knows how many years in Europe, Canada and the US
DH (46) & I (37) skied about 6 or 7 times before the children came along in Italy and France. I skied last year after a 15 year break and DH returned this year after a 16 year break.
DD (15) went on a week’s ski holiday to Austria with the school 2 years ago.
DS (12) had a 2 hour ski lesson at the Snowdome in Tamworth 2 years ago. Prior to this trip he had 3 hours of snowboarding tuition because that looked like more fun!

After my ski trip last February I came back quite literally on a high lol So much so that armed with lots of brochures I sat at the dinner table trying to decide where to go! Much discussion with DH and DBIL later we ruled out Europe in the hope that we would more or less be guaranteed snow in the US! Plus DBIL said ‘no comparison!’ and I was itching to fly long-haul!

I tore pages out of brochures, compared prices for half-term week and we plumped for the Zephyr Mountain Lodge from the Virgin Holidays brochure. It worked out much cheaper than the other brochures, the half term increase didn’t apply until the following week, we were able to arrange the flight so that we went out of Birmingham for a tiny supplement of £25 each and we all had the 10% off for being frequent Virgins. DBIL was happy because he normally goes on his own and pays lots and lots of moolah in single supplements!

So come 5am on 9th February we crawl out of our warm beds to get ready for our taxi to Birmingham airport. We flew Continental to Newark and eventually made it through security. Now I’ve read about the grumpy immigration chappies but we’ve never encountered one before. Normally they’ve been cheery and wished us a happy holiday. OMG Mr Misery dealt with us!

‘What are you here for?’
‘A holiday’
‘Where are you going?’
(read the green form dipstick) ‘Colorado’
‘Who do you know in Colorado?’
‘No-one. We’re going skiing’…….yaddda yadda

DS got told off because he was looking at the screen behind our ‘Official’ - You know how they sit back to back ….well you could see the screen of his colleague…..so DS was looking at it while I was being interrogated, sorry, questioned…..’Look this way, that doesn’t concern you’….wish I could type his tone of voice and his miserable face :angry:

So we finally make into the USA! Off we toddle to collect our luggage and hand it in (after DH gets a rollicking for putting his coat on the cases on his trolley…..you’re not allowed to cover the cases! Oh for Pete’s sake!) to get it onto the next leg of the journey, keeping fingers crossed that it gets onto the right plane. I don’t know how they do it but the cases arrived in Denver with us! Somehow DBIL, the children and I managed to get bulkhead seats (think that’s what they are called anyway!) DH not amused….he was in the row behind….ooops!

After a little sleep on our transfer bus we arrived in Winter Park Base. It was 9pm local time….4am in the UK – yes I get obsessed about how long we’ve been awake for lol The bus had hardly stopped before a man and a trolley were waiting to transport our luggage in for us! The Zephyr Mountain Lodge is split into 2 building - Riverside and Slopeside. We were in the Riverside building. We checked in and were shown to condo number 2100. Lovely, lovely accommodation – 2 bed/2 bath condo with a double sleeper sofa in the living area. Not quite ski-to-the-door - it was a bit of a trek to the slopes but well worth it.

Front of Zephyr Mountain Lodge - Riverside

Rear of Zephyr Mountain Lodge - Riverside

Living Area

Fireplace and the Disney Box!

Kitchen

[DisneyMadAng]

The area we stayed in – Winter Park Base – is quite small at the moment but there is some development for more condos with shops and restaurants. There is very little in the way of après-ski there now. Everything closes so early! There is one bar/restaurant that closes at 9. There is a food-court but that closes at 3pm! I was disappointed that there was no-where to have pancakes and maple syrup for brekkie……er hello! ?

The hotel has a free shuttle that takes you to Winter Park town and a little further on to Fraser. We used it to go to Safeway for some supplies…..including frozen pancakes and a bottle of maple syrup …. and also to eat in Winter Town. We crashed every evening in front of the TV……Disney channel….woo hoo! DBIL made use of the hot-tub but the rest of us got our Disney fix

On our first morning (Sunday) DS announces that he wants to ski rather than balance on one board aaargghhhhh! I was quite pleased really because we all ski so would be able to help him.

