UPDATE 1 MARCH: We still have tickets, just click on the blue [Book now] button to start the booking process and see all prices.
As usual there will be an afterwork departure on Friday late afternoon (17h30) from Brussels Schuman. We ski for 2 days and return on Sunday evening. For all prices (e.g. ski rental), click on the above blue [Book now] button or click here to go to the reservation page. This trip is very family friendly (children up to 16 years get €75 discount), but also great for couples, solo travellers, retirees, hikers and nordic skiers. If you have any questions, you can call until 23h00 with 0495-345144.
NOTE: it is unlikely that we are planning another trip, so this is your chance to hit the slopes one more time this season. Interested in our other trips, click here ≫
❆ AFTERWORK departure from Place Schuman, La Chasse & Metro Delta
❆ RETURN Sunday evening by 22h30 (last trip actual time 22h28!)
❆ NEW 4* Best Western hotel with 8,3 review
❆ FREE breakfast buffet included (not during our previous trips!)
❆ FREE use of pool & spa facilities in our hotel
❆ FREE room-sharing service for single travellers in twin rooms
❆ ORDER your ski equipment through Expat Club (less waiting time)
***
Expat Club found a superb solution for your skiing / snowboarding addiction! Indeed, we are going to hit the slopes for a weekend and found the best destination North of the Alps. You can ski on Saturday and Sunday in the lovely resort La Bresse-Hohneck with 2 high-speed chairlifts and 5 regular ones, 50km of slopes in all difficulties. This trip is great for beginners as there are plenty of easy slopes and we offer a FREE beginners class for those without any experiences. This trip is also great for families and solo travellers as we offer special rooms and room sharing services. And finally if you don’t like skiing, you can always join for nordic skiing, hiking or snow shoeing. For questions, just call us at 0495-345144 or start a chat message in the right lower corner.
We will be travelling to Épinal, a nice regional town on the edge of the Vosges mountains of Eastern France, where we will stay in the 4* Best Western La Fayette. From there we travel towards La Bresse – Hohneck on Saturday morning. This is the largest resort in the Vosges mountains. The advantage to Gérardmer, another nice ski area in the Vosges mountains, is that there are more chairlifts available (7 instead of just 2) and therefore you encounter much less waiting time. The area is on average also higher, which means significantly more snow and better snow quality, whereas the resort keeps on investing in artificial snow canons (60 new canons this year, bringing it up to over 350 in total!).
What if you can’t ski or you have little experience? No problem, because we’ll organise a private skiing class for absolute beginners. Normally we charge €35 for a 2-hour private Expat Club class in which you learn the basic techniques. However, for this trip we decided to offer this class FOR FREE for the first 8 people who register. Note again, it’s for absolute beginners, so if you already have some experience, this course is really not good for you.
Hiking trips & Nordic Skiing
There are tons of hiking / walking / Nordic Skiing opportunities in the area. If you are interested, please let us know so we can hook you up with other people with the same interest! Using the Nordic skiing tracks is very cheap (pay on the spot), and you can rent your material also upon checkout. The tracks start next to the La Bresse resort. The surroundings are amazingly beautiful, so prepare yourself to walk by lakes, through thick forests and panoramic mountain tops (you can even decide to take a lift up and walk onwards from there).
Where?
The Vosges Mountains lie directly West of Colmar and Moulhouse, and about 90km Southwest of Strasbourg and 70km Southeast of Nancy. The highest top is over 1400 meters, so quite high for a region outside the Alps and snow is therefore common. The views from the tops are great, with nice villages and lakes in the valleys. The Vosges mountains are a wildlife refuge for mountain goats, the lynx even the grey wolf! No worries, you won’t bump into them while on the slopes 🙂
Large parts of the Gérardmer and La Bresse – Hohneck resorts are prepared with artificial snow by hundreds of “snow canons”. This snow forms a perfect ground layer on which you can ski very well, and on which fresh powder sticks perfectly. Since they activate the canons overnight, you are always sure to have a new fresh layer of powder.
Transportation & trip
We will be travelling with a modern 4* luxury bus. It has spacious reclining seats with footrests. The bus is air-conditioned and has an on-board toilet, DVD-system with several screens. It is possible to take your own skis or snowboard with you of course. During the trip we provide you with some drinks and snacks. The trip to Épinal will take about 5,5 hours, including a 45 minutes stop in Luxembourg for dinner. Our arrival time on Friday evening will be around midnight.
