I had thought about doing this last night but we just had to get some sleep. Skiing holidays make you t-i-r-e-d. If it isnt the amazingly fresh and clear air, the gorgeous sunshine or that just being on holiday relaxness you get. You will certainly find three kids and ski gear and missing the bus on the first morning of ski school *cough* will tire the old legs and body out…but thats another story, maybe later…
First up, we packed, we tidied (we have people staying in our house while we are away), we pondered 'could we do without certain things,' we weighed the suitcases..unsucessfully i might add. The we were ready for the off. Kids in bed nice and early and us to bed at a not so bad time…and then setting the alarm for 3.30 was pretty painful but there you are..ive been up at that time many times in my life but only a few times have i been up in order to catch a plane.
and never with so many other people to get up at that time….
their best 430am faces. They all did pretty well. Matilda, however was clearly no fan of being dragged from her bed early thank you very much.
We went by transfer taxi, which was such a good idea, they turned up bang on time with little bags of smoothies, yoghurts, cereal bars and magazines each for the kids and just bundled us all into a huge vehicle and we snoozed our way to Manchester airport.
At manchester we met up with the other thousands of people catching ski flights to Geneva and then fought our way to check in and discovered we had one bag a little on the heavy side….so swift repacking needed 🙂
The snowboards had to go in the 'outsized' check in point so we joined the couple of miles of people doing the same thing and gave the kids a little chat on how there is usually lots of 'queuing' at airports!
Security measures are pretty tight, and the girls, Maisie in particular..had a bit of a melt down about her soft toy dog being sent through the x ray machines. In the stress of it all, i forgot to take my belt off and so walked through the scanners with Matilda in one hand and it alarmed and a rather snotty woman (must have been her bad day) had a go at me. 'even when you have kids you know you have to consider security measures!' I learned a long time ago that you dont joke with these people and just mumbled something but inside was thinking 'REALLY! NO!! You mean you dont just see that i have children and think 'heck take whatever the hell you like onto the plane?"….i think the kids thought i was heading to prison.
Once we were through there we caught a few minutes….
which turned out to be a few minutes too many as we were being called by name for the plane. Oops. Finally aboard and managing to miss any expressions of horror on our fellow travellers faces at the sight of such young kids getting on the plane and sitting anywhere near them. We were seated and ready for the runway.
Poppy checking out the emergency material…'so has that man been in a crash mummy?'
The kids were all in all pretty good in the plane. It was a little over and hour and a half flight and we had snacks and drinks and drawing for them to do which was great for the girls but lost on Isaac..who just stared out the window and fiddled with this and that and worried about his ears popping…..Matilda struggled a little but did pretty well too..had a sleep and did no real major howling….phew…
Bus transfer to the resort with one of those larger than life reps that is a little draining when you have been up since 3.30am but i have admire his tenacity. Then we stopped just outside the resort to drop off some folk for the chalets and i jumped out to snap this…
We finally got to the resort about midday local time. Felt like it was the end of the day but we had a pleasant surprise at the apartments which are fabulous. Ski apartments historically are kind of…rabbit hutch like…tiny spaces with just enough room for your bed. But we lucked out and our apartments are fabulous. Free welcome drinks as we walked in…and Madagascar playing on a huge video screen. Big smiles.
We had an explore, got the kids ski stuff sorted, booked them into ski school and went and had a nose at the slopes. Then a little chilling out before bed, looking forward to the start of a big day for the little James kids….
the view from our balcony……