We collected lift passes and ski equipment which we had pre-booked and arranged for ski lessons for the children and were on the slopes for 10.30! Not quite sure how it happened but we didn’t even let DS get a feel for the skis…..straight onto his 1st chairlift! I had to explain to him all the way up that there was a flat area at the top of the lift and that he wouldn’t just fall of the mountain! Luckily it all came back to him and he even told me I’m good at teaching him how to ski!

We had booked the children into 3 full days, 10 until 3, of ski lessons which they really enjoyed and came on leaps and bounds. I can’t believe how confident they were…..DS couldn’t get enough of jumps and skiing through the trees! DD just scares me….a bit of a speed freak!

Everything was so much more pleasant than my experience in France last year!

France – lots of jostling and elbowing to get on the lifts
US – so calm, taking it in turns to get on the lifts
France – miserable lift attendants
US – always a cheery word for every chair

And yes I know, only in America, but at the base of every chair lift there was a Sniffle Station!


Every so often a Warming Hut!


Just to keep with the Disney theme……some trails were named after Alice in Wonderland characters….go on….guess how excited I was to find them lol

Not very clear on here but the right hand sign has Mock Turtle, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum on it

The Panaramic Express the highest 6-person chairlift in North America... luckily it had a pull down bar... I couldn't believe how many chairlifts didn't!

Us at the top of the Panoramic Express

The Children having a Rest!

The scenery was so beautiful I didn't know where to point the camera to catch it all - I have never seen so many snow filled trees!

So after a week of lots of skiing and falls it was time to head home

Another early start! The transfer bus collected us at 5.15am and deposited us at Denver airport where we checked in with US Airways for the 1st part of our journey. I was rather nervous as when the machine spat out our boarding passes there was a note saying our seats would be allocated at the boarding gate! Not to worry though! Our 3 hour flight was great for DH and I – we were given exit seats! DBIL and the children were allocated 3 together at the rear of the plane! Once at Newark we had to collect the cases and make our way to a different terminal to check-in at the Continental desk. Not so lucky with the seats this time. We were all at the rear of the plane DH, DD and DBIL were in different rows. DS and I were together. Ds and I were really excited - as it was dark when we took off we managed to see the Empire State Building and Times Square! DS then proceeded to nag that if I’d booked the flights so that we were in Newark longer we could’ve gone into New York….that child is OBSESSED with New York! Spoilt!

Didn’t manage to get up once as the chappie in the aisle seat next to me slept the WHOLE 7 hours! I suffered for it once home…..swollen from the knees down

For anyone travelling Continental in the future I have to say the crew was really lovely and smiley. They hardly sat down! They were constantly up and down the aisle offering drinks! The food was of a very good standard too. Even DS ate his meal….he is a fussy one and normally just eats the bread roll! It was a bit strange doing long-haul on a small plane……with the crew constantly up and down the aisle you can’t go for a little jaunt around the plane to stretch your legs! We didn’t get a meal on the US Airways leg of the journey but snack boxes and drinks were available to buy.

I was really chuffed that all the flights were on time and that all our luggage made it there and back with us….was so nervous about it all!

So we finally landed at Birmingham airport at 7am on Sunday 17th February to be greeted by the taxi driver for our sprint home and lots and lots of washing!

[Jaydee]

It looks lovely Angelina, I have never skiid but fancy doing it one day.

Looks like you all had a great time, thanks for sharing with us

[ely3857]

Slept for 7 hours on a plane! I would have had to have woken him up to go to the loo!

Nice photo's



Jodie

[Minicooper]

Fantastic report, really jealous we went to Winter Park for the Millenium and there was a lot of building work going on. We found the apres ski to be pretty tame compared to europe, but the food certainly made up for it. Especially "Smokin Moes" in Winter Park town.

[DisneyMadAng]

Glad you all enjoyed

Minicooper - we ate at the Chinese above Smokin Moes...DD doesn't eat meat but I quite fancied trying to out. Never mind.

