Looking at heading to NZ in the next few weeks. I know a lot of the cheaper deals might have finished, but anyone know of any great deals anywhere at the moment? I'd most like to ski Remarkables or Coronet, seeing as I have never been there before.

I want a deal that includes the full ski pass (some places will have 7 night accom but only 3 day ski pass), either has free bus trips or car rental included for the entire time and is less than $1500 including EVERYTHING.

google it theres heaps for under that price when i was lookin a few mths ago

dont ski coronet its pretty average, snow gets really hard there cause of the constant wind.

I dont have any real advice on where to go...but -
We got car rental AND bus trips up to the peaks.
After 8-9 hours of skiing you really dont want to be driving down a crazy mountain, i fell asleep the entire bus trip every day of the 5 days i was skiing! Our bus came straight to the front door of our hotel, I had to cart all my ski gear up and down every day which SUCKED ASS - but on the flip side you had to beat everyone else down with a stick to get your gear if you got your gear up on the mountain - plus you had to wait in line for ages on the first day to get the gear and then having to wait in line sucks every day.

I vote for remarkables! Theres 2 main mountains - one of which is a blue-black mountain and the other is a green-blue. Coronet is only one mountain isnt it? But they do have night skiing up there which we were meant to do but my dad snapped his ligaments within 2-3 hours of the first day and couldnt ski for the remainder. (Thank god i have my mp3 player for company)

I had much better skiing at Coronet. Remarkables was just ice. However with the amount of snow they've had, I'm pretty sure that won't be a problem this year.

I went with Ski Express and had no problems.

We signed up for a trip at the last minute (all the really cheap deals were gone) but we still managed to do pretty well.

Flight to christchurch (via sydney)
Accomodation 1 night at christchurch
Car hire for 8 days (to drive to and from queenstown)
6 nights at Rydges in Queenstown
5 days snowboard hire & lift passes for coronet and remarkables
Full buffet breakfast for 5 days at Queenstown Rydges
Insurance
1 extra night back in Christchurch (at Rydges)
Flight from christchurch direct to Brisbane

for $1550. We went through Flightcentre but they wanted to charge us $1000 extra dollars for Rydges accomodation so we booked direct from Rydges online.

Doesnt include lessons or jacket/pant hire but we've all been before, have the gear and know how to snowboard. There was also 5 of us (reduced the prices in some areas like car hire but increased it in others like accomodation)

Might help give you an idea. Can give prices for individual things we got if u need.

How was Friday's :)

Been at coronet all weekend, the upper mountain base is about 70+cm at the moment, Sunday was rather pleasant, with an awesome -22c wind chill, and blizzard style conditions (couldn't see more than 2m in front of me. According to some of the locals we received more snow in the last two weeks than the whole season combined last year.

Antisane that sounds like a pretty good deal...

That looks like the deal we got! Didnt know they charged that much more for the rydges but - we coulda saved money! doh!

Well that was with their initial pricing, then we told them it was $1000 cheaper if we did it ourselves and they went and checked their wholesaler again and 'just happened' (sneaky travelagents) to get a similar price (but not lakefront view) so we went with the online deal.

Last time I went was with SkiExpress through Harvey World Travel, we got the Gold Lift Pass and were told that it included the Ski & Activity pass and we could swap a day of snowboarding for bungie or jetboat etc so we didnt mind forking out $2600 for a 10 day trip. We only found out in Queenstown that our travelo had lied and we were stuck with jacket/pant hire, lessons and a lot of s*** we didnt need. We also had to pay for Jetboating ($100). We also got put at the Mercure (which is nice) but is about a km or 2 away from town and you have to climb a goddamn mountain to get up to it. Only positive was that it made me never trust travel agents again and we saved a lot of cash this time.

Queenstown is definitely the place to go, can't wait for another Big Al at Fergburger, or a pizza at Winnebago's or sinking some pints of Distinction Ale at Pog Mahones. Winter Festival is on while we're there so there'll be Ice Hockey games to watch. Can't wait.

Make sure you at least spend a day on Cardrona to check it out, last time I went it was the pick over Coronet and Remarkables. Loved it.

edit: I was snowboarding though, don't know what you skiing people like.

last edited by YoungNastyMan at 16:46:36 21/Jun/06

I will be snowboarding too:D That's where it's at YO!

Treble Cone is the best.

6 seater high speed to the top baby yeah!

Do any of those places still have those f***ing T-Bars? I struggled with them enough on skis...

Going to Falls Creek in July, certainly hope to f*** it snows between now and then, not looking too good at the moment :(

The year I went to Queenstown it was crap :( They had more snow in perisher than NZ that year. Went to Cadrona, Remarkables and Coronet. Worst thing about NZ is you can't stay on the slopes which means you have to wake up at f*** off am to get a bus/drive. Also the number of lifts there sucks, theres like 8-10 at the biggest resorts. Perisher can operate 50 if it gets the snowfall. NZ ski fields really need some wealthy japanese investors to throw money at them before I'll ever go back after snowboarding in the northern hemisphere <3

Its June ... It never looks good in june.

ps. Love Falls Creek.

I don't like NZ ski trips that much... why ?
1. Can't stay on snow. Its just not the same. The long drive up the hill sucks. Roads get closed, cars get damaged, 1 person has to avoid drinking that or you are using busses which sucks.
2. Weather sucks. Snow can get wind blown. Roads closed. And it sucks to ski in, and there are no tree runs to escape s***ty weather.
3. Its more expensive then OZ.

Still kicks the s*** out of not going at all.

2 planks >> 1.

June is not to bad at the momment. We go t another 21cm last night, so the remarks are going to kick arse on sat for the opening. Shame I am f***ing working!!! Hopefully there isn't to much ice come Sunday. Anyone coming down this way keen to meet up for a couple of beers?