Scuola Italiana Sci 5 Laghi — Local services in Comunità delle Giudicarie

Totally disorganised school. Honestly in 15 years skiing never seen anything so horrendous. Paid 265euro for 5 days kids group lessons. First day: all people were waiting like cattle on the mountain, a massive mess. To greeting, no instructions. Then we just added our son to a whatever bunch of children and Dione took him somewhere. My husband has to ski next to them to try and understand what was going on. Then we returned to the same place at collection time just to discover the place empty. Called the school and they explained where the collection was. Luckily we had the time to get there. The teacher was late by 15mins every single day. Teaching non existent: They were just skiing in a kids groups, not learning, just spending the time. Last day: the same as day one: a random new guy just added our son to a whatever group and said he needed to test his level. An elderly Italian gentleman, a grandfather of a girl who’s been in our group for all week has been trying to reason with this young instructor, but the guy was just being defensive and was arguing aggressively. A total disrespect and lacking any sense. We chose not to make a formal complaint and not to demand a compensation to save our nerves. It’s holiday in the end. And that’s the reason they get by and still going: the customers are not giving them a hard time and thus school is not monitored, not regulated by...

Pros Some very good instructors including Filippo and Giorgio who led adult groups in the morning sessions and spoke English. Good lunch for full day groups. Kind and helpful staff in the office who tried their best to help with various challenges.

Cons Absolutely terrible organisation (this was even acknowledged with exasperation by some of the instructors we spoke to). We had booked full day lessons in the intermediate 14-18yo group. It turned out such a group didn’t exist, and our teenager was put in different groups every morning and every afternoon over the course of 6 days. Each time it took a lot of time and asking around to understand which group he should go with, and in the afternoons he ended up with groups of very young kids and instructors who didn’t speak English, leading to minimal value from those sessions. Different people told us different things about where the meeting point was. The website said it was the ski school office, then we were told it was at the top of a gondola, then at the bottom of a gondola - it took 2-3 days to work out that it was in fact at the top of Pradalago gondola. A lot of ski time wasted. Groups were told to meet at 10, but wouldn’t start skiing till 10.20/10.30. Because of organisational complexity students were taken to lunch on a bus (instead of skiing there directly), wasting another 20-25m...

I wouldn't book this ski school again and would caution any English speakers from doing so. Several of us booked different levels of lesson but all got repeatedly placed in the same class because we spoke English. Despite booking the advanced level of lessons, the advanced instructor refused to take students that did not speak Italian.

Very disorganised. The booking email said the starting point was the ski school, but on arrival to the ski school we were told the lessons start at the top of a gondola. They also provided no assistance in helping us get to the gondola so we had a lengthy walk uphill through town.

The office staff we encountered were rude and very unhelpful, provided almost no assistance and tried to make things seem like they were our fault.

The only reasons for elevating above a 1 star review are that our instructor was nice, despite the lessons being too basic, and that the staff working in the Pradalago lift office were far more helpful and pleasant than the...