minow@decvax.UUCP (Martin Minow) (04/12/84)
Frequent readers of this journal may recall that, last February, I asked for suggestions for an European skiing vacation. Got back last week after a great trip that included a week's skiing at Club Med in St. Moritz Switzerland. Here follow a few remarks. Club Med. has three resorts in St. Moritz, the Victoria, Roi Soliel, and Pointresina (which isn't advertised in the U.S. and is rumored to be very small and catering mostly to cross-country skiers). Victoria, where I went, is a huge old hotel (mentioned in a Baedeker from 1928) which they have nicely renovated. It is apparently the preferred hotel for Americans -- the brochure notes that it is "totally bilingual" this year. Roi Soliel, on the other hand is "French/German" and thus apparently less suited to the monolingual American. While I was there, however, somebody noted that Roi Soliel got more non-French Europeans, which resulted in more English being spoken. At Victoria, the mix seemed to be about 75% French, 15% German, and the rest scattered. There were about 5 Americans (including one other on Usenet!). While all the staff spoke English and there was one American hostess, almost all of the entertainment was in French, which could be tough going if your only exposure to the language was from college text books. The vacation was all-inclusive (meals, lift tickets, full-day lessons, etc.). The price was reasonable for a middle-class hotel -- you can spend $400.00 per night in St. Moritz (and didn't seem noticably higher for the Americans than for people who booked in Europe). The food was ok -- I've had worse in much fancier places -- and there was a lot of it at the breakfast and lunch buffets. Dinner was sit-down service, but you could always fill up at the cheese board. Club Med. gets an upper middle-class, professional bunch. The people I hung out with included engineers, product managers, advertising account executives, surgeons, and corporate vice-presidents. Most people came in couples and, while Club Med. has a reputation for a certain shall we say moral loosness, what messing around that was done seemed to be very discreet. Only a few gripes: The French smoke a lot, and haven't quite figured out that it bothers others. I was lucky in that my roommate was a non-smoker, but others were not. Lunch and dinner coffee was not included in the all-included (and was bloddy over-priced to boot). By American standards, skiing at St. Moritz wasn't very challenging. Most runs (no matter how they were marked) would be "intermediate" in the U.S. The Swiss have lots of T-bars -- some over a mile long. With that as the extent of my complaints, you can well understand that I enjoyed my stay and can recommend Club Med. to others. You will have a better time (in St. Moritz) if you understand colloquial, spoken French, and you will enjoy yourself more if you don't head for the computers (Atari 800's) after skiing. Martin Minow decvax!minow
hstrop@mhuxt.UUCP (trop) (04/13/84)
Regarding Club Med ski trips: I've gone to St. Moritz twice via Club Med. I'm a cross country skier and I have never had so much fun or skied such challenging terrain as when I was in the St. Moritz area. I skied with a Club Med group of about 12 people both times. They were all very experienced skiers, and they were all Europeans; they were suprised to see an American x-country skier! We generally averaged 30 km per day, and all that food they serve was very appreciated. My first time over there I stayed at Potresina, which at the time was a grand old hotel on the side of the mountain. It looked like a fortress. Unfortunately, they had a severe fire that summer and so the Pontresina resort is now in much smaller quarters. That is the main reason it is not advertised in the US. The next year I stayed at the Roi Soleil, much more modern accomidations, and because of thedownhillers, a much more international crowd. Just about every civilized country was included, plus Australia:-). I heartily recommend the trip, besides being very reasonable costwise, it is a great way to meet interesting people from all over the world. Harvey S. Trop mhuxt!hstrop