anyone been to Claviere

[mummydoc]

have booked a very cheap ski trip with crystal to claviere, not expecting tto much from hotel as was cheap as chips , but hey aslong as there is snow and hot water i am not too fussy. has anyone else been to tthe resort ?? lots of very mixed reviews on websites

I have, years ago. It's not very big, but quite pretty I think. I only did the chair lift to the top of the Blue run and down, but i think you can link to the Milky Way. The best thing was doing the same run on a toboggan one evening.

small and pretty fine by me, dd1 and dh quite good, dd2 aged 4 is having her first go on skis so we dodn't need much in the way advanced slopes! love the sound of the tobogan

We went over to Montgenevre too one day. There's a big snow bowl at the top of the cable car, and a lovely long, gentle green run back to the bottom. Can you tell I'm a cowardly custard on skis.....?

oh me too, i can ski much harder runs i just choose to gently cruise around the blue and greens, stop at lunch have a few mulled wines and then read my book in the afternoon, dh treats the whole thing as an endurance test, dd1 has to be dragged off the last lift at the end of the day and dd2 has been practising at home having turned the sofa cushions into a ski slope ...ahhhh

We skied with Crystal in Claviere a few years ago, first ski trip post 2 children. We had previously skied in Montgenevre pre children and had skied most of the time over in Claviere because it was pretty, less busy and the snow was great. We thought Claviere was nice - a bit old fashioned lift wise but sone very pretty runs through the trees and not too crowded. Some good piste side cafes and restaurants too. As mentioned you can ski over to Montgenevre which has more pistes. If the snow is good the bowl at the top is good for easy cruising.

are you back mummydoc? How was it?

it was fab, have posted review. for the money it far exceeded our expectations. to summarise:

Journey : a doddle, checked in hte night before at gatwick, got to airport at 5;30 am for 6:30 am flight - flight 1 1/2 hrs with breakfast served - just like old days .Hundreds of crystal staff at turin , quickly directed to our coach which wasn't there but crystal reps soon located a different coach for us ( ours stuck onicey roads). trip up mountain an 1 and 20 mins.

Hotel: very basic but our room was vast and warm and there was gallons of hot water from the shower and the mattresses on the beds were new and very comfy. we got there noon ish on sat so had time to get our skis, boots etc. sat evening the kids club opened for a few hrs to go and meet the staff, let the kids have a bit of play/look see etc. they took over all hteir kit and labelled it up for us! kids club ran from 8:30 until 2pm and in afternoon if you wanted and then in hte evening. we put our 4 year old to bed and went to dinner, the doors were locked and the dining room loked onto the front of the hotel so you could see if any one came in or out. the hotel also gave every room a portable dvd player so we left older daughter and her new best friend watching dvds in the room one night.

Food: great ! from brekkie porridge to choccy brownies to nice properly cooked kids meals and lovely dinners. kids hihgt ea at 5:30 with 3 choices!

resort: tiny , but that adds to the appeal, ski school was for 2 hrs a day , my 9 year old loved being a group with another girl and 4 adults who fussed ove rhtem no end and my baby (4years) was in a group of 4 lo and had a great time. all the classes were only for people from our hotel, i had a private lesson for 1 hr with very gorgeous italian ski instructor

cost : the whole thing including kids club, lift passes, hire of kit, ski school etc came to £2400 for all 4 of us. we spent a grand total of about £100 in the resort as drinks and lunch time chips were very cheap compared to the french resorts.

overall a great experience and super value for money , we will definightly go back