Hi Kedi,
Your questions.
On my trip last year the group of about 22 was split up on the first morning. There were the never ever skied before - about a third. They went off with a ski instructor, who I understand was excellent.
The rest of us had the usual ski test, ie skiing down a very short hill from a button lift. The group were then split further in two. So about 6 (including me, in a sort of not quite beginners group). The rest 6-7 were what I would describe as intermediate, some really pretty good. Some of the people were pretty fit, but many of us were obviously not normally very active.
The instructor for my group was very good. We had others in the group for most of the time and IMO the group was too big - up to 12 in the group sometimes. We did get a good go at practicing the various exercises and there was a long and easy ski run back to the bottom of the lift, which we were doing by the first afternoon.
For me would have liked the option to move more between groups, up or down (in my case) so that you could ski with those of the same standard if you were quicker or slower to pick things up. Think the top group of *intermediate* type skiers was made up of people who were very different standards so it was quite hard for some and easy for others. But then if you really wanted to move to a more appropriate group for your standard, you may have had to go into groups with no JY people, but we stuck to our groups. Don't know how this is going to work in Austria, this time we have 3 2-hour lessons - but presumably you can buy more, which I think I would do and try to make sure I was allocated somewhere I was comfortable.
The TM was involved, although didn't butt in on our lessons, ?maybe with beginnners. She skied along with various groups. We had her mobile number so she could text us about eg meeting up for lunch, suggesting times and places. Or we could contact each other with news re wait times for lifts, or we could also call the TM if we had any problems - which did happen.
Not everyone skied at every opportunity. A couple dropped out pretty much right away. Do think that a lot of that was due to the rubbish facilities at the resort, poor equipment, general chaos, waiting for lifts etc. But there was a spa, swimming pool etc at the hotel. I didn't ski in the middle of the week - my knees wouldn't take it.
The hotel was actually pretty good for our JY group - easy to socialise with each other.
Think the hotels for the Switzerland and Austria trips look good and hopefully the breakfast and dinners will be an improvement on Bulgaria.
Any more questions please ask (but I am off to Sri Lanka tomorrow so there may be a delay 😃 ……).
Katy