Bernadette has worked in the travel and hospitality industry for several years, both here in New Zealand and during her 8.5 year OE; living in various parts of Ireland, England, Scotland and France, while travelling extensively throughout the UK and European continent.

Her qualifications include an Advanced Diploma in Travel, Tourism and Business, as well as IATA Certification.  Bernadette previously specialised in Product Management of the UK and Europe as a destination, for one of the largest privately owned and operated company’s in New Zealand, bringing her valuable experiences, including her ski hosting and guiding knowledge to Dive Fish Snow Travel, where she has quickly become a top ski travel consultant.  

Bernadette is passionate about her skiing, having skied several French, Italian and Slovenian ski resorts, including almost every ski resort within both British Columbia and Alberta, i.e: Apex, Banff Mt Norquay, Big White, Fernie, Kicking Horse, Kimberley, Lake Louise, Panorama, Red Mountain, Silver Star, Sun Peaks, Sunshine Village, Whistler and Whitewater.  

During this most recent winter season, Bernadette also visited some of the major ski resorts within the US state of Colorado, including Aspen, Aspen Highlands, Aspen Snowmass, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Copper Mountain, Keystone, Steamboat, Vail and Winter Park, followed by a second familiarization trip, to visit the Japanese ski resorts of Hakuba, Nasawa Onsen, Niseko and Rusutsu!   

Bernadette rates one of her best ski moments, as racing Al Raine down the double black diamond runs of Sun Peaks in 2008.  

Bernadette looks forward to sharing her snow holiday knowledge and experiences with fellow skiers and boarders, assisting them with making their ski holiday dreams a reality! 

Customer Testimonials

Brenda and Jeff

Hi Bernadette

Sorry for taking so long to drop you an email but you know what it is like when you come back from holiday and start back at work!!!

Our holiday was great! No hiccups or problems and despite the low snowfall, compared to other years, the skiing was amazing!

We were very lucky in that Vail had 19 inches the weekend we arrived and that set us up for the week.

Thanks for all your work with the organising and booking.

We are already beginning discussions about our next trip so we will be in touch.

Regards, Brenda and Jeff
P.S. Attached are photos of Jeff behind the Antlers on the way to lifts at Vail and on the Cirque poma at the top of Snowmass - Mt. Sopris in the background, and one of me at the top of Snowmass with the signs.

Duncan from Wellington

Our holiday was great, everything went very smoothly with a couple of minor exceptions:

• My ski bag went missing on arrival at Vancouver Airport (more on that later).
• Fog in Wellington meant 9 hours in Auckland waiting to get home, thanks goodness for the Koru lounge!!

Our flights with Air NZ were great, the upgrade to Premium Economy on our way home was well worth it, the extra leg room and cabin service made for a very relaxed flight.

We had a bit of drama at Vancouver airport on arrival, the luggage took for ever to come out (over an hour) and my ski bag was no where to be seen! The luggage help desk people (who I guess have seen it all) were very helpful, we had the paperwork filled out in no time and assured me the bag would turn up and get sent on to me. We left Vancouver Airport with instructions to check with the Air Canada luggage people when we arrived in Kelowna for an update. At Kelowna I walked into the office and waiting for me in the corner was my ski bag, it had got there before me, a good result!

We spent our first 10 days at Big White, Trappers Crossing was a great place to stay, its location across the road from the village centre was perfect. Central Reservations at Big White provide great service with rubbish removal, linen etc. and we were very happy there. The snow was great at Big White and having been there before we were able to get stuck in and make the most of it.

At Sun Peaks we stayed in a unit in Trails Edge over towards Mt Morrisey. Every bedroom (4) had its own flat screen TV, plus a monster on the wall in the living room complete with home theatre sound system. Our unit was fantastic and I would have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone. Trails Edge was a great place to stay, an easy 10 minute walk to the village, we could ski right to the garage door at the end of the day and in the morning only had a 10 metre walk across the drive to put our ski's on and ski over to the Mt Morrisey chair.

We probably enjoyed the skiing at Big White more than Sun Peaks, the snow pack was greater at Big White and we had more fresh snow days there as well. That is not to say the skiing wasn't good at Sun Peaks or that we didn't enjoy it there, but if I could only go back to one it would be Big White.

