I am so glad that half term week is over. I feel so sorry for the many families who have paid top price and received, perhaps the poorest service of the season. This week I had to take two groups and the classes were quite large due to the number of clients booked into ski school.
I noticed that there was a rush for breakfast and that the dining room was very crowded. The staff coped well with the extra numbers. Indeed they even added black pudding and hash browns to the breakfast menu. Then after breakfast there was a queue for the ski bus. When they arrived at the telecabine there was a queue to get on. The hire shop and yet another queue, however most of our guests got their equipment the previous evening. After the lesson there was a huge queue for the bars and restaurants. I usually advise the clients to go back to the village where they will find a good selection of bars serving quick lunches. This week a lot of the families took my advice after their experience on Monday.
In the early evenings there were a lot of people watching videos of their classes.. But of course, the footage was very much shorter than on other weeks as the camera men rushed around trying to catch all the extra classes. The evenings were very much quieter than usual. So much so, I was in bed every night by midnight, except one, when Mike was singing in the Palarine. (That is another story).
I realise that this is the only week that families with school age children can come skiing in February but I feel very sorry that due to the sheer numbers, we cannot deliver the service that we want to provide. I hope that they were not disappointed and that they may be able to visit us during a much quieter period when we can make their holiday a much more pleasant experience.
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