Vaughan to Mont-Tremblant: the ski week in the Laurentians by chauffeured car

Tremblant, and the week it deserves

Mont-Tremblant is the largest ski resort in eastern Canada — a hundred-odd runs on four faces of the mountain, a vertical that the Ontario hills cannot match, and a pedestrian village at its foot of coloured Quebec-style buildings with hotels, restaurants, shops, the Casino de Mont-Tremblant up the hill, and a gondola from the village to the summit that runs in summer too. For Vaughan it is the ski week: a family that has done Blue Mountain for the weekends books Tremblant for the Family Day week or March Break, and the drive — eight hours by the routing estimate, seven with the 407 and one stop, or a Montreal night on the way — is the trip's price. The chauffeured version pays it differently: the Sprinter with eight sets of skis in the bay and the family at the tables, the village's hotel loop, and a vehicle that stays for the week's drives to the lake, the old village and Saint-Sauveur.

The drive, and the Montreal night

The 407 east to the 401, the 401 to the Quebec border, Autoroute 40 across the north of Montreal to the 15, and the 15 north through the Laurentians — Saint-Sauveur, Sainte-Adèle, Sainte-Agathe — to Route 117 and the resort. Seven hours from Thornhill with the 407, one Kingston stop and the 40's bypass of Montreal's downtown; a family with young children books a Montreal night each way and makes the drive two easy days with the Old Port in between. The routing estimate's eight hours is the no-toll, no-stop version. In winter the 15 north of Sainte-Agathe is a Laurentian road in a snowstorm and the chauffeur drives it on winter tires with the forecast watched from the Thursday.

The village and the hill

The pedestrian village is the resort's base: the hotels — the Fairmont Tremblant at the top by the lifts, the Westin, the Ermitage du Lac on the lake, the condominium hotels along the village's streets — the restaurants and the après bars, the Casino's shuttle, the skating rink, the shops, and the Cabriolet open gondola that carries skiers from the village's lower parking to its top. A chauffeured family is dropped at the hotel's loop with the skis and the bags to the bell staff, and the hill is a walk from the door; the Sprinter goes to the resort's garage for the week and comes out for the drives. The resort's site sells the lift tickets by date and the ski school's lessons ahead; Family Day week and March Break are the weeks Vaughan families book in September.

Summer at Tremblant

The summer village is a different resort: the gondola to the summit for the view over the Laurentians and the trails down, the Lac Tremblant beach and its cruise boat, the ziplines and the luge, the golf courses, the Ironman in August that closes the roads for a day, the Blues Festival in July, and the old village of Mont-Tremblant, ten minutes away on the lake, with the church, the P'tit Train du Nord cycling path on the old railway and the national park's canoe lakes beyond. A family's summer week is the Sprinter staying for the park, the old village and the path's shuttle; a couple's is the Luxury SUV and the Fairmont.

The Laurentians on the way

The 15 north of Montreal passes the Laurentian resort towns that are the Saint-Sauveur post's subject — Saint-Sauveur's village of restaurants and its water park, Sainte-Adèle, Val-David's artists, Sainte-Agathe's lake — and a chauffeured Tremblant week does one of them as a day out with the Sprinter, because a resort village for seven nights wants an afternoon somewhere else. Mont-Tremblant National Park's Diable sector, twenty minutes from the resort, is the summer's canoe and the winter's snowshoe.

The week, in shape

Seven nights in February: Saturday's drive with a Kingston lunch and the village by six, or Friday to Montreal and Saturday's three hours north; Sunday to Friday on the hill with the ski school's mornings and the parents' afternoons, a Tuesday at Saint-Sauveur's village and a Thursday's snowshoe in the park with the Sprinter; Saturday's drive home with the skis in the bay and the family asleep by Kingston. Seven days of daily hire plus the drives, one number in the booking engine, and the hotel held by the travel desk in September.

Which vehicle

A Sprinter for a family of five or more or two families, with the bay for eight sets of skis and a week's bags and the tables for seven hours of highway; an SUV for a family of four or a couple with the skis inside; a Premium Sedan for a couple's summer weekend if the vehicle is released at the Fairmont. Winter tires from November; boosters at $25 each.

What the chauffeur replaces

Fourteen hours of driving in a ski week, the last two of them on a Laurentian road in weather; the roof box; the resort's garage; the drives to the lake and the villages that a family without a vehicle does not make; and the Saturday drive home after six days on the hill. For a Sprinter of eight the week's daily hire divides into a per-person figure that the alternative — two cars, two drivers, a rented roof box and a week's parking — does not beat; for a couple the SUV's long weekend is a comfort purchase, and the site says so.