There's still quite a bit of building work going on at the moment. A new condo complex with shops and restaurants is being built.Will have to go back to check it out

[starwarsclark]

Great report. We have skied in France for the last few years, 6 of us, 2 adults, 4 kids! (16, 14, 12, 10 years old) and we have talked about skiing in America and how great it coul dbe. Now we haven't done anything about 2009 and it would be interesting to hear from you as to how you thought it compared money wise to a trip to Tignes. As the dollar is in our favour at the moment it could be an interesting option and one the kids would love to experience, ok the adults would love to experience and the kids would be along for the ride.
Please let me know what the economics looked like.
Cheers, Andy.

[DisneyMadAng]

Hi Andy,

I booked using the Virgin Ski preview brochure... luckily for us the prices went up when the 'proper' brochure came out.

We'd set a budget of £1000 each for everything excluding food - we weren't really sure what it ws going to cost so that was the maximum we were prepared to go to.

To be honest Europe wasn't coming out much cheaper for us - we were looking at the 'high' resorts - if memory serves me right it was coming out slightly dearer because of the number of rooms we would need to book for 5 of us.

Once we'd decided on the resort I looked through loads of brochures. Virgin came out best and then I priced everything up on a DIY basis and Virgin beat the price - no competition really.

Ok the important bit - what did it cost us?

BIL paid £910 - flight/accomodation/lift passes/transfer Denver to Winter Park

We paid £3680 for the 4 of us for the above and equipment hire.
Lift pass and equipment was free for DS - 12 and unders were free in the Virgin brochure for some resorts. I did price up lift passes and equipment on the Winter Park web-site but it came out quite a bit dearer - even without the 10% frequent Virgin discount. If we'd booked lift pass/equipment in resort we would have paid for DS.

Ski school for the children was $315 for 3 days 10 til 3. The package includes lunch and lift passes - we were given a 10% discount as we already had passes. If the group was cold/thirsty they stopped for a break in the morning and afternoon and were bought a snack or drink by the instructor.

The other big thing - eating!

We thought it was quite cheap really. We ate out 3 nights and the bills came in at $100 plus tips. We only had iced water and a main meal - not because we were trying to be cheap... for some reason, the altitude? , we just weren't that hungry and didn't even finish off the one course we did order.

We bought a couple of big pizzas from the supermarket, $8 each. We could only manage a slice of pizza each with a little bit of salad. Can't believe that between 5 of us we couldn't even eat 1 pizza lol We are normally big eaters... wouldn't like to say how much food we normally pack away

Hope that helps and sorry if it's too 'wordy'

I wouldn't hesitate to go again. Having done the small apartments in France it's really spoilt us.

Let me know if you need to know anything else.

[Minicooper]

Originally Posted by DisneyMadAng

We thought it was quite cheap really. We ate out 3 nights and the bills came in at $100 plus tips. We only had iced water and a main meal - not because we were trying to be cheap... for some reason, the altitude? , we just weren't that hungry and didn't even finish off the one course we did order.

See more...

ALTITUDE does effect you in a strange way, we all felt quite groggy on the first day, one member of our group could not even get out of bed.

[DisneyMadAng]

Originally Posted by Minicooper

ALTITUDE does effect you in a strange way, we all felt quite groggy on the first day, one member of our group could not even get out of bed.

See more...

DH felt ill until the last day, Friday - sickly, headachy and flu like symptoms. He felt really well on Friday then towards the end of the day didn't notice a 'jump' and landed on his cocyx (sp?) ouch! He's still suffering with his back now.

The rest of us just felt a bit groggy/headachy - I don't think it helped that we were waking at about 4am then dozing off just before we wanted to get up though!

Just as an aside... this is the first time none of us have had aches and pains the first couple of days. Last year I could barely walk up the stairs - I was only comfortable in the silly position you're in when you're wearing ski boots lol

It's also the first time none of us have suffered with jet lag. Normally when we come back from Orlando it takes us about a week to recover. This time we got home about 9.30ish in the morning, went to bed at 7pm and was up and about as normal on Monday morning - the children went to school. I was expecting to call the school to say they were flat out!