Canada 2001 - a skiing oddity

This year's adventure to the Northern Hemisphere took on a very different look to past ski trips outside of Australia, mostly in its organisation but also in the snow quality. This report may serve as a good warning to those of you contemplating booking travel through a travel agent.

The first cause of some of the problems encountered was because the trip was planned and booked much later than usual due to a sudden stint in hospital by the chief organiser (namely your ed.).

The second and compounding cause of problems was the 3 major Australian travel agencies approached to help book the trip. This article could have been totally devoted to the tale of the errors, misunderstandings and the general inability of the travel agencies to provide satisfactory services but there are two sides to everything.

Following weeks of e-mails, phone calls and faxes we ended up booking most of the accommodation ourselves directly with the resorts over the internet.

We found during the course of our travels that we could have done a much better job if we had also booked our ground transfers directly rather than go through a travel agent who placed wrong telephone numbers, pick up times and locations and even incorrect passenger names on bus vouchers.

As for the snow base depth being possibly the worst on record - well that old adage comes to mind - "any day on the slopes is better than a day in the office" - and so the journey begins ...