Our stay in Épinal and transfers
Since we have our own bus we’ll be shuttling between Épinal and the La Bresse – Hohneck ski resort. If you want, we can also drop you in Gérardmer centre from where you can take a ski bus to the Gérardmer ski resort or take a taxi to the Nordic skiing area (get your rental equipment on the spot, and we’ll pick you up in the late afternoon). It’s also a perfect place for a relaxing spa visit. For instance, in The Grand Hotel you can get a treatment from about €80 including spa access, or in the Beau Rivage you can use the pool and spa facilities for only €15-20. The hotel in Épinal is really the only place where we can stay as a group because hotels closer to the resort have limited availibity and are much more expensive.
Our hotel
The Best Western La Fayette Centre is a highly rated 4* hotel conveniently located close to the highway. This way we won’t lose time going into town and can spend more time on the slopes. You will have FREE ACCESS to a heated swimming pool and spa (only on Saturday evening because it is closed in the morning). The rooms are air-conditioned and spacious. All rooms feature a flat-screen TV with satellite channels and a private bathroom. Free WiFi is available throughout the hotel. In the mornings you can enjoy a good buffet breakfast, which is already included in the basic trip fee.
Rooms
During the checkout process you can see which rooms are still available in the hotel. You can choose between 4 types of rooms:
- singles, one large bed for a single travellers (with supplement)
- doubles (1 large bed), for couples (no supplement)
- twins (2 single beds, or 1 large bed and a single sofa bed), for 2 single travellers (friends who travel together + singles who want to share a room)
- triples / quadruples for families or 3 friends who want to share (no surcharge, but contact us beforehand)
Are you travelling alone and have nobody to share a room with?
We got a perfect solution! For solo travellers who would like to share a room to avoid the single room supplement Expat Club offers a service to pair you up with a room mate. You do not pay a supplement and we will find you a room partner to share a TWIN room with 2 single beds. We do not assign you one, but you can choose who you would like to share the room with during the outbound journey to France. This solution worked very well during our last trips because we guarantee that you won’t have to pay the single-room supplement.
Ski area
We will be skiing in the resort of La Bresse – Hohneck. With 220 hectares and 50 kilometers of slopes, this is the largest area in the Vosges mountains. Some other data:
- 7 chairlifts, including 3 modern detachable high-speed lifts
- 17 draglifts
- 350+ snow canons !!!
- Slopes: 8 green, 20 blue, 13 reds, 1 black
- Various restaurants
- A fun on-track rodel course
Considering the forecasts we expect good skiing possibilities for our foreseen trip. There may may over 50cm of fresh snow on top of the old layer from January and February (especially mid February). The temperatures also look favourable for good snow quality.
Basic trip fee
The regular basic fee of this trip is €339, with an early bird fee of €309. This includes:
- Transportation with a 4* luxury coach.
- On board snacks- and drinks on outbound journey (juice, water, waffles, chocolate bars…)
- Accommodation in a 4* hotel, based on 2 people sharing a room (in 1 large bed or 2 single beds)
- Ski shuttle on Saturday morning & late afternoon, Sunday morning & afternoon
- Very nice breakfast buffet two mornings
- Spa access on Saturday evening
Optional extras – Ski rental, passes, lessons
For your convenience Expat Club offers to book everything in advance: ski passes, ski equipment rental and skiing lessons. Weekends are always busy in the skip shop. Not only may they sell out, but the waiting lines can be VERY long for individuals. Since we arrive as one group we will be helped much faster. Make sure to let us know during checkout exactly what you need and we’ll make sure that everything is ready for you upon arrival. Prices are indicated on the page after you click the “Book now” button. If anything is missing, or you have specific requests, please let us know (info@expatclub.org). Note that we only offer packages for 2 days, otherwise it will be too complicated. So if you only want to join for skiing on a single day or have your own boots but not your skis (or vice versa), please just contact us and we make sure you get what you need.
- Ski passes (for Saturday or Sunday, or for the whole weekend)
- With or without insurance
- Skis & shoes & sticks rental
- High-end skis & shoes & sticks rental
- Snowboard & shoes rental
- Safety helmet rental
- Ski clothes rental
- Ski lessons absolute beginners, 2 hours Saturday morning (max 8 per group): FREE
- All prices are indicated in the reservation system after clicking the Book now button.
