Peter wrote:
I am looking at Verbier (or some other places around there) in December. Looking for some decent number of blue runs I looked up a few “beginner” suggestions earlier in the thread and some of them didn’t really have any.
Verbier has lots of easy runs. Probably a good choice.
Has anyone flown into Courchevel or Meribel, to ski?
They are pretty and once you know the place it is quite practical to get around, especially if you can do some steep reds and then you can move around the Three Valleys even better. The buses are rather “random” in both times and where they stop, or drive past 
BTW I don’t believe Verbier has any “easy” runs unless you can ski any red. But then most skiers can indeed ski any red
Peter wrote:
Has anyone flown into Courchevel or Meribel, to ski?
I yearningly look at people doing that, but when I get my mind back to reality, I find it hard to organize, with the site rating that needs to be kept current and all.
Btw. my girlfriend and I will be skiing next week from 27-31 in a small valley near Zell am See (she has never been on skis before, that’ll be fun!). We will fly in if possible, so if anyone is around at LOWZ on these days, do give me a shout. 
I knew a couple of Brits doing it and both stopped when Courchevel dropped customs/immigration. One of them no longer flies anyway.
BTW I did look at Zell very carefully for beginner slopes (flew there March 2016, to ski) and could not find any. Some posts further back up this thread. One ski instructor I met at the airport confirmed this. There are kiddie slopes, for learning (these are everywhere). But no easy runs – the equivalent of a French green – as such.
Peter wrote:
BTW I did look at Zell very carefully for beginner slopes (flew there March 2016, to ski) and could not find any.
I remember discussing this with you. In our case this year, Zell am See is fully booked anyway, so we are now going to Rauris, which is a smallish resort about 25km further where we were able to book an AirBnB. It should have some easy runs – let’s see. I can report here once we’re back.
Courchevel is awesomely expensive. A meal is easily €50. Taxis are €50 for 5-10mins. There are many very wealthy Russians here, hence the prices, according to the locals.
There is a good combination of slopes. Unlike e.g. Madonna where everything was groomed to perfection overnight, here they don’t get around to doing the whole lot. But great skiing on the whole, with some wide and easy long blues and not too crowded especially if you hit the ski lift when it opens (9am usually). However I would not say any of the greens (I think I did most of them – well the ones which were actually open; they close some due to avalanche risk but nobody knows so you don’t discover this until you reach a CLOSED sign and then have to get down a red to get out of there ) are really easy and suitable for a total beginner – unless you mess about on a small part of a run.
We also dropped into Meribel (via the ski lift via the top of the mountain). That is even more pricey and full of designer ski gear shops.
Plenty of PC12 traffic to Courchevel although I could not tell if it was the same one doing charter work.
When I last flew to Zell am See I was able to get a room at the last minute. That is obviously risky however and equally obviously if you can get an airb&b you get about 5x the space of a hotel room of the same price.
€22 gets you this:
Is it worth it? Of course it is!
Has anyone flown into Courchevel or Meribel, to ski?
I got the LFLJ rating last year and went to ski once. Rating has now lapsed, so I would need an instructor for landing. While landing at LFLJ is not expensive, stopping at LFLB to pick up an instructor can set one back EUR 1000. I’m not sure I want to bother with that again. Flying to LIDT instead. Landing there is EUR 14.
Skiing in France and in Switzerland just doesn’t make sense really. Italy and Austria cost way less and are
at least as good.
IMHO the reason for the Courchevel restaurant prices (the ski shops there are not abnormally priced, probably because their density is comparable to the phone shop density in the UK) is the high % of Russians and others from that “business community” who for cultural reasons set out to flaunt their money in a high profile way. If you go to a 99%-French location (e.g. Grand Bornand, not far from Annecy, where I heard other than French only once in 3 days) you don’t pay abnormal prices. OTOH the standard of customer service (bus drivers excluded!) at Courchevel was very high, with everyone friendly and smiling, which was not even remotely comparable with Grand Bornand.
The skiing itself is good or bad according to what you personally like. I find that the vast majority of skiers actually seen on the slopes are advanced (red runs no problem) and these people can ski almost anywhere.
As for GA airport access, for a good skier there are many options around the Alps and France is pretty good. For me, greens and easy blues, most of the popular GA airports are of little use.
This December has been exceptional for snow. Nothing like it for as long as most locals there can remember.
Has anyone flown into Geneva? For an airline passenger it is an incredibly disorganised cattle market.
