Weekend skiing trips

[SloaneAgaRanger]

Has anyone successfully pulled off any weekend trips?
Best DH can do is leave the city by 6pm on Friday. Wants to be back on Sunday.
Are any destinations possible?

Not in May.

@Horological for next season! We were just discussing it at dinner last night... any advice is most welcome.

We've done it a few times, albeit with taking Friday off and going Thursday evening but the same would apply.
You would need to head for one of the resorts close in to Geneva (for instance) for a short transfer. There are some around the hour mark. There are
evening flights from Gatwick, Heathrow and Luton. You'd arrive in resort late and would therefore need to arrange entry to your accommodation.
Ditto, there are late flights back from GVA (eg, one around 9.30 to LTN) but in mid-winter you wouldn't be skiing much beyond 4pm anyway.
Totally do-able but not a particularly good-value-for-money option, that's all. And if the weather is bad, you're kind of landed with no options for it clearing up later in the week, that's all.

The difficulty is finding a ski hotel that’s happy to have you for just two nights. Some resorts are set on longer stays. Courmayeur and Morzine are both possibilities with short transfers if you are going Jan through March and are good weekend destinations. You also would need to get a private transfer most likely as you’ll arrive pretty late into resort. I really would strongly recommend taking Friday off if you can because it’s a lot of faff and expense for 2 days skiing but 3 days I find works well. But 2 days better than 0 days I guess!

Yes perfectly possible. Get a private flight to one of the smaller airports in the Alps. If your DH works in the city it'll be small change for a weekend.

But sering as your other post about looking for stables near Chelsea was to cut down on travel for the environment, then I would strongly reconsider a weekend ski trip if I were you. Otherwise you might come across rather contradicting yourself.

Scotland in February? We used to drive up on Friday eve pre children.

It's possible, but you need to keep an eye on the winter flight timetables when these are published. Be sure to check all of the airlines for a particular destination so that if necessary you can fly out with one airline and back with another. If you are not driving to the UK airport look at the possibilities of flying out of one UK airport and back to a different one - e.g. out of Gatwick and back to Stansted.

Geneva airport is the obvious entry point for France/Switzerland, but Salzburg and Munich work well for many Austrian resorts. Salzburg in particular has just a short transfer, an hour or so, to many good resorts - but weekday/Friday departures are mainly limited to the London airports.

A 2-day weekend is a bit tight - you'll lose a chunk of Sunday getting back to the airport. A 3-day weekend, leaving Thursday or returning Monday makes the weekend a bit more worthwhile.

As for accommodation - outside of high season there is always accommodation available, albeit at a price. Either a relatively expensive central hotel that is used to taking short bookings, or at the other end of the scale, a cheap B&B on the edge of the resort that is pretty basic but has a comfy bed, hot water and a hearty breakfast and might be a 10 minute taxi or bus ride from the lifts.

There is also an eco-friendly (or at least friendlier) option for anyone who can make the timings work.

Austrian Railways (ÖBB) now run a number of Nightjet sleeper trains across Europe. Although the winter/2023 timetable has yet to be published, the current timetable has a Paris departure at 18.58 arriving Salzburg 07.20 next morning - and the return leaving Salzburg at 22.18 arriving in Paris at 09.42.

Admittedly you need to get a Eurostar at both ends of the journey but you get 2 full days of skiing and avoid all of the airport chaos.

[This option would of course also work well for one-week holidays]

Agree with a 3 day weekend if at all possible so you can get 2 days skiing in. Bit of a hassle going for a day or day and a half. Choose a resort close to Geneva and it's perfectly doable.

Try skiline.co.uk, they are some kind of special agents for Club Med, they can offer 2 nights in one of the all inclusive Club Med resorts. I book with a lady called Elaine, apparently Club Med book lots of corporate groups, who only stay mid week, so I've picked up some great deals with my girlfriends, in an all inclusive resort and a free lift pass. What's not to like?

I do a ski weekend every year - however unless you take an extra day, you'll end up only skiing 1.5 days. Choose a resort near an airport...late Flight on Friday, ski all day Sat and Sun morning? Better if you can ski all day sunday too, and return monday?

Chamonix is the most obvious place for a weekend.

We do ski weekends sometimes. Places within 90 minutes drive of Geneva include Megeve, Flaine/Les Carroz, Les Gets/Morzine, Le Grande Bornands, La Clusaz, Les Contamines.
We've also pushed on through Mont Blanc to Courmayeur for weekends (3 nights though to balance the journey time). A longer journey but it's a gorgeous town with lots to enjoy in its own right, full of posing Milanese in furs, done up to the nines. And the skiing is very pretty.
We are not keen on Chamonix - ski areas are too spread out.
So quite a few places that are do-able. We do stay three nights though, otherwise you get very little time skiing and being in the village or town. It's a lovely break, really perks you up in the middle of winter, I'd encourage you to do it!

Yes, pre-kids we did weekends in Morzine and Megève and I think it would work with Chamonix, Flaine, Ischgl, anywhere that is a short transfer.

The key is the availability of flights.

There used to be a Ryanair flight from Stansted to Salzburg on Friday evenings which meant that it was possible to reach Saalbach or Zell am See before midnight - with the return flight similarly late on Sunday, allowing for almost two full days on the slopes.

That option no longer exists - and with the environment to consider and the problems with airport staffing, it is likely that weekend schedules such as that one will be a thing of the past.

Environmentally, get the train to Aviemore

Or train across Europe as recommended by @Havanananana

Swiss fly from London City airport to Zurich on Friday evenings at 7pm. Theres a return Monday morning that gets you to LCY for 7.30am.
You can take a train from zurich airport until 11pm to Flumserberg, it takes 1hr45.
Or spend the night in Zurich and take an early train to Klosters, takes under 2 hours. The main lift beside the train station in klosters platz gives access to the Davos ski area. I've done both as day trips from Basel (which adds an extra hour to the train).
Trains can be quite cheap if you book ahead on the SBB website on a pre-selected train. Lift passes are always expensive though.

We’ve done Salzburg then Bad Hofgastein and Grossarl (only 50 mins trf). But three nights (2.5 days skiing)

London City to Geneva Friday afternoon, 45 minutes to resorts like Samoens or Morillon. Possibly an hour to Morzine. Early flight back from Geneva Monday AM ?