booking the trip

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Mom-Sandy Peters, age 42, a college professor. Sandy was stationed in Germany (with her husband who was in the military) for four years when she was 18 years old. She has wonderful memories of the people and the alps. Sandy is rather obsessive, and she spent almost a year planning this trip.Dad-David Peters, age 37, an attorney. A better skier than Sandy, Dave has only traveled internationally to scuba dive (think warm weather). This is going to be his first trip to Europe. Austin, age 12, is fascinated with languages and engineering. He is on the freestyle ski team at Holiday Valley Resort and he can land 360 spins off the jumps. Connor, age 9, is fearless, and is also on the freestyle team. His specialty is the moguls. Connor has an excellent memory and he can spout random facts. The family (well, mom and kids) have been listening to German Cds for months now to brush up on the language before the trip. First of all, you need to know that Sandy was an international travel coordinator for Eastman Kodak for at least ten years. Her previous travel experience served her well when booking this trip. The internet was not widely used back then, and Sandy spent endless hours browsing through hotel directories. Now she reads blogs instead. So last July Sandy decided that the family should go to Europe. Why now? Well, the boys are finally old enough to make the trip (ages 12 and 9) and our oldest daughter will be graduating from high school this year and it will be her last chance to travel with us. In July, we booked five round-trip tickets to Munich. An easy airport to get to, and cheap fares (less than $600 each). Unfortunately, Kate informed us last week that she is failing chemistry and she has decided recently that she can't miss a week of school. Yep, the grand-master plan was foiled by a teenager. But the trip must go on! One $600 ticket wasted, and one angry mother cannot stop the Peters's family trip! Hours and hours and hours and hours of research later, Sandy settled on driving from Munich to Kaprun (Zell am See area). Kaprun is a glacier, so there is guaranteed skiing no matter how bad a winter it is. Also, it is only 90 minutes from Salzburg and Innsbruck, and less than four hours from Munich. We can ski, tour, ski, and then see Munich before we head back home. But really we decided on Kaprun and Zell am See because Sandy had been there before and remembered that it was gorgeous and easy to find. A last minute confirmation of the hotel in Munich meant a last minute change in hotels. Suddenly, the hotel (1st class kings) tells Sandy that our room won't fit four people and we need to book two rooms. That, of course, doubles our cost. So Sandy spent another whole day researching, and she canceled and rebooked Hotel Laimer Hof after reading 195 (!) reviews on tripadvisor. Apparently, Hotel Laimer Hof is a small family run hotel, 23 rooms, and it has a charm and a family atmosphere. All at less than $200 a night. Yep, hotels in Europe are not cheap. In Austria we are staying at the Hotel Orgler. Sandy thinks this is the hotel that she stayed at in the early 90's. If memory is correct, it was gorgeous (by European standards), with excellent food. Austrians and Germans are not known for their food, so this is important. Well, off we go to pack. We will blog more as we count down the trip. 6 days to go!
Sandy

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Photos

Peters family
Connor

peters family
Austin

peters family
sandy

peters family
Dave and Kate