Best Value Family Ski Holiday? Package / Chalet/ Drive / Self Booking - what does everyone else do?

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We have driven 3 years in a row to Les gets, chosen because friends were going there. Son was 5 first time.
He went in morning ski school first 2 times, last time he didn't want ski school so skied competently with us on blues and reds.
Drove because flights were crazy expensive. Have overnighted at reims, Troyes and 1 other place. We are lucky that each year school has had inset day on the Friday.
Stayed in cheap (now demolished) hotel and then last time in appt. That worked better as hard to find restaurant open at time we wanted to feed child.
Hopefully we get to go this year....

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

We've always done self drive to Germany and Austria with 3 children. We live in Derbyshire, so it would always be an overnight ferry from Hull to Rotterdam on Friday night after school, at Christmas or Feb half-term, back from Rotterdam on a Saturday night, home on a Sunday. One overnight stop each way around Frankfurt/Mannheim/Heidelberg, arriving in the resort on a Sunday. Sorting out ski hire for the kids and ski passes, ready to ski Monday to Friday.

We have skied in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Mittenwald, Stubai Gletscher 3 times as children under 10 years old get free lift passes with skiing parents, St Johann in Tirol and also less known ski resorts in Germany in Feb half-term- Winterberg, Altastenberg and Willingen, only 4.5 hour's drive from Rotterdam and good for a long weekend if there's snow. We would budget for around £3000 with lunches on the piste and a few meals out. We have own ski gear and helmets, but we hire skis and boots for the kids as they grow too fast!

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Not sure how to edit my previous post, but just wanted to add that we find the ferry from Hull a really good start to the holiday and much nicer than driving all the way from NW England (we are on the border with Greater Manchester) down south or even to Harwich. You get almost 10 days out of the holiday as well. Our youngest was in a kindergarten on the Stubai Glacier at first but was in a ski school at Schlick 2000 when he was 3.

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After all it is free

Sorry, it's 4.5hrs to less known ski areas in Germany i.e. Winterberg and Willingen, popular with the Dutch.

The drive to Bavaria/ Tirol is much longer than that and we used to break up the journey around Frankfurt/ Mannheim not to make it hellish with 3 kids, see the sights etc but some people may prefer to drive straight through of course.

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Soz, have chopped out part of my post and lost it!

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

I go at Easter on my own with 2 kids and have done for a few years..... and I'm based in warrington so have Liverpool and Manchester to go from.

Other have said quite a bit but to add....

The ski airports - turin, salzburg, innsbruck etc all stop from the North and don't run at Easter. So you are best to use non-ski, like geneva, Venice, verona, Milan Malpensa and Munich. They run everyday. Geneva is the more expensive, Milan usually the cheapest.

Also, play the school holiday game! Usually the school hols are 2 weeks or slightly more and usually (there are a couple of exceptions) the BH weekend is either at the beginning or end of the hols... therefore leaving 1 of the weeks without a BH day....... use that week as its miles cheaper.

Remember if you go to Austria or east Italy then you don't need to go as high as you do in France. You will find less busy and cheaper places to go.

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If you do decide to drive and self-cater, you may also want to check out Vallandry. We've been going there for years and kids all learnt to ski there - lots of easy runs and whole Les Arcs area as well

Vallandry is too my mind very much geared to self-catering families.

Stubai valley in Austria might be a bit of a drive but very good for family skiing holidays. We've rented an apartment in Neustift village with the same hosts every time we've been there. Free entry to an indoor pool and the ice skating in the village, 5 ski areas within a 10-20 min drive, free kindergarten on the glacier for non- skiing little ones and free lift passes for the under 10s (not sure if still the same as the kids are teenagers now and we can't go Sad

)

You know it makes sense.

I've been doing this as a family of 5 for 7 years and always did it as a self-drive/self-catering holiday. Agree that Easter is the cheapest time to go for school term breaks but it also means it's probably best to aim for resorts that are higher up to ensure decent snow coverage, eg, I booked Val Thoren or Val Claret/Tignes for Easter. February half term break is the busiest time and expect long queues and extended waiting times at the Eurotunnel terminal. I'd also recommend breaking up the journey, I typically, if we leave home after school breaks up, I have a cheap motel booked after the crossing before hitting the road again early in the morning. I would start the next day early (eg. on the road by 6am) as the roads and peages get very busy and sometimes traffic does come to a stand still where there are bottlenecks and also the closer you get to the resort. I try to get things booked 3-4 months before hand and generally for us 5, it usually £3k-£4k all in. That said this year,I spent an additional cost of over £500 for all the covid testing and insurance.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

We are on a home exchange website where we earn points from having people stay at our house while we're away, then use those points to stay in someone else's place. Doesn't have to be a direct exchange. We have stayed in les Carroz and Meribel for free on that basis in past years, and have a booking for la Rosière at end of January. Might not suit your situation or be your cup of tea, but it has worked for us, winter and summer.

