Mid-October 2022. The trees are changing colour, the days are getting shorter and winter is approaching. Many businesses in Morzine are seasonal and at this time of the year their activity is mainly preparing the coming winter season and possibly recovering from what was an exceptional summer here in the Portes du Soleil. Here at Taxi Morzine, Yannick and I are indeed doing both of the above but we also have our year-round transport activities to keep us out of mischief.
Monday to Friday during term time we operate a regular school minibus service for local primary and high school children who live out of the centre of the village. A second school contract takes us further afield during the week down to a school above Lake Geneva in Evian.
Another branch of our work as a licensed taxi is medical transport “transport de malade assis”. If a client needs transport for a certain medical treatment or appointment, her or she could be eligible for a free taxi – the French social security pays the fare. If our busy schedule allows, we transport patients to local hospitals, and often go as far afield as Lyon or Grenoble.
During the lovely inter-season, there is still a (significantly smaller!) demand for private airport and rail transfers. Locals escaping on holiday, second home owners enjoying Morzine in the off season plus the occasional tourist still coming to explore the mountains with walking boots or bikes! Once again if our busy schedule allows, we are available for such trips although I recommend booking in advance because at this time of the year my phone is switched off in the evenings and over the weekends. We also been busy this autumn operating private mountain bike shuttles for groups in our large minibus and 15 bike capacity trailor.
A lot of my time now is also spent in the office handling all your enquiries for transfers over the ski season. Being a small company, we do get fully booked on certain dates quite quickly and I know that some of you have been disappointed with half term dates being booked up. When I opened bookings on September 1st I did get the impression to be running the Glastonbury Festival ticket office! The only way to book an airport transfer is by filling out the booking form on my website (www.taxi-morzine.com), or at a push via email. No texting, no WhatsApp, no Facebook Dm’s, no carrier pigeons, as I need all the information in one place so nobody slips through the net. And please, please send me all the vital information at once. When I get emails that say “Could I book a transfer for 6 in January please?”, I just roll my eyes, tut loudly and push that to the bottom of my to-do list. Filling out the online form means I can see immediately if I can operate the transfer and at what cost. In under five minutes your transfers can be in the diary and confirmed.
Finally at this time of the year Yannick and I will disappear on holiday for a couple of weeks during the French two week half term at the end of October. If you email when we are away you will get my “out of the office” automatic reply and I promise that I will reply (in the order the emails came in) when I return. Priority will be given to our tapas, sunshine and the occasional glass of vino tinto for a couple of weeks …..
While you are waiting for the snow to fall and the ski season to begin, keep following us on social media – Taxi Morzine Facebook page and Bike Shuttle Morzine is on Instagram and Facebook.
PS We have found the elusive third driver to join our team this winter and we will be introducing him to our clients on social media after our holidays.