Arber

Arber is praised as a family mountain: the rebuilt ArBaer-Kinderland kids' zone with five conveyor lifts, and a good-value family pass for five. On weekdays the reviews are almost unanimous - parking is stress-free, there are no lift queues and the pistes are well groomed. Getting there is easy too, since the motorways in this corner of Bavaria rarely jam.

Weekends and prices are where it falls down. In high season a space is hard to find, with two-hour hunts described, and the car park is not free; when neighbouring areas are short of snow, the crush here becomes severe. Visitors complain about queues at the gondola while the parallel chairlift sits idle, and about lifts and runs on the eastern side being shut in perfectly good snow with the pass still at full price. The resort is called dated, restaurant food heavily overpriced and Arber one of the dearest places per kilometre of piste.