I CAN’T imagine that repeat business represents too many bookings for ski resorts in Norway – especially Geilo. Skiers used to even an average French, Italian, Swiss or Austrian resorts are going to be bitterly disappointed by the Norwegian experience.

It’s cold, there’s snow, a drink costs the earth (I’ll come back to that later) and the locals babble away in an incomprehensible lingo. There the similarities end.

It’s cold and snowy because you are halfway between London and the Arctic Circle. The language is virtually impenetrable, unless you happen to be a fellow Scandinavian, as schools in Britain seldom look further than France, Italy, Spain or Germany when timetabling language lessons.

The Dutch, whose own language seems to be an amalgam of bits picked up from neighbouring counties, seemed to manage after a fashion with a bit of pointing and waving.

The problem with Geilo is there isn’t very much of it - 38km of pisted slopes on a good day if the lift map is to be believed. What the town does have is separated by a fjord running straight through the middle of it.

An average intermediate will have seen enough of both sides of the valley in two days – provided he or she has been lucky enough to catch the risible bus service which operates four times a day - and be hungry for more.

None of the lifts rises more than 250 metres, which means you don’t spend ages in a chair admiring the stunning Norwegian scenery. The trouble with only going 250 metres up a mountain is it doesn’t take very long to get down again either. Thigh burn must be an unheard of condition in these parts. You can’t ski long enough to contract it!

The seasoned Alpine skier will be used to finding restaurants dotted around the mountainside, generally near a busy lift station. At the time of our visit there were two either side of the valley – and one of those was shut because the onward lift hadn’t been opened.

To be fair there are restaurants at three of the half-dozen or so major uplift points at resort level. As you are never more than nine or ten minutes away from one of them – wherever you are on the mountain – there is no danger of starvation setting in.

Norway in general and Geilo in particular, one suspects, is for people with modest skiing expectations, such as the late-middle aged and the Dutch. One British couple meandering along a 100m flat stretch from the lift arrival point to the top of the blue run were saying what a nice time they had skiing in Glencoe last winter. Geilo was, to them, a huge improvement.

The Dutch don’t have huge expectations either. When you come from a country as flat as they do, Geilo must look like the Himalayas. Many of them would find my back garden a challenge after a modest snowfall.

You might have gathered by now that the skiing isn’t very good, although for that weird breed – the cross-country enthusiast – I was assured it is more than adequate.

The locals – poor souls – try to bring excitement to their humdrum skiing existence by Telemarking their way down the mountain. Telemarking, for those who haven’t encountered it, is skiing an old-fashioned way with boots hinged at the toe. Devotees genuflect their way down the mountain in the manner of a sinful Catholic with a lot to confess.

True Telemarkers actually walk UP the mountain rather than do something soft like ride up in on a chair or in a gondola. The poor souls of Geilo clearly don’t adhere to the hair-shirt rules of Telemarking, probably because they can’t see the point. After all, it’s not that far from bottom to top and they wouldn’t suffer enough.

It’s not just the skiing that will disappoint, the après-ski is near-nigh non-existent. There’s a good reason for that – you have to mortgage the wife and kids to afford a drink, never mind a round for new-found friends.

The French Alps isn’t cheap – before Christmas the going rate in Argentière near Chamonix was a shade over £4 a pint – but Norway is truly exorbitant if you want to drink out.

A nip of scotch or brandy will set you back around £7 and 0.4 litres of beer – about three-quarters of a pint – will swallow up £6 or more. You can buy a 33cl bottle of beer in the local supermarket for around £1.50, but anything stronger (wines, spirits etc) can only be purchased from a Government-run store. Mysteriously – and I never did get to the bottom of this one – by the time the same bottle reaches a hotel or restaurant it has almost quadrupled in price

The locals, poor souls, if they are planning a night out get tanked up at home first on supermarket beer, traipse off for the restaurant and, as soon as it is polite, head back home and resume the party.

The net effect of the Norwegian Government’s hefty tax levies on alcohol is there isn’t, and never really has been, a throbbing après-ski scene. The Norwegians have been taxed this hard for almost 100 years and are just about used to it. For southern Europeans, it comes as a shock.

Oh, by the way, you can’t buy supermarket booze on a Sunday, or Government-supplied wines and spirits either, as it is against the law. As is smoking in any building open to the public.

We stayed in the otherwise excellent Geilo Hotel roughly 100 metres from the nearest lift. The food was first rate, the staff spoke excellent English and Dutch and the bedrooms were warn and welcoming.

The bar was deserted. The counter was a sad sight with one beer pump dispensing Ringnes, the local brew, and a few dusty bottles of spirits. Guests were taking cups of tea and coffee in to drink with their dinner on the second evening having been hit with huge bills the night before. A small glass of average red wine could be yours for just £6. I didn’t ask how much a beer was.

There was never a gaggle of sweaty skiers in the hotel bar shortly after the lifts close, in these parts around 4pm on the dot, swapping stories and generally letting their hair down.

One or two smuggled an illicit bottle of Carlsberg Export back to their rooms – we did – and made it last until dinner.

Highlight of the evening for most guests was a game of canasta or that pointless pastime, the name of which escapes me, where players pile up shortbread-biscuit sized pieces of wood and pull them out one at a time until the stack collapses. I couldn’t help noticing that one Danish couple had brought their own boxed set. They must have been warned.

If you have booked for Geilo this winter, check your booking form now and see if you can change to another destination. If you can’t, stock up at the airport duty free with spirits before you fly out. One of the few saving graces of a visit to Norway is it is outside the European Union and you still get a decent allowance for your favourite tipple. Make the best of it; otherwise it is going to be a long - and sober - week.

Conrad Sutcliffe and his family travelled to Geilo with Crystal Holidays at their own expense. They flew from Birmingham to Fagernes, where their nostril hair froze on arrival, and stayed at the Geilo Hotel in Geiloheisen. Next month they are having a proper skiing holiday in Chatel.