A snowHead

Have been driving kids skiing for years and been times of great memories - sadly they are almost grown up!

Few things to note on money saving and I am pretty Yorkshire when it comes to costs:

1. if you drive yourself
- drive through Belgium (leave around Lille and come back in at Nancy - IIRC) to avoid tolls AND get low tax fuel in Luxembourg. Its about an extra 50 odd miles. Note also never fuel up at a ripoff motorway station - usually there is a cheap supermarket fuel stop nearby - plan your stops.
- rent cheaper non skinin skiout accommodation down the mountain and store skis in roofbox and drive up in the morning and ski-in ski-out from your car. Treat car like home from home so store a packed lunch and a few beers and save £1000 on lunches. eg Les Carroz was a favourite as we have breakfast early at home, got in the car for 10 mins and dropped kids at ski school for
morning then parked up the mountain slopeside and then adult skiied from there. We go back at lunch to pick up kids and lunch from car and ski with kids. If kids were tired we could keep sledges etc. change of clothes other accessories in car. No need to return to accomodation till the evening.

2. if you fly/rent a car, buy annual hire car insurance - this 50 odd quid for a year cover is much less than the excessive charges at the counter to zero all your liabilities. Also we usually rent a car on summer holiday too so you recycle the insurance. We use icarhireinsurance - we claimed one and they paid no problem

3. Car is really useful but if you do without a car eg Les Arcs, one amazing way to travel (reasonable price but really hard to book) is the overnight Lunea sleeper train service from Gare de Lyon to Bourg and eat at the amazing Train Bleu - where you get a bottle of dodgy rum with your dessert. A few swigs of that will get you ready to go straight sleep in your 6 berth and next morning you wake up in Bourg ready for a ski. Happy memories. Toofy Grin

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

We have been using Peak Retreats self drive twice a year since 2008 (apart from during covid when some of the holidays were postponed as they weren't possible) and always had good holidays and excellent customer service particularly this year when we were able to go away on a Christmas ski holiday thanks to their flexibility in changing our mode of transport and bringing our accommodation forward at the last minute so we could get there before the French restrictions came in. We were also offered the choice of postponement or cancelling at the last minute and having a full refund had we not wanted to proceed with the holiday. We have another ski holiday booked with them later in the season. They offer self drive including Eurotunnel flexiplus, or ferry at a cheaper rate or accommodation only if you prefer to fly but I think self drive is a better option while covid is a thing.

Some DIY options would not have allowed cancellation and full refund within the last day which is what many people were faced with this year when the rules changed at the 11th hour so I think at the current time it is much safer to book through an ABTA bonded UK TO.

I would suggest going at Easter as that is the best value in school holidays and the slopes are quieter. Montgenevre, Sainte Foy and Val Cenis are all good family options and usually have good snow conditions at Easter. Val Cenis can be a bit slushy at the bottom but goes right up to 2800m on north facing slopes. Obviously France currently has restrictions but if you wait until they are lifted you will probably get last minute availability for Easter.

We have been going on family ski holidays since our eldest was 10 months and he is now nearly twenty so have experienced a lot of french resorts with the kids.

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"Best value" doesn't necessarily mean cheap, of course. But the fact is that "cheap" ski holidays with kids are always going to be physically quite hard work and, when they're small, giving up a lot of "grown up" ski time. If you can afford to pay other people to take on some of the burden then of course it will be easier! As always, having more money gives you more choices.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

@kettonskimum, we agree- resorts like Le Grand Bornand are much cheaper than others- look also at booking via campsites- they often have cabins/ lodges/ rooms and apartments at much lower prices than with operators- there are many that are only a gondola ride from major and smaller resorts

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I've had this question for my trips for each of the last 15 years and have tried various solutions.

On top of the budget concerns, the other factors for us where
how much of a holiday do we want? (cooking, washing up etc)
how much skiing do we want to do independently vs at small child speed
childcare (3 year olds last about 45 minutes a day on the piste)
Quality of ski school for kids

Nothing is ideal, but the payback for the early years is immense - I've just come back from 3V and a day of knee deep powder with my 16 year old was one of the highlights of my ski career

For us what worked in the early years (until they were strong enough to ski all day) was tour operators offering wrap around care - ski lessons and childcare throughout the day, so we still got a holiday. We used leski, skibeat, Mark Warner (only in term time - prices eye watering otherwise) and mostly esprit

Resort wise we still wanted to have the scale of a big resort for adults. La tania is great for friendly resort with good package options and 3V on your doorstep, plus doing laps of the green back to resort from the top of the gondola was perfect for 3 year old lessons. However we moved on to StAnton for 3 years running specifically because the ski school at Nasserein was amazing. We had a couple of really bad experiences with ESF...

