Graphic: how the DIY and package holidays compared on price
Zoom Airlines sounded like a dream come true when it was launched three-and-a-half years ago. A budget airline — using easyJet-style, short-haul, low-cost principles — flying across the Atlantic to Canada. Design your own trip and save a bundle: you can’t go wrong.
The airline got a great press: “Cheap and cheerful takes on Canada”, “Canada cashes in on low-cost flights”. Lead-in rates of £170 to Vancouver on the west coast were trumpeted by the airline as a fare revolution. It was even rumoured that Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder of easyJet, was considering taking them on — the brand name easyAtlantic had been quietly registered in the run-up to the Zoom launch. But now that the dust of publicity has settled, does it really deliver?
Last winter, my brother Ed, old friend John and I tried Zoom, hoping to put together a bargain week’s skiing at Whistler, traditionally regarded as one of the most expensive places to go skiing in North America. But it wasn’t quite the bargain we’d hoped.
There was nothing wrong with the flights themselves — perfectly comfortable, not the sardine-squash predicted by gleeful mates, who had joked “Zoom: doesn’t that rhyme with doom?” and the like. It just wasn’t all that cheap.
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OK, at £420 it was less than British Airways. But only by £50. And when it came to accommodation, on Whistler’s best website, www.tourism whistler.com, prices were high — more than £1,000 for a week for three of us in a three-star self-catering apartment. We were stuck. And we’d already got the flights.
The British Columbia tourist office had a suggestion: “Just call a tour operator. Everyone does it like that anyway.”
So we did. Thomson Ski solved our problem quickly — and cheaply. “No problems,” said the travel adviser. A few minutes later we were booked into The Aspens, a self-catering block on the slopes in the upper village, a ten-minute walk from the heart of the resort: £265 each.
So: £420 for the flights, plus £265 for accommodation, £200 for ski hire and lift passes, and £15 bus transfer — a total of £900 each. It was £35 more than if we had booked direct with Thomson Ski for the whole lot — and we were not even financially protected with bonding if anything went wrong. Hmmph . . . so much for doing Canada on the cheap.
But was there a way to make savings in resort? Well, The Aspens was a great choice, a large one-bedroom apartment with twin beds and a big sofa bed in the lounge — more than enough room.
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There was a balcony overlooking the hot-tubs in a central courtyard, which were free for guests. Ski hire and lift passes were good value — and the skiing itself was a revelation. The resort is split into two mountains, Whistler (better for beginners), and Blackcomb (a dream for intermediates and advanced skiers).
We explored Blackcomb’s glacier, its fun back-mountain runs, and fantastic mid-section pistes. Whistler mountain, which we tried during the first two days to get our skiing legs, offered some nice-and-easy intermediate runs.
Canadian friendliness struck us immediately. “Everyone smile: that’s today’s rule,” said a beaming assistant at the foot of the Whistler gondola.
And we were keeping to our budget without being mean. Restaurants and bars on the slopes offered exactly the type of menu we wanted: pasta, salads, hot-dogs, waffles and plenty of slices of pepperoni pizza. We found the Roundhouse Lodge on Whistler — routinely denigrated by sniffy ski-specialist writers as too busy — to be just the ticket. Après ski developed into a pattern: drinks at the Longhorn Bar in Whistler Village.
Then it was off to the hot-tubs. We’d been wary at first, but soon realised this wasn’t some kind of swingers-in-the-snow scene. It was the ideal way to wind down as the early evening temperature dropped. “Hey there”, How y’all doin?”, and “Y’all from the UK?” being as far as conversation went.
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Whistler has an excellent “Valet Service In-Home Dining” delivery service — Chinese, Italian, Indian, Canadian (burgers and so on), Japanese and pizzas — which we used on some evenings; meals cost about £50 for the three of us.
Yet with spending cash, the whole trip still cost about £1,100 each — almost exactly what we would have spent on a regular package. Could we have done it more cheaply ourselves? Yes. But we’d have had to be a lot more organised.
The best early booking prices for Zoom flights to Vancouver are £383 this year, while accommodation at The Aspens, with ski hire and lift passes thrown in, could come to £300 each on www.tourismwhistler.com. That works out at £683 — still £49 more than Thomson Ski’s cheapest package with ski hire and passes this year (£634).
But you have to book as soon as possible: do not delay. You can already book flights for next season. Zoom wasn’t that cheap for us — but it could be for you . . .