Yeah, having someone to share the pain with would be nice :)
Off piste if so much better, easier on a board. I've been mulling whether to get a helmet for the past two years - I'm not going to go off - piste without one.
i'm coming to live in krakow for a month from this weekend. I'd like to hire a snowboard and boots if possible and get on the slopes. I know zakopane is very busy at weekends (the only timer I can go boarding), so are there any other good, recommended places to go perhaps even nearer to krakow with less people? i am pretty new to boarding so don't need many slopes, just space on them!
There is a pretty good slope at Myślenice, which is only about 30 minutes south of Krakow, on the way to Zakopane. I have only been there in the summer, but the slope seemed to be pretty steep and challenging, with good infrastructure. My friends have been going there regularly from Krakow this winter. If you don't have a car, there are regular buses from Krakow.
I am going skiing in Zakopane in January - never been before, but I booked with Sunshine World. They are doing some really good packages (accommodation, ski hire, lift pass, 1 hr tuition and airport transfers). I decided to go for a package so that I knew what to expect rather than trying to work it all out individually - you can find out more info on sunshineworld.co.uk
Go to Slovakia. You'll be glad you did. Polish lift operators haven't (and likely will never) caught up to the standards of their neighbor. There are waaaaaay to many tow-cables and not even close to a reasonable amount of chair lifts in the entire country (imo)
Skiing and snowboard anywhere in Poland is an entirely sketchy affair. Too many land disputes, protected nature territories and petty regional squabbling have left the Tatras massively undeveloped and likely never to be upgraded to their full potential. What few reasonable resorts there are quickly become overcrowded as the Poles take their kids on their winter holidays; an affair staggered over about four weeks in Jan and Feb. Add in a crippled hotel network and drunk dangerous skiers, and you really shouldn't expect too much from Poland's winter sports. Monied Poles go to Italy or Austria.
Having said that, if you've never snowboarded before and you want to learn, Poland has a large number of little resorts with lots of little slopes that will give you a challenge, and relatively cheaply too. Names often muttered by Varsovians for a weekend break are Krynica, Bialka Tatrzanska, Szczyrk and Korbielow. All have at least one student masquerading as a snowboarding tutor who speaks English, lift passes are as little as 10zl an hour, and a room in a guesthouse can be around 40zl a night, as long as you're not looking for luxury. IIRC snowboards and boots were around 100zl a day, certainly not more.
Szczyrk and Korbielow all have nice but pretty narrow slopes, there's not much room for the amount of skiers and snowboarders that you can find there. After few days slopes are brownish from all the dirt.. it's so much better to spend a little bit more time and go to Slovakia. It should be even better now, I'm pretty sure many Poles will decide not to Slovakia because of the currency.. it has gotten a little bit more expensive there..
Thank you very much for your posts! I am seeing more and more that as much as I'd like to go to Poland it's maybe going to be better to opt for Slovakia or Bulgaria. The conditions of this holiday are that it is on the cheap but to the people paying that means nothing less than 4 star accommodation and the rest will be the cheap part.