And once the youngest was big enough not to need nursery care, we started to drive down and do chalet or S/C

After all it is free

Oh, and I always avoided February half term - too many dangerous idiots on crowded slopes

Family ski holidays do make terrific memories but if we'd only been able to go at February half term they'd never have happened. Even when we had our own place in a French ski resort we came home to the UK for the whole of the 4 week French holidays as lift queues were out of the question. wink

We always went in one of the early, cheapest, weeks in January and always had a tight budget - we never ate "lunch on the slopes" as a family. The most enjoyable holidays were probably those in catered chalets, where everybody, and especially the kids, could fill up on "chalet tea", lounging round in base layers with endless mugs of tea. And we could take our own duty free gin and buy tonics, soft drinks and beers from the chalet host's "honesty bar". One evening, in a chalet in La Rosiere run by Ski Olympic, our 15 year old son got so drunk on the "free" red wine, sitting out of our sight at the opposite end of the table to us and trying to impress a very pretty fellow guest, that he couldn't lie down (had to prop him up in the corner of the bathroom with a few towels thrown over him) and couldn't face another glass of red wine for more than 5 years.

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You know it makes sense.

In school holidays and similar peak periods, it can actually be a lot easier to take a packed lunch. Especially where lift stations provide separate picnic rooms: once you suss these out, you end up saving a lot of time and money by doing your own catering. And they can actually be quite relaxing in comparison to the queues and table-hunting scrum in the restaurants. And every so often, it turns out useful to have some lunch to hand if you find it's time to eat, and you're distant from the nearest café.

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I have managed to do plenty holidays with our 2 children within that budget - usually always going to Italy. February holidays we'd get flights from Manchester (we live in Scotland so getting flights before English half term made them cheaper) you can just do the reverse. Then an airbnb with 2 bedrooms, last few years paid about £800. Flights have been got for around £400, inc skis and luggage, lift pass for a family £800 - Italian resorts like La Thuile have good prices for young children, under 8s are free! Hire car - estate so we all fit £400. I normally book months (like 8-12!) in advance so get cheaper prices on hire car etc. Fly into Geneva I find a PITA for hire cars as the queues are monstrous and then you have to get a bus, but on the other hand you do get winter tyres and chains as standard. 2hr or so drive from Geneva to the Aosta valley or fly into Malpensa which may well be cheaper. Lunches are affordable on the slopes in many Italian resorts, often when the children were smaller an adult pizza or pasta would easily feed them both, and in the evenings take away pizza or self catering (basics like pasta, risotto, omelette). It does all feel like quite a lot of organising but I've looked lots of times over the years and never found a package holiday that comes even close in terms of price.

A snowHead

Lots of awesome ideas in this thread. Just back from a half-term trip for 5 and was idea scouting for next year. How we kept costs downish yet still holidaying with some comfort this time:

- I drove, wife and 3 little ones (all under Cool

flew. This way we got 4 return flights over half term with Swiss for £450 total as baggage free (particularly as taking my own equipment). Eurotunnel, tolls, petrol and B7B in Reims added about £600. I picked up at other end so no transfer, car hire or car seat expenses.
- Went to Macugnaga, Italy. Ideal for beginners and some off-piste, less so intermediate. But as a locals' resort very good value lift pass, equipment and ski school. Came to £900 for everything for week (12 hrs of groups lessons for 3 in that)
- Booking direct and with no half-term in Italy prices don't shoot up for that one week. Nice hotel, breakfast, with family suite and spa was £1.1k for week.
- Food and drink relatively cheap.

Think above approach could be replicated at a number of off-beaten-track small Italian resorts. Bit less if self-catering.

Idea for next year is to try and use Brittany Ferries to Bilbao if ferry timings work and drive 3-4 hrs to Western Pyrenees resort (Cautarets, La Mongie or Formigal).

Easter sounds great but for security on snow need to go high and I found that tends to limit to more expensive resorts (even Livigno was coming out a lot). Would do when Easter is early (eg 2024) to widen options but probably not when late.

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Best Value Family Ski Holiday? Package / Chalet/ Drive / Self Booking - what does everyone else do?

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