Anyone been to Xscape?

[LibbyVonTrap]

Can you just turn up and go snowboarding on the slopes? We have no experience and no equipment - we just want to try something new

I can't see the option but if it is £300 than thats £150 each and isn't it a fast track so you're able to use the slopes after a day, rather than the 5 individual lessons? Doesn't seem bad to me if it's something you're interested in doing and keeping up.

I've never done skiing or snowboarding and there's no way I'd want to rock up and hit the slopes without even knowing how to put on the equipment.

For DH and I the “day course” thing would be £299

So not £300 for 1 lesson as you originally stated.

Anyway either go and take a lesson or go, lie about your ability, at best get kicked out at worst kill someone.

You won’t get anything out of it without some instruction - you wouldn’t stand a chance of getting on the lift, if you even managed to get your boots and skis /board on -and you’d be a menace to others.

So do the initial lesson for £36 each. If you like it you can do more, if not no harm done you've tried something new and hopefully had a laugh.

They will be even more careful now given the tragedy of the recent death of a child on the slope there

I learned to snowboard 100 years ago somewhere abroad, at the time there was no health and safety

It was cheap as chips for a lesson (actually cheaper than the bloody rip off chips in the care) so we took lessons. Unless you are a really good Skateboarder or surfer, you have no chance of just picking up snowboarding. We watched a young teen with the confidence and indestructability of youth try to teach himself on a borrowed board. It looked fucking painful.

It takes time ( and tuition) to understand how the edges of the board grip through a turn. They bite. Very suddenly. And without warning. you will hit the ground with incredible speed either face first or arse first. Without decent tuition the kid just kept on mashing his face in the ice. Over and over.

Amazingly he didn’t give up and at the end of a week he was almost as good as we had been by the end of our first 2hr lesson.

Given the thread you started… today!

Please get tuition. For he others users safety if nothing else. Your DH sounds like a liability

* Last year DH and I joined David Lloyd. We signed up for the extra racquet sports so we could play together and spend time together. Neither of us had really played tennis before so I wasn’t expecting amazing rallies or whatever but thought we might improve together. *

Anyway first time we booked a court DH really showed us up. He was throwing himself on the floor, running into the net and “bouncing off it” and at one point threw his racquet across the court. I kept telling him to stop messing around as people were looking but he made out it was all accidental and he was just getting to grips with everything. We tried a couple more times but he acted the same, it was totally pointless as I’d hit the ball and he would either miss it or whack it into the wall. I spent the entire time just stood there waiting for him to get up off the floor.

We tried an outdoor court but that was worse as the ball just went flying and DH would run after it through the courts rather than just leaving it and using a new ball. We ended up arguing the last time we were there and havnt been since.

It took me a week of 3 hr private lessons on a ski holiday to be able to competently master snowboarding down anything other than a nursery slope. I came back from that holiday absolutely hooked, but black and blue all over and with a cracked rib. I echo others that snowboarding is not something you can just 'have a go' at.

A 2 hr lift pass is £40 anyway at Milton Keynes, so the lesson at £35 actually works out cheaper.

I actually manage a ski slope in the UK. There's no way you would be allowed on our slope not having any experience or ability. I'd actually ask you to leave (and have done with customers in the past) if you went on ours as without knowing how to turn and stop you could seriously injure another slope user. It's considered a high risk sport and our insurance premium reflects this. We have numerous Risk Assesments to try and keep users safe but accidents still do happen even with experienced skiers and boarders. If you're not willing to learn the skills and speed control needed to keep yourself and other users as safe as possible on the slopes it's not the sport for you.

@Hellocatshome

You can go sledging if you book ahead but that’s a bit shit now they’ve changed the sledges and gone all health and safety so you can’t mess about going backwards and upside down

I think this is a bit insensitive especially since a child has recently died sledging at a snowdome. Health and safety measures are there for a reason.

OP if you can't be bothered to make sure you are not a danger to other people or yourself by reaching a basic level of competency before going on the slopes then please just stay away.

Apologies, I didn’t know about the recent death.

We started going about 15 years ago and it was much more fun, last went about three years ago and it was literally a case of going up and down the same twenty foot each time repeatedly for forty minutes. I wouldn’t go back for this reason.