ski info

[Jes Sorensen]

Matt Wilson wrote:
> I still need to book transportation from GVA to the resort.  I also
> need to book a hotel room or make other sleeping arrangements in GVA
> for Saturday night, if everyone is planning to depart the resort on
> Saturday.

Ok so here's the scoop! I finally made it to the airport on my way home
last night and there is indeed a bus service from Geneva airport to
Avoriaz. It runs 5 times per day on Saturdays and 3 times per day any
other days. The roundtrip fare is CHF 86 / EUR 55.50 or CHF 51.00 /
EUR 33.50 for one-way. The bus takes roughly 2 hours to the resort.

Everyone please verify my list here, I have the following people listed
as needing transport from Geneva:

Matt Wilson (arrives one day late)
Pekka Iwonteventrytospellit (leaves a day early)
David Woodhouse
Grant Grundler
Martin Hicks
Jes Sorensen

Who did I miss?

This means we have 5 people going back and forth both Saturdays. We can
rent a 5 seater van with space for everyone for EUR 275 for the week.
Petrol will be approximately 20L or EUR 25, ie. total is in the order of
EUR 305. Driving on the other hand should take about an hour, half the
time on the bus.

If we go by car it would probably make sense for Matt to buy a
round-trip bus ticket and then sell the second half of it to Pekka.
Note the timetable states that the return *must* be booked in advance.

In other words, we can get to the resort in about half the time, but it
will cost a total of EUR 25 more .... what do people prefer?

To answer Matt's question, then yes we have to depart the resort on
Saturday, and with a 9am flight out of Geneva you need 2 hrs for checkin
due to the fact you are going on a US airline - one hour should normally
be sufficient if you are going to any sane destination, but add extra
time on Saturdays due to all the annoying skiers :-) A 6am departure
from the resort to make that is just not in the cards :-)

The bus times are as follows (estimated times):

Geneva->Avoriaz (x == Saturday only)
Depart: 08:30(x) 11:00    12:40(x) 14:15    18:15
Arrive: 10:15    13:10    14:30    16:10    20:15

Avoriaz->Geneva (x == Saturday only)
Depart: 08:15    11:30(x) 14:15    15:50(x) 17:10
Arrive: 10:15    13:10    16:00    17:50    19:10

The other good news: it's been SNOWING! In fact, it's been pissing down
all weekend here and the resort got a good dumping of snow! We haven't
seen all that much snow this season, but from what Ben reported it
sounds like the resort is finally at good levels! .... and they are
promising rain in Geneva all week - expect more snow at the resort!

Cheers,
Jes