By Train
Definitely the way to go!
Leaving St. Albans at about 2pm on Friday to drive down to Dover was really quite civilized. Rolling in to Dover at about four seemed too easy - well, it was. It took us another half hour to find the car park
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Meeting up with the other happy campers at the ferry terminal was a little chaotic, but easy enough. We were soon shepherded onto a transfer coach to take us on to the ferry - first stop food!
Adrian’s organisational skills were key to getting the luggage manhandled through train windows into the tiny storage compartment, leaving our compartments free to start the partying. It wasn’t long before we had opened the wine and our cozy six person room had 12 excitable occupants, determined to have a seriously good laugh.
More to come ....
By Plane (Thanks to Brian Lloyd)
Leaving home at 3:00am on the Saturday morning to get to Gatwick wasn't quite as civilized a start as those going by train had. Still, the M25 is remarkably quiet at that time in the morning, and the check-in queue wasn't too bad, and there was plenty of time to stock up on duty frees. The plane was an hour late leaving because of air traffic control problems, but this minor frustration was soon put out of my mind when the woman two seats along from me decided to buy everyone in her row a bottle of bucks fizz to help celebrate her birthday!
Landing was interesting - we came down through thick cloud and our first sight of the ground was about 10 seconds before the wheels touched down. Lyons was engulfed in a snow storm!
As we got onto the coach, we were each given two sets of leaflets which seemed to contradict each other about what was on each night. Still, they both agreed that the transfer time was about 3 hours, so that was OK (ha!).
3 1/2 hours after leaving Lyons we were still only half way to Courchevel. We'd got stuck in one set of roadworks and very nearly left several of the ladies who had got out of the coach to stretch their legs behind (Cat, our rep, had to jump off the moving coach, run back down the road, find them, then catch up with the coach and get on again!). We stopped at a small cafe (after taking a wrong turning, and finding out how good our coach driver was at reversing at high speed down a narrow alley) where the owners were rather shocked at having 10 coach loads of hungry people turn up demanding food and drink. They probably took more money in that hour than they normally do all week.
We then set off again, with some of the coach drivers taking a chance on the back roads to avoid the 10 mile tailback that was the result of a landslide at Moutiers. Unfortunately, the French police have a policy of keeping everyone on the main roads, whether they're blocked or not, so we soon found ourselves crawling along painfully slowly, swearing at the Eurostar trains going past at 90mph.
When we finally did get to the bottom of the mountain and start our ascent, it was worth the wait. The scenery was fantastic, and the lower parts of Courchevel were lit up like a set from a Christmas film. Having to walk the last half a mile because the coaches weren't allowed to the hotel was a bit of a pain, though (strange how Mike and Linda were dropped off at the door of the hotel when they finally got there!).
The best conditions in years. All the snow that had contributed to the avalanche warnings in the previous weeks was still there, but now safe, fluffy and in huge quantities. Through the week the sun came out, and we were treated to glorious, almost tee-shirt skiing conditions.
More to come ....
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The Dancing
Three organized dance evening hosted by Mike & Linda, with classes ranging from Dirty Dancing to Cha-cha. The hall was full for each of the nights, and everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves from ninish, through to the early hours - after an almost never-ending series of “last records” from Mike.
In between the official dance nights, the bars and diners of the hotels were taken over by swarms of irrepressible dancers - especially the Isba!
More to come ....
On the Plane
The trip back was equally delightful. Getting up at 4:30am (2 hours after going to bed after the last dance night!) was an effort, but most people managed a snooze on the coach. There were no trolleys around at the airport, so we all dragged our bags in only to find the check in displays saying "Flight delayed by 4 hours. Monarch wish you a pleasant journey". That 4 hours turned into 6 1/2, which is 6 hours more than anyone would ever want to spend at Lyons airport. It turned out that the delay was because the crew needed a rest! We did get fed, after a fashion, and a lot of us took the opportunity to top up our sun tans on the grass outside the terminal building. When we finally did get totally fed up and decided to go through and get some duty free booze, we found the plane waiting for us and half full - the displays were still telling us to report for lunch! The final insult was that the check-in people had assigned us seats for an Airbus, and the plane was actually a DC10, so it was a free-for-all to find a seat.
Fight you for a place on the snow train next year!
On the Train
Well, what can I say - just more of the same - one long party until a tired Derek refused to perform the forfeit to re-enter the carriage ... Photos to follow!
More to come ...
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