During checkout you can indicate your preferences. Also no-rental is an option of course if you take your own equipment or don’t want to go skiing. But if you do want to rent then you must give the measurements of all travellers on your booking (age, height, weight, shoe size and level of skiing). This is very important as the ski rental agency needs to know beforehand. If you travel with a friend and you don’t know his/her data, just book what you personally need and send all data of your friend(s) or family members asap afterwards.**
Clothing
For many Expat Club members this may the first time to go into such winterly conditions. During our visit you have to expect temperatures of around -5 to 0 degrees Celsius (perfect). With some wind it may become a bit more chilly. It is therefore important to dress up appropriately. For skiing you must have special ski clothes. If you don’t have this, we suggest to borrow this from someone. If you would like to buy it, simply go to Decathlon and you might buy everything you need for about €100. Just get/buy the following (the sport shops can help you):
- Skiing / snowboarding pants and jacket (from €25 in Decathlon). Jeans are NOT appropriate! We suggest to just get something cheap if you only go once.
- Eventually a winter jacket (from €40-€100 in Decathlon), unless your regular jacket is warm enough and can be used for skiing.
- It may also be advisable to buy “ski underwear”. These are highly elastic garments that cover your entire body and keep you considerably warmer than without. This costs about €5-10 in Decathlon.
- On top of that you need one or two pairs of “ski socks”, which are very thick long socks that reach almost to your knees. You need them to stay comfortably warm in the shoes. This costs less than €5 in Decathlon.
- You also need good sports sunglasses (from €5 to €25 in Decathlon) that cover a larger area over your eyes than the smaller shades that you would use in the summer + under snowy conditions some snow glasses (from €15 in Decathlon).
We’re not trying to advertise for Decathlon, but since many of you may only go skiing once or twice, our advice is not to pay too much for your clothes.
Insurance
You are advised to get a good travel insurance. If you travel regularly you are probably already well insured for winter activities. Most European-wide insurances from Belgium cover theft and healthcare expenses in the unfortunate case something happens (e.g. if you get into an accident on the slopes… knock on wood). However, we advise you to check this with your insurance company, especially for rescue operations on the slopes. A family of four can already be insured for about €65-70 per year, and daily insurances are already available for a few euro. At the same time we recommend you to check whether you have a cancellation insurance, just in case you fall ill or something else happens that prevents you from going.
UPDATE 1 MARCH: We still have tickets, just click on the blue [Book now] button to start the booking process and see all prices.
As usual there will be an afterwork departure on Friday late afternoon (17h30) from Brussels Schuman. We ski for 2 days and return on Sunday evening. For all prices (e.g. ski rental), click on the above blue [Book now] button or click here to go to the reservation page. This trip is very family friendly (children up to 16 years get €75 discount), but also great for couples, solo travellers, retirees, hikers and nordic skiers. If you have any questions, you can call until 23h00 with 0495-345144.
NOTE: it is unlikely that we are planning another trip, so this is your chance to hit the slopes one more time this season. Interested in our other trips, click here ≫
❆ AFTERWORK departure from Place Schuman, La Chasse & Metro Delta
❆ RETURN Sunday evening by 22h30 (last trip actual time 22h28!)
❆ NEW 4* Best Western hotel with 8,3 review
❆ FREE breakfast buffet included (not during our previous trips!)
❆ FREE use of pool & spa facilities in our hotel
❆ FREE room-sharing service for single travellers in twin rooms
❆ ORDER your ski equipment through Expat Club (less waiting time)
***
Expat Club found a superb solution for your skiing / snowboarding addiction! Indeed, we are going to hit the slopes for a weekend and found the best destination North of the Alps. You can ski on Saturday and Sunday in the lovely resort La Bresse-Hohneck with 2 high-speed chairlifts and 5 regular ones, 50km of slopes in all difficulties. This trip is great for beginners as there are plenty of easy slopes and we offer a FREE beginners class for those without any experiences. This trip is also great for families and solo travellers as we offer special rooms and room sharing services. And finally if you don’t like skiing, you can always join for nordic skiing, hiking or snow shoeing. For questions, just call us at 0495-345144 or start a chat message in the right lower corner.
We will be travelling to Épinal, a nice regional town on the edge of the Vosges mountains of Eastern France, where we will stay in the 4* Best Western La Fayette. From there we travel towards La Bresse – Hohneck on Saturday morning. This is the largest resort in the Vosges mountains. The advantage to Gérardmer, another nice ski area in the Vosges mountains, is that there are more chairlifts available (7 instead of just 2) and therefore you encounter much less waiting time. The area is on average also higher, which means significantly more snow and better snow quality, whereas the resort keeps on investing in artificial snow canons (60 new canons this year, bringing it up to over 350 in total!).
