ME :)

Great customer service is when the service provider does things for you without asking you a question. You expect it rather than wait to be asked. It’s part of what you pay for and surely part of their training regime before taking the job.

You come into a supermarket to buy some groceries. You get a basket to put the items of purchase in so its easier to carry around the shop floor and it doubles up as a precaution so you do not drop any products yet to be paid for. When all the items are collected you go up to the checkout to pay for the items.

Then the checkout person asks, would you like some bags?

What?! No, please don’t give me any plastic bags, I’m going to pollute the earth, what a stupid question to ask. Let me juggle those items home like a circus performer and wow the passers by. Give me those damn bags already!

You’re at a restaurant eating with friends. You’ve chosen a delightful dish of which you eat like you haven’t eaten for a week. So you clean the plate, okay maybe you left a grain of rice or a speckle of salad on the plate. Your knives and forks are then deposited on the plate and you wait for the waiter/waitress to clear the table.

Hello, are you done? Can I take your plate?

What?! No, please let me lick my plate clean so you won’t have to wash the plate and reuse it for the next customer. Take my plates away already!! No tip for you.

You wander into a train station and look around for a quick bite like a sandwich or bap. You choose the cumberland sausage roll that is on display and you know that its cold as there are about a dozen there. You say, can I please have one of those, thanks.

Would you like that hot?

What?! Why no, I’d love a cold sausage on this cold day. Who eats a cold sausage any way? Hurry up and toast the bloody thing and stop asking moronic questions, I have a train to catch!

smiles

Today was a day I would rather forget and even thinking about it now just pisses me off. The people responsible got away with murder (not literally) and we were left with a huge bill.

Our bus back to Montiers was in the afternoon so for most of the day we did absolutely nothing. I could have died of boredom, it was that boring.

When we did arrive to Montiers we were about an hour early for our connecting bus to Lyon airport. Instead of waiting outside at the bus terminal, we waited indoors as it was warmer. When it was about 20 mins to go until the bus was due to depart we started walking to where the bus was due to pick up passengers.

Little did we know that the bus left 15 minutes earlier then the scheduled departure time so we stood out there waiting for no particular reason. If any transportation is scheduled to depart at a certain time, it should depart at that time or later. It should not depart 15 minutes earlier or 1 min earlier for that matter.

When we spoke to the bus company in charge, they said the bus left on time but we were standing there in front of the bus stop so how could this be. They were lying through their teeth by saying it left on time, and one of them even said they were on the bus at the departure time. It was utter nonsense and a load of shit what they were saying.

The argument went on for about 20 minutes and our voices got even louder screaming at each other. It got to a stage where the lady started pushing me. I could have thrown her back to the top of the 3 valleys, I was that angry.

Since our flight was due to take off in 3 hours and we were about 160km from the airport, standing around arguing was not the best thing to do. We could not get a refund or alternative transportation from these disgusting pigs so we had to find a taxi driver willing to drive us to Lyon airport which was about 1.5 hours away.

We did find a friendly taxi driver and got a quote for €250. This is the most expensive cab that I’ve ever been in but its no surprise if the trip is 160 km! As we were short on time, we did ask the taxi driver to drive like “Schumacher”. That’s the only way we could describe how to drive fast and speed as he didn’t speak english and we didn’t know french. He laughed when we mentioned Schumacher and he responded by putting his pedals to the metal when the opportunities arose to do so.

We went through numerous toll booths and at each toll booth he would comment on the lady collecting his money by saying oh magnifeco! The old geezer was a pervert after all. We made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare thanks to this old man. There were no more drama’s to follow as our plane took off on time and landed earlier than expected.

It was an awesome ski trip in the 3 Valleys albeit the cancellations and dramas that ensued. Would I go there again? Probably not as there are other resorts to explore. If you haven’t been the I highly recommend the 3 Valleys!

One final thing I would like to say is I will never do business with that stupid bus company again. Good riddance!

smiles

It was perfect weather for the final day of skiing in the 3 valleys. What I wanted to accomplish today was do as many red runs as possible because quite frankly I have exhausted the blue ones.