I skied every day I could, 19 in total with just the day off when we moved from Big White to Sun Peaks. My body took a bit of a pounding, thank goodness for Voltarin (pain killers).

Attached are three photo's from Sun Peaks. The first is a shot looking up the hill in an area called the Gills which is accessed by a short hike beyond the ski area boundary rope, but as you can see from the tracks it is well used!! The second shot is Harry posing by one of the decorated tree's on the slopes of Mt Morrisey, the third is Harry again in the trees on a run called Father Toms.

Regards, Duncan

Belinda & Tim from Masterton

Hi Bernadette

Just to let you know that we had a great time in Banff. The resort Hidden ridge was fab! That was definitly a good recommendation. They upgraded our room to two bedrooms which was great, we all had a queen bed each....perfect.

We loved the skiing, our fav was Lake louise. We kept finding good snow even though more fresh snow would have been nice. We made the most of every day and got the early and late buses each.......so we were knacker after ten days.

We met other NZ couples that had booked through your agency and we went out for a night with a young couple from Auckland and had a lot of fun.

San Francisco was awesome. We were ready for a change of scene and we just loved the vibe of the city. We did all the touristy things to which we loved. Our Fave was biking along Golden Gate bridge. Foggy then cleared while we were there. Alcatraz tour was good too.
The Trolley hop tour you gave us was also well worth it, so thanks for that. Great location for hotel.

Actually the whole trip was awesome and can't fault a thing. Give us another couple of years to recover and we would like to investigate skiing in Chilli or Japan.

Thanks., Look forward to some good skiing in NZ this year.

Regards, Belinda and Tim

Mike & Leonie from Rotorua

Hi Bernadette

This is a note to thank you for arranging our trip to Keystone and for the all the useful extra arrangements and advice. Everything went very well and we had a great holiday. So much fun and no disasters and no serious injuries - quite good for us.

As you probably know the Colorado snow hasn't been great but luckily it started snowing 2 days after we arrived and we had fresh snow most days tho never quite enough. All our skis and boards had to go in for repairs regularly at the beginning but we decided to just go for it rather than panic about the odd rock.
Overall Keystone and Breckenride were as good as anywhere. Night skiing, again, was an absolute buzz.

The accommodation was great and the Keystone staff were really helpful .

Your advice re how to use the bus service was so helpful till we got the system better sussed. The huge SUV was the perfect vehicle on the snowy roads and with all our gear.

We loved our holiday, are very grateful to you and all agreed we would like to do it again in a couple of years, somewhere new. We hope you will be there to arrange it ...

Many thanks and kind regards

Julia from Tauranga

Hi Bernadette - We've been back for just over two weeks and I've been meaning to contact you to tell you what a fantastic time we had.

Thank you very much for your recommendations. Disneyland and California Adventure Park were well worth stopping over for. We loved staying at Hidden Ridge in Banff, and were very pleased that you'd convinced us that the bigger condo was the way to go. The accommodation at Silver Star was excellent also. We were lucky to get about 20 cm of new snow one night at Silver Star so we got to ski powder. Amazing. It was warmer at Silver Star than the Rockies. We were in temperatures of -25 degrees C to -31 degrees for a few days in Banff and Jasper. That's when we discovered toewarmers! A great invention.

When we were in Jasper we went on the Maligne Canyon icewalk which was a highlight.

I thought you might be interested to know that Revelstoke is the name on everyone's lips and if we went back, we would aim to ski there. We stopped on the way through and were amazed at how much snow they get. The town is lovely, the locals friendly, and the skiing sounds incredible. They recently put in a chairlift to open up more intermediate runs and have a master plan which you may have seen for opening up more of the mountain in the future. They are planning to have condos on the hill for next season.

In Vancouver we stayed at Sunset Inn which I would highly recommend. It was especially good to get gated parking provided free and when we arrived they told us they had upgraded us to a suite with a full kitchen etc (for no apparent reason - just because the suite was available I guess). The price also included a continental breakfast in the morning; we popped downstairs and picked up a tray of juices, croissants etc and took them back to our room.