What if you can’t ski or you have little experience? No problem, because we’ll organise a private skiing class for absolute beginners. Normally we charge €35 for a 2-hour private Expat Club class in which you learn the basic techniques. However, for this trip we decided to offer this class FOR FREE for the first 8 people who register. Note again, it’s for absolute beginners, so if you already have some experience, this course is really not good for you.
Hiking trips & Nordic Skiing
There are tons of hiking / walking / Nordic Skiing opportunities in the area. If you are interested, please let us know so we can hook you up with other people with the same interest! Using the Nordic skiing tracks is very cheap (pay on the spot), and you can rent your material also upon checkout. The tracks start next to the La Bresse resort. The surroundings are amazingly beautiful, so prepare yourself to walk by lakes, through thick forests and panoramic mountain tops (you can even decide to take a lift up and walk onwards from there).
Where?
The Vosges Mountains lie directly West of Colmar and Moulhouse, and about 90km Southwest of Strasbourg and 70km Southeast of Nancy. The highest top is over 1400 meters, so quite high for a region outside the Alps and snow is therefore common. The views from the tops are great, with nice villages and lakes in the valleys. The Vosges mountains are a wildlife refuge for mountain goats, the lynx even the grey wolf! No worries, you won’t bump into them while on the slopes 🙂
Large parts of the Gérardmer and La Bresse – Hohneck resorts are prepared with artificial snow by hundreds of “snow canons”. This snow forms a perfect ground layer on which you can ski very well, and on which fresh powder sticks perfectly. Since they activate the canons overnight, you are always sure to have a new fresh layer of powder.
Transportation & trip
We will be travelling with a modern 4* luxury bus. It has spacious reclining seats with footrests. The bus is air-conditioned and has an on-board toilet, DVD-system with several screens. It is possible to take your own skis or snowboard with you of course. During the trip we provide you with some drinks and snacks. The trip to Épinal will take about 5,5 hours, including a 45 minutes stop in Luxembourg for dinner. Our arrival time on Friday evening will be around midnight.
Our stay in Épinal and transfers
Since we have our own bus we’ll be shuttling between Épinal and the La Bresse – Hohneck ski resort. If you want, we can also drop you in Gérardmer centre from where you can take a ski bus to the Gérardmer ski resort or take a taxi to the Nordic skiing area (get your rental equipment on the spot, and we’ll pick you up in the late afternoon). It’s also a perfect place for a relaxing spa visit. For instance, in The Grand Hotel you can get a treatment from about €80 including spa access, or in the Beau Rivage you can use the pool and spa facilities for only €15-20. The hotel in Épinal is really the only place where we can stay as a group because hotels closer to the resort have limited availibity and are much more expensive.
Our hotel
The Best Western La Fayette Centre is a highly rated 4* hotel conveniently located close to the highway. This way we won’t lose time going into town and can spend more time on the slopes. You will have FREE ACCESS to a heated swimming pool and spa (only on Saturday evening because it is closed in the morning). The rooms are air-conditioned and spacious. All rooms feature a flat-screen TV with satellite channels and a private bathroom. Free WiFi is available throughout the hotel. In the mornings you can enjoy a good buffet breakfast, which is already included in the basic trip fee.
Rooms
During the checkout process you can see which rooms are still available in the hotel. You can choose between 4 types of rooms:
- singles, one large bed for a single travellers (with supplement)
- doubles (1 large bed), for couples (no supplement)
- twins (2 single beds, or 1 large bed and a single sofa bed), for 2 single travellers (friends who travel together + singles who want to share a room)
- triples / quadruples for families or 3 friends who want to share (no surcharge, but contact us beforehand)
Are you travelling alone and have nobody to share a room with?
We got a perfect solution! For solo travellers who would like to share a room to avoid the single room supplement Expat Club offers a service to pair you up with a room mate. You do not pay a supplement and we will find you a room partner to share a TWIN room with 2 single beds. We do not assign you one, but you can choose who you would like to share the room with during the outbound journey to France. This solution worked very well during our last trips because we guarantee that you won’t have to pay the single-room supplement.
Ski area
We will be skiing in the resort of La Bresse – Hohneck. With 220 hectares and 50 kilometers of slopes, this is the largest area in the Vosges mountains. Some other data:
- 7 chairlifts, including 3 modern detachable high-speed lifts
- 17 draglifts
- 350+ snow canons !!!