I did spend most of my time in Courchevelle winding down the red runs and taking some final snaps of the trip. The red runs weren’t that difficult but you still had to be a little bit careful as majority of it were steep. The snow was rather fluffy and like some of the old geezers on the mountain said “best snow they’ve skied on for a while”.

I did spend some time in the family park watching the others do their tricks and cameos on the obstacles laid out on the course. I was also taking photos of them doing their tricks but the tricks were quite novice so the end result was not very good photos! I wanted them to fly off the beams or somersault over the jumps but I got nothing, just measly little jumps that I could have done myself. I better to some improvements next time.

smiles

The snow hadn’t stopped coming down since yesterday and it didn’t look like it was going to stop at any time soon.

Again visibility was very poor but I was hoping that if I ventured to Meribel the visibility would be abit better as many blue/red runs were at an altitude where it was okay to see. I can’t figure out if its lower or higher but it also might depend on conditions like the wind, temperature and so on. Ok getting too technical.

The Meribel side was adequate for skiing, I could actually see the runs and the weather even began to get a bit better with sunny spells. We even went back to Val Thorens to do some of the runs we didn’t do first time around. The only memorable run was going up the fenicular and once we got there, the winds were howling and I felt sorry for those who didn’t have helmets or goggles. That ice really hurt!

We were literally skiing down blind, you couldn’t see anything at all. The wind was so strong up there that it moves you in the direction its blowing. The ice was screaming out to hurt you and it was relentless for the entire run. Only when we made it to a lower altitude the conditions became powerless to hurt us. Despite the obstacles it was definitely a challenge run to fly down without hurting yourself or dislodging your ski’s across the mountain face.

We left Val Thorens a tiny bit earlier this time so that we don’t repeat what we did the other day by missing the lift for tomorrow is the last day of skiing in the 3 valleys.

smiles

The last 3 sunny days has turned the snow into ice and we needed a massive dump of snow preferably overnight but it wasn’t the case. It literally snowed all day and the visibility on the mountain was quite poor.

As blind as I am already, I could probably see about 2 meters in front of me. What made it worse was that the everything was white. You could not see any contours, patches of snow or even the nearest skier. Everything looked flat so you were skiing under the false impression that the run had no bumps whatsoever. If you hit a bump, you wouldn’t know of it until you smack into the ground.

I spent half the day in Courchevel trying to ski down fluffy blue runs. It did feel like the blue runs had suddenly changed to red so I was extra careful not to slam into a tree or someone else.

It was a difficult day of skiing but it was good in a way to learn how to ski in those kind of conditions.

Instead of eating in that night, we headed to the Courchevel resort which was a much bigger town with many more restaurants (expensive) and bars.

First we checked out a ski shop with ridiculous price ski’s. They were going at about 5000 euro’s a pop. You wouldn’t even want to put them on your feet to ski with them! One scratch and its depreciation value will be dropping down to nought. Despite the price tag, the ski’s did look pretty cool and some of them were as light as a pillow, that’s carbon fiber technology for you.

There was even a snow board covered in gold, okay not real gold but you get the idea. You couldn’t possibly go down a piste or off piste with a board covered in gold, it’ll just be too heavy to turn. You’d sink in an inch of snow and buried in a meter of snow. There would be no bouancy or balance whatsoever. Everyone would be chasing you to get a slice of that gold.

It took us a while to find an adequate restaurant, some places were too extravagant, other places didn’t serve food and we just happen to choose a restaurant where the theme for the night was … pirates. We had an annoying male waiter who acted like a Pirate for the whole night, he just couldn’t get out his Pirate cosplay role. The female pirate waiters although dressed in pirate gear were however normal and didn’t say ARGH every sentence.

Some of us were craving some iron so a burger was on the cards. I ordered a mixed make your own fajita (chicken beef). Damn that was tasty with my capirinha drink.

smiles