 Poster: A snowHead
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Hi all, hope you have had a great couple of days. After chatting with the OH, we have decided to go away next year for the Christmas festivities. We are a family of 3, child is 7. we are looking for somewhere with the following criteria:
Pretty Snow sure
Things to do other than SKi (non skiing family have shown a interest of tagging along)
Decent ski school
Family friendly resort
We will be looking to book pretty sharpish, also the extended family will no doubt tag along, most don't ski, but love the idea of spending Christmas away.
I have had a little search but, nothing is jumping out at me, ideally it would be a package, but not overly concerned with free styling it.
Thanks.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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With the problems this year do you REALLY want to book thus early?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Pretty snow sure and lots of non-skiing activities tend to be conflicting requirements, as most of the snow sure places are high altitude ski stations rather than proper towns. Zermatt is one of the few proper towns that is truly snow sure.
Hotel or apartment/chalet? If you want a hotel then I'd recommend Austria, Christmas here is wonderful. Zell am See is a nice town with stuff to do and the glacier skiing at Kaprun is covered by the same lift pass.
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The problem with the glacier is if other places have bad snow it will be packed and if other places have good snow then the other places will be better. I agree with above poster; you have to compromise on snow sure to get non skiing things. How about Ortesei?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| kiteman69 wrote: |
| With the problems this year do you REALLY want to book thus early? |
I'm an advocate of late booking particularly for early season holidays but for Xmas with a lot of people early booking makes sense as a lot of places get full. If you are booking early being as early as possible makes sense, you will have no more idea of Xmas snow conditions in 10 months time than you do now.
Difficult to combine early season snow reliability with activitiesz for non skiers. Serre Chevalier/Briancon offers decent snow reliability backed up by snow making with a very attractive town to visit, and a thermal spa.
Badgastein is said to be similar though I have never been. Davis has a lot of attractions for the non skier as have other large Swiss resorts, though they tend to be pricey particularly at Xmas.
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I may get shot down here, but we've been in Samoens for Christmas week and despite the terrible snow conditions, the lift company have done an amazing job which has meant that we've enjoyed our (limited) skiing. All ski lessons have run and they kept the beginners area in great condition considering what they had to work with. If they can do this in a terrible year, maybe its not such a gamble.
We have used ESF and we've been happy with the teaching and class sizes, though I think the beginners classes look big. There are two ESI schools there as well. We have used one of them, ZigZag, for a private lesson and they seemed fine. The garderie (creche) in town is really well run (we've put three children through it and we rent our chalet from one of the carers!) and the garderie works with ESF so that children under 6 can ski for half a day and be transferred to the creche, meaning that you don't have to come down the mountain at lunchtime.
Samoens is lovely for non skiers and the Christmas celebrations were more extensive than what we have experienced in Oz-en-Oisans. There were activities in the town square each evening in the run up to Christmas along with fireworks on Christmas Eve.
Its close to Geneva, so there is a short transfer time if you are flying or if you are driving its 12 hours from the south of England. The downside is that it is not ski in ski out, so with children its good to have a car so that you can drive to the Grand Massif Express, though you can easily get around with out a car -there are regular ski buses but we've never used them,so can't comment on convenience.
We've always self catered as we have a car and there is a supermarket just outside Samoans which is a good size. I am not aware of that many hotels, but I'm sure they exist. We haven't seen any flyers this year, but in previous years there has been lots of advertising by catering companies who will prepare you meals or supply ready meals, so with self catered, there is still the option not to slave over a cooker all week.
Good luck with your search
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