Stayed in Zell over Christmas. Conditions were fantastic for the whole week. Stayed in the Pension Herzog. B&B €34pppn. It is excellent value, clean comfy and friendly. It is only 200m from the CitiExpress and 300m to the centre of town. As for the skiing, as with most resorts get up early to avoid the rush. Definitely avoid the top of the CitiExpress at about 10 when the schools set off. For some of the best conditions head to the red runs on the right of the mountain as these are sunny, wide and fun. None of the blacks barring the top of black 11 are too testing as they are wide albeit in places steep.

A trip up to the glacier is worth a try. The piste map suggests that it is very close. It's not. The bus trip takes about 30 minutes. Again, early morning is the time. The glacier loses the sun from early afternoon and the temperature drops quite quickly. The main blues between the drag lifts get very busy, actually the whole of the glacier was very busy. There was only one black open on the two days we went to the glacier and there is only one tricky bit to that which is quite steep and narrow but again not up the standard of many blacks.

My only word of warning on the skiing front in Zell is that if you are with a beginner, advise them to take the cable down. Most of the runs down to the bottom are red or mainly black. The piste map shows a blue to the bottom of the CitiExpress. Don't be fooled. The blue stops about 150m from the end and there is then a fairly steep busy red down to the bottom. Quite often you see people taking their skis off and sliding on their bottoms to get down.

Nightlife in Zell is typically Austrian. Lots of Europop and oompah music but all great fun. Try the Outsider for a couple of apres-ski drinks and then move on to the Diele bar which bangs out music until officially 4am (but it does run later). I was disappointed by the Crazy Daisy. I had not been to Zell for about 20 years and remembered it as a good fun place but this time I found it all a bit flat and boring. A couple of times it was virtually empty.

Even though it was amazingly busy, most of the time lift queues were few and far between. However, it was very, very busy on the mountain and care needed to be taken to pick your way down through the crowds. (This could be down to the fact that this was the first decent week of snow of the season so everyone headed up the mountain.)

Overall, I would rate Zell as a good intermediate resort and worth a visit if you have not already done so.