5 Seemingly obvious tips to avoid disaster on your skiing holiday

Speaking from our experiences at Simply Morzine we have devised the following tips to help avoid the seemingly obvious disasters that can occur on a ski holiday. We have all been guilty of having lapses in common sense, concentration and downright stupidity when on holiday. For some reason, even the most sensible and organised person can fall in to the laid back trap of a holiday and leave their senses at home. Hopefully it won’t be you!

1. Don’t lose your luggage or take someone else’s!

This may seem like the most unnecessary and obvious tip however every season there is usually at least one case of forgotten, incorrect or lost luggage, try to ensure it isn’t yours!

Use luggage labels, straps, ribbons or whatever you like to make your luggage look unique. No matter how well you think you may recognise your own suitcase, there will inevitably be another traveller who found the same great deal as you.

Then, make sure you take the right case off the carousel. Getting to your chalet and unpacking someone else’s luggage isn’t how you want to end a long day of travelling, even if they have nicer gear than you. The process of returning mistaken luggage and retrieving your own can be lengthy!

Account for all of your bags! Sometimes that pesky boot bag or duty free bag can easily be left behind.

2. Whatever you do, don’t lose your lift pass!

Your lift pass will be one of the most important and expensive items on your person, so should be treated like gold dust. There is nothing worse than having to fork out more money because some muppet in your group lost their pass.

Portes du Soleil & Morzine-Les Gets lift passes are all hands free. This means the scanners pick them up from within your pockets so you don’t have to wave them about or insert them into a machine.

Our advice is to pick a pocket, seal it up with your lift pass and only your lift pass inside (especially mobiles as phone signals can interfere), and don’t touch it for the remainder of your holiday. If possible, do anything to seal up your children’s pockets; sew them up, tape them shut, just make sure they aren’t fiddling with their pass when you drop them off at ski school. If you change jacket or pants for any reason, remember to swap your pass over!

Finally, take a photo of your lift pass upon receipt. Each pass has a unique code, which can increase the chances of your pass being cancelled and renewed if lost or stolen.

3. Don’t take the wrong skis and stop someone taking yours!

When you hire your equipment and put it away in the boot room, guests often think they know which boots and skis they hired – the red boots and the white skis. Until you then realise that all 20 people in the chalet have red boots and white skis.

Take photos of your equipment and the unique bar codes. When you head out skiing in the morning or set off again after a lunch break, make sure you have the correct equipment – hire skis, poles, helmets and boots often look very similar! In most cases your boots won’t fit the bindings of another ski, but if they do this can be very dangerous as your DIN settings are set to your height, weight and ability level.

To avoid your skis being taken by mistake or stolen, mix them up with your friend’s when you put them down. This means pairing one of your skis with an un-matching ski. Mixing them up 3 ways should ensure that nobody takes them accidentally.

4. Don’t get lost! Study the piste map!

No matter how many episodes of Bear Grylls you have seen, you don’t want to end the day getting helicoptered off the mountain, hours after the lifts closed and part way through building a snow hole – yes that has happened but we won’t name and shame.

Study the piste map, clock the opening and closing times of each lift (excuse the pun) and make sure you know how to get home.

The Portes du Soleil is a big resort and it can be easy to get confused or lost if you haven’t done your homework. It can be a lot more difficult and extremely expensive to get home if you end up stuck in another resort.

Ensure that you also have emergency contact numbers, whether this is your Simply Morzine representative, manager or the mountain rescue service.

5. Don’t leave your passport behind!

We appreciate that nobody wants to go home after an amazing skiing holiday, but leaving your passport in your bedside drawer while you’re on your way back to the airport is a bit extreme.

Thoroughly check your accommodation and make sure that you (or anyone else in your group) haven’t left anything behind, especially your passport.

Arranging for your passport to be found and then couriered to the airport in a taxi is a very stressful scenario to be in, especially if there are no alternative flights available.

Thanks for reading and happy skiing!