- Slopes: 8 green, 20 blue, 13 reds, 1 black
- Various restaurants
- A fun on-track rodel course
Considering the forecasts we expect good skiing possibilities for our foreseen trip. There may may over 50cm of fresh snow on top of the old layer from January and February (especially mid February). The temperatures also look favourable for good snow quality.
Basic trip fee
The regular basic fee of this trip is €339, with an early bird fee of €309. This includes:
- Transportation with a 4* luxury coach.
- On board snacks- and drinks on outbound journey (juice, water, waffles, chocolate bars…)
- Accommodation in a 4* hotel, based on 2 people sharing a room (in 1 large bed or 2 single beds)
- Ski shuttle on Saturday morning & late afternoon, Sunday morning & afternoon
- Very nice breakfast buffet two mornings
- Spa access on Saturday evening
Optional extras – Ski rental, passes, lessons
For your convenience Expat Club offers to book everything in advance: ski passes, ski equipment rental and skiing lessons. Weekends are always busy in the skip shop. Not only may they sell out, but the waiting lines can be VERY long for individuals. Since we arrive as one group we will be helped much faster. Make sure to let us know during checkout exactly what you need and we’ll make sure that everything is ready for you upon arrival. Prices are indicated on the page after you click the “Book now” button. If anything is missing, or you have specific requests, please let us know (info@expatclub.org). Note that we only offer packages for 2 days, otherwise it will be too complicated. So if you only want to join for skiing on a single day or have your own boots but not your skis (or vice versa), please just contact us and we make sure you get what you need.
- Ski passes (for Saturday or Sunday, or for the whole weekend)
- With or without insurance
- Skis & shoes & sticks rental
- High-end skis & shoes & sticks rental
- Snowboard & shoes rental
- Safety helmet rental
- Ski clothes rental
- Ski lessons absolute beginners, 2 hours Saturday morning (max 8 per group): FREE
- All prices are indicated in the reservation system after clicking the Book now button.
During checkout you can indicate your preferences. Also no-rental is an option of course if you take your own equipment or don’t want to go skiing. But if you do want to rent then you must give the measurements of all travellers on your booking (age, height, weight, shoe size and level of skiing). This is very important as the ski rental agency needs to know beforehand. If you travel with a friend and you don’t know his/her data, just book what you personally need and send all data of your friend(s) or family members asap afterwards.**
Clothing
For many Expat Club members this may the first time to go into such winterly conditions. During our visit you have to expect temperatures of around -5 to 0 degrees Celsius (perfect). With some wind it may become a bit more chilly. It is therefore important to dress up appropriately. For skiing you must have special ski clothes. If you don’t have this, we suggest to borrow this from someone. If you would like to buy it, simply go to Decathlon and you might buy everything you need for about €100. Just get/buy the following (the sport shops can help you):
- Skiing / snowboarding pants and jacket (from €25 in Decathlon). Jeans are NOT appropriate! We suggest to just get something cheap if you only go once.
- Eventually a winter jacket (from €40-€100 in Decathlon), unless your regular jacket is warm enough and can be used for skiing.
- It may also be advisable to buy “ski underwear”. These are highly elastic garments that cover your entire body and keep you considerably warmer than without. This costs about €5-10 in Decathlon.
- On top of that you need one or two pairs of “ski socks”, which are very thick long socks that reach almost to your knees. You need them to stay comfortably warm in the shoes. This costs less than €5 in Decathlon.
- You also need good sports sunglasses (from €5 to €25 in Decathlon) that cover a larger area over your eyes than the smaller shades that you would use in the summer + under snowy conditions some snow glasses (from €15 in Decathlon).
We’re not trying to advertise for Decathlon, but since many of you may only go skiing once or twice, our advice is not to pay too much for your clothes.
Insurance
You are advised to get a good travel insurance. If you travel regularly you are probably already well insured for winter activities. Most European-wide insurances from Belgium cover theft and healthcare expenses in the unfortunate case something happens (e.g. if you get into an accident on the slopes… knock on wood). However, we advise you to check this with your insurance company, especially for rescue operations on the slopes. A family of four can already be insured for about €65-70 per year, and daily insurances are already available for a few euro. At the same time we recommend you to check whether you have a cancellation insurance, just in case you fall ill or something else happens that prevents you from going.