So thanks very much for your help. We were very pleased with all the arrangements, all the travel documentation made it very easy, and we had a wonderful time.

Kind regards Julie

Dorothy from Wellington

Hi Bernadette - We arrived back yesterday after a very successful holiday. Thank you for the well planned itinerary that you set up for us. Everything went well except for one hic-cup, John's luggage at San Francisco was off loaded so he had to wait to the next afternoon before it arrived.  We were very pleased with the accommodation, especially being so close to the ski field. The only compliant I have, is that all accommodation in USA never have enough lights in the rooms. We only had the usual one small bedside light which is annoying if one wants to read!!. The ticketing system was excellent, the Beeline ticket giving us priority was a huge benefit. The second day we had a very good fall of snow overnight which gave us super powder snow which lasted a few days. By Thursday we would have liked more but instead had very warm days. Overall a super mountain which we all thoroughly enjoyed. We had one day at Vail, which again was good but oh so vast!. 

We hope you had just as successful trip as ours and we will be telling our friends of the very well planned holiday we had thru Dive Fish Snow Travel. Best wishes.  

Cheers from Dorothy

Kit from Gisborne

Hi Bernadette - we have to tell you that our Canada trip was the experience of a lifetime!! It was perfect from go to whoa.

There wasn't a hitch with the itinerary you prepared for us and all accommodations were spot on - we really felt at home because we could shop and cook up a banquet of local delicacies; or just dine out. Love the BC wines - great value and delicate taste. And the skiing - just mind blowing! Our first day on Sun Peaks we would ski for 50 metres and just fall over laughing, then ski in and out of the trees still with some xmas decorations on them and fall over laughing again. Never experienced anything like it in the 20 years we have been skiing in NZ - the snow quality; the motorways through the trees; and long cruising runs; etc etc.

Again a very big thank you Bernadette. I believe our paths almost crossed at Silver Star - shame we missed you. Well untill next time, all the best and we will watch out for you at Ruapehu maybe.

Cheers from Kit and Liesje, Gisborne

Duncan from Wellington

Bernadette, I wanted to let you know that we had a fabulous holiday in Canada and were very impressed with the service we got from Dive Fish Snow. Everything went like clockwork, flights on time, no hassles with baggage or transfers, in general no surprises!

Regards,
Duncan

Andrew from Tauranga

Hi Bernadette, We had a great time and everything worked out really well. Everything else went like clockwork and we arrived in NZ right on time.

Note that their daylight saving came into effect last Saturday so we
were lucky not to get caught out. Anyway - the holiday was awesome and thanks again for arranging it so well.

Have a good one when you go over.

Kind regards
Andrew

Tony from Sydney, Australia

Hi Bernadette

We returned from our ski holiday in good shape and on schedule.

Overall the trip went very well and thank you for planning the itinerary which suited our needs very well.  Starting in SLC was a good idea since it allowed us to get used to the cold, dry air before hitting Banff, it was -35°C when we arrived there. The only travel problems were delayed flights from Denver to Calgary (waiting for air crew to show up on another flight), and from Calgary to San Francisco (delayed by fog in San Francisco).   

The SLC accommodation was quite good - Little Cloud was spacious and well furnished but the central heating made the air extremely dry so our noses suffered especially. We skied first at Park City but then tried Deer Valley and liked it much more - it has very up-market base facilities and much better on-field food than in Oz or NZ. 

We tried Alta later on and it has ideal terrain for our low intermediate standard and had a deeper snow pack, also it has a nice "vibe" and splendid scenery. The best feature of Deer Valley and Alta for us was "no snow boards"! 

SLC was very interesting and fun to get around once I bought a Tomtom GPS - otherwise it was extremely hard to navigate the 16 lane freeways and big interchanges. 

We liked Banff a lot, nice people, great scenery and small enough to get around without GPS instructions.  It helped that a lot of the staff in town and especially at the ski fields are Aussies - Olivia met some friends from high school days and had some social life as a result, plus picking up "local" knowledge.  Our accommodation at Hidden Ridge Resort was very comfy - nice open fire and lovely beds, but not enough lighting to read at night.  The staff were very friendly and we enjoyed our stay.

Thanks again for your service.

Regards

Tony