Before Your Lesson
In order to get to your lesson on time, it is important to plan ahead to ensure that you have everything you need and provide ample time to get to the meeting area so you can maximise the lesson time purchased.
When you head to the airport you give yourself extra time. This allows for traffic jams on the way to the airport, the time needed to check your bags in, make it through security, and get to your gate. If you don’t do these things, you risk missing your flight.
Think of a ski/snowboard lesson the same way. In a ski resort there maybe delays at your hotel, the roads could be icy or blocked with snow. The equipment rental company may have a greater volume of guests during busy periods. When is the rental company busiest? If you go just before the lesson how long is it going to take to complete the rental process? If it normally takes 20 minutes at that rental company, how is that affected when 200 people turn up at 8:30am? Often going the night before or during quiet periods is more efficient.
Do you have a lift ticket? Even if you have children young enough to qualify for a free lift ticket, you still need to obtain the free ticket from the ticket office. Are you wearing enough clothes for the weather that day? Do you have your helmet, goggles, gloves, sunscreen etc? Just as rentals gets busy just before the ski area opens, so too the lift ticket office and accessory shops are also experiencing peak numbers.
Have you checked your booking reference to ensure the time and duration of the lesson you booked? Did you check the information sent and know where the meeting point is? How long is it going to take to get there? Did you include the time to put on the equipment and walk in ski or snowboard boots to the meeting point?
These are just some of the things that maybe going on just prior to your lesson. Give yourself some extra time as wiggle room if things don’t go to plan. If you are a little early, then maybe get a can of famous Japanese vending machine hot chocolate and relax for 5 minutes inside before heading out to have fun in your lesson.
If your are running late please contact the office. Your instructor will be waiting for you outside ready to teach. Winters in Japan can get very cold! If you know that you won’t be on time let us know so we can send your instructor inside to get warm before meeting you.
When we sell you a lesson, you are purchasing your instructors time for a set duration so they can teach you how to ski or snowboard. Your instructor will be waiting ready to go at the start time you booked. The booked start time is the time the lesson commences, if you are late the time between the official start time and when you arrive is still considered part of the lesson. Your instructor is getting paid from the official start time.
We won’t refund any missed portion of the lesson or extend the lesson because you turned up late. With this in mind it makes sense to ensure that you are at the meeting point with your equipment and lift ticket ready to commence the lesson at time booked.
Make sure you know where the meeting point for your lesson is and how to get there in advance of the lesson time. Also did you supply an in resort contact number so we can call if we see you are not at the meeting point still and your lesson started some time ago?