Seasons

December to April for the hill, with Family Day week and March Break the peaks and January's cold the emptiest; July and August for the lake, the gondola, the Blues Festival and the Ironman; September and October for the Laurentians' colour, which the gondola's summit view is made for; May and November are the resort's closed weeks.

Pairing it

Tremblant pairs with Montreal for the night each way, with Saint-Sauveur and the Laurentians for the day out, and with Montebello and Parc Omega for a family that comes home by the Ottawa River road and the wildlife park — the loop the chauffeur suggests for a week's last day.

The ski week, in order, for two families

Two families from Kleinburg — four adults, four children between six and twelve — in an Executive Sprinter for Family Day week: Saturday at 7 a.m., eight sets of skis and a week's bags in the bay, the children at the tables; the 407 and 401, Kingston at 10:15 for a break, Cornwall, the border, Autoroute 40 across Montreal's north at two, the 15 north through Saint-Sauveur's valley at three, Route 117 and the resort's village at 4:30; the hotel's loop, the skis and bags to the bell staff, the Sprinter to the garage; the village's dinner. Sunday to Friday: the ski school's mornings for the four children, the parents' runs on the north side, lunch at the summit's Grand Manitou, the après at the village; Tuesday's afternoon at Saint-Sauveur's village and its restaurants with the Sprinter; Thursday's snowshoe in the national park's Diable sector with the chauffeur at the trailhead; Friday's casino evening for the adults with the resort's shuttle. Saturday: the Sprinter at nine, Montreal's north at noon, Kingston at three, Kleinburg by 6:30 with four children asleep. Seven days of daily hire plus the drives, one number in the booking engine, split two ways, and eight sets of skis that never went on a roof.

The village's hotels, for choosing

The Fairmont Tremblant sits at the top of the village beside the lifts, the ski-in and ski-out hotel with the pools and the spa; the Westin and the Marriott Residence Inn are in the village's middle with the condominium-style suites that two families share; the Ermitage du Lac is on Lac Miroir's edge with the quiet; the Lodge de la Montagne and the village's condominiums along the Cabriolet's route are the budget. The resort's site sells them with the lift tickets; the travel desk holds them in September for the peak weeks, when the village fills.

The Casino and the adults' evening

The Casino de Mont-Tremblant sits on the mountain's far side, reached by the resort's free shuttle from the village or the Sprinter's ten-minute drive — a gaming floor, a restaurant with the view, the adults' Friday evening while the children have the hotel's supervised programme. A couple's weekend without children books the casino's night as the reason for a Premium Sedan or an SUV that stays.

The P'tit Train du Nord and the summer's shuttle

The P'tit Train du Nord is the old railway from Saint-Jérôme to Mont-Laurier, two hundred kilometres of paved and gravel cycling path through the Laurentians that passes the old village of Mont-Tremblant, and a summer family with bicycles in the Sprinter's bay is dropped at Saint-Agathe's station and collected at Mont-Tremblant's old station forty kilometres on — the one-way shuttle that the path's own guide recommends; in winter the same path is a groomed cross-country ski trail. The Laurentides tourism site has the path's sections and the stations.

Pickup notes

The 407 east and the 401 from every Vaughan community, or Highway 400 to the 407 from Maple and the VMC; a Kleinburg or Woodbridge pickup joins the 407 at Weston Road, a Thornhill one at Bathurst. Give us the hotel and the nights, the Montreal stop if wanted, the ski school's bookings, the days out, the seats, the skis and the bicycles, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before with the 15's forecast on it.

Costs, plainly

A week's daily hire with the drives is the largest number for a ski trip on this site and it divides, for two families of four in a Sprinter, into a per-family figure that two cars' fuel and tolls for fourteen hours each, a rented roof box, a week of the resort's garage and two parents' Saturdays at the wheel do not beat by enough to argue about — and none of that alternative includes a driver on the 15 in a snowstorm. For a couple's long weekend the SUV is a comfort purchase, and the site says so; the booking engine shows the number before the hotel is booked.

Booking it

Book a daily hire from your Vaughan address for the week with the hotel, the nights, the Montreal stop if wanted and the days out; tell us the seats, the skis and the loads, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before with the 15's forecast on it.

Book the Tremblant week