Crest Pas Apartments, Pas de la Casa, Andorra

I recently went on my latest snowboarding trip to Pas De La Casa in Andorra.

I have been away snowboarding many times before, but this was my first time to Andorra. I flew to Toulouse airport in France, and then had a four hour transfer to the resort center in Pas De La Casa.

Once arriving in the resort, the coach pulled up on the outskirts of the town. We were all told to get off the coach and then collect your luggage. All luggage was then taken away by a transit van, and taken to your apartment block that you were staying in. We were all then told to walk to your own hotel. This meant a good half an hour walk up hill in icy conditions to get to our accomadation. As you can guess, ours was at the very top of the resort, so we were all knackered when we eventually got to the hotel.

On arrival to the hotel all our problems started. The hotel wanted a deposit for the room, ( which is not unusual for ski trips ) but at this hotel they demanded the deposit in cash. This meant a big chunk ofyour holiday cash was taken before we even got to the room!!!

Then when we got to the room we found it in a disgracefull state. The whole room was filthy. The kitchen area was covered in dirt and the bathroom had not been looked at either. We complained abou the state of the room, and it was cleaned to some extent, but we still had to give everything a good going over again just to make it livable.

We then found that hot water was hard to find. It seemed only available at certain times of the day. We complained again.

We hoped that this was the end of the drama in the room, but then found that if you turned the hot plate in the kitchen on, all the electrics in the room tripped out. More complaints were then given to the hotel, but this problem remained for the rest of the trip.

We reported all the problems to the Neilson rep, but there complaints to the hotel fell on deff ears too.

We then as a group decided that the only option we had was to eat out each evening. This was not our plan at all, but we felt that we had little choice as we could not use the self catering option, and we could not get moved to another room.

Luckily though, the prices for eating out, were not to bad. The price for a good steak dinner was 12 euros at the most, and you got alot of food for that money. The drinks too were good value for a ski resort. 4 euros was the most a pint cost.

So eating out ended up being a good alternative anyway. The only problem with this though, is that ther are not alot of places to go, so we went to the same places twice each. Still we made the best of it.

As far as the mountan is concerned, it is a great place for all learners. The slopes are very easy, and are mostly the same, so for first timers, its good.

For the intermediate boarders though, like myself, its a bit boreing. As sad, most of the runs are the same as the others, so there is nothng to really push you. There are plenty of runs to pick from though.

The grandvalira area is quite big, so there is enough to keep you occuppied for a week. In a week though, an intermidiate should complete this resort.

As an overall for this resort and hotel, please please please think twice about this hotel. Other hotels looked far better, so please pick anywhere apart from this apartment block. If you get a good hotel and you want to learn how to ski or sowboard this is the place to go. If you are an intermiediate though, avoid this ski area. There are far better places to go.