Before heading out to the mountains for the first time in years, consider having a ski lesson in the UK first!
During the Easter break, I took my teenage daughter skiing in Soldeu, Andorra. I booked the whole trip through Crystal Ski which proved to be a wise choice as everything was so well organised, including the hire equipment and ski school.
The Soldeu ski school is highly rated and rightly so. My daughter had an amazing time and found the instructor to be highly engaging which helped with her confidence and improved her ability and ski level greatly.
I do feel that the whole experience was helped by having a refresher ski lesson at Hemel Hempstead Snow Centre before we went.
Before the Andorra trip, my daughter had not been on a ski holiday or had ski lessons in two years. She was at an intermediate level and was just learning to do parallel turns. The ski lessons that she had last time in France were not very good and if anything, my daughter had lost confidence.
The lesson at Hemel Hempstead Snow Centre not only helped her regain her confidence, but also in helping her get over that vital next step in ability with parallel turns.
This meant that my daughter headed out to Soldeu with confidence and was put into the correct ski school group for her skill set from the off-set. For this reason I believe that the snow centre ski lesson saved her at least a day’s slope time.
Obviously there are plenty of dry ski slopes to have lessons on in the UK, but having a lesson on real snow really makes a difference.
With the Snow centre being the closest indoor real snow slope from London, It was only a 45 minute drive from where we live in Surrey.
Although a short lesson and not ever meeting my daughter before, the instructor quickly assessed her level and knew what improvements she needed to make. The instructor was very professional, had the right expertise and made my daughter feel at ease.
So before heading out to the slopes for the first time in years, consider a refresher ski lesson!