2023 ideas for Large family ski holiday

A snowHead

Huge amount of criteria so something will have to give. Ages from mid 70’s to 6 months old, mostly skiers, but may have a non skier who fancies other things to do (aged grandparents)
Large ski area as most skiers are good to stupid (will ski anything) and will get bored in a small resort.
Good beginners for little under 5’s
Ideally - and I think this will break all the other criteria- ski-in ski-out.

Possibly around 15-20 people inc kids.
Thinking posh catered chalet maybe good, as helps with little ones too.

My only knowledge is France, and love the big resorts, but they are not great for non-skiers. And what I’ve read about nice Austrian villages, mean less good for ski in ski out or chalet style options. As no one wants the hassle of catering for the lot of us.

Is there a good knowledgeable company I can contact who could do the ground work? Or ideas of resorts to check.

A snowHead

I'm arranging a big ski holiday too - and the big problem for us is needing to be in school holidays.

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

Cable cars are quite good for large families as they can cope with the weight.
Surface lifts are less dangerous if you break them as there is less far to fall.

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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Kitzbuhel and Zell am See in Austria may have enough interest to keep non-skiers occupied. Both are a little low to be fully snowsure at either end of the season, but I expect you could find a nice family-friendly hotel close to the lifts and kids ski school.

Other than that, the big French resorts have lots of that sort of offering from various tour operators. Ski Esprit gets quite a lot of praise on here when it comes to young childcare. If you want something independent and exclusive to your party, try posting your requirements on chalets direct and the owners will get in touch with offers.

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@Lucywuk, have you thought about St Martin? Depending on your budget, there are some very nice ski in/out chalets piste side in the Caseblanche development. However.. a single ”posh” catered chalet may be hard to find for those numbers..perhaps 2 close to each other? A hotel is now being built as part of the development, or you could look at Lodji-which combines a 4 star hotel (complete with spa etc) and apartments. V nice. For non skiers there’s good walking on groomed paths (not all involving climbing) to explore, dog sledding, and lots of guided snow shoe opportunities. Pedestrians can easily get up the mountain by lift or walking to cosy restaurants above the village.

After all it is free

So much depends on what the "non skiers" want to do. They are no more alike in their wishes than skiers are. Personally, I'd want to be up in the mountains, with accessible lifts, good prepared trails for walking or snowshoeing, a range of cafes where I could sit on the terrace with a drink and watch the skiers, and somewhere to sit comfortably in the chalet and read a book when the weather was horrid. If somebody else was feeding me, I wouldn't need or want shops nearby. I did a big family holiday in a self-catered chalet in Les Gets once, 6 double bedrooms all with their own bathroom. Very well equipped kitchen. Each room did an evening meal and my mother - a non-skier who wasn't able to get out much, due to a disability, but who loved reading, and baking, made cakes for us all after skiing each day. She was mortally fearful of slipping on icy pavements - this is an important consideration for elderly non-skiers, who should be encouraged to have stout footwear with crampons.

@Lucywuk, we've tried a variety of approaches for large group trips.

1) Choose resort, let people choose own accommodation - usually apartments in same block, but some might choose hotel or chalet. Works well for older kids, but sounds like yours are too young.
2) Catered chalet. Worth trying www.snowfinders.co.uk but one of the biggest challenges is that you'll need to know exactly how many you are as with kids that age, most companies will require an exclusive use booking. Then you've got to deal with collecting the money, people taking a long time to decide, late changes etc.
3) Hotel. Can leave people to book individually, but potentially negotiate a deal direct with hotel (e.g. "If we're more than 20 people, please can we have free breakfast/a beer each evening?"). We've done that this year, and our group has expanded a lot because of the flexibility - 3 additional families added on after the original bookings.

All that said, I'd reconsider January. If you can go later in the season the weather might be more appropriate for under-5s. I can recall one January holiday when my son was 2 when it was so cold that he could only withstand a few minutes outside at a stretch.

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I used to go with non skiing grandparents a bit and was slightly surprised by what was enjoyed and what was not . Avoriaz was successful as the cable car down gave them lots of good walking. Zermatt with in laws was not so successful as they felt the valley was a bit enclosed and claustrophobic. Davos with its huge variety of other winter sport activities to look at with walks and train rides with young grandchildren was a huge success but it definitely would not fit your requirement for ski in ski out.
One successful trip was to Oberlech which is ski in ski out, an attractive Austrian resort with a good ski kindergarten for the young ones and it has pretty reliable snow and variety of skiing. Not cheap though.
All this information is fairly historic though as the children are all now in their 20's

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@Lucywuk, As Pam says a lot depends upon the interests of the non-skiers.

For us dealing with 3 generations, ski proximity was key, so that the competent skiers could get back for lunch most days, the less competent generally only wanted to do half days. It was really nice for our elderly relative knowing that most of the family would be back for lunch, all be it a late lunch quite often. (skiing over normal lunchtimes is usually quieter) She was frightened of going around too much outside in case she fell (aged late 80`s) and certainly would not go out on her own. A chalet hotel best met that criteria for us.

The non and less than totally committed skiers wanted a spa. That meant a pool, hot tub, sauna in the accommodation and a fair number of apartment blocks have that set up as do some chalets/hotels. For us that was key along with comfortable sofas to lounge upon and read, with good views and a real fire.

Our criteria may change if and when I`m next looking as the eldest in the family is no longer (at 97) up to travel, and we now have a couple of small additions to consider.

If non-skiers want lots of shopping that would be an additional consideration but for us that was easily satisfied by my willingness to drive up and down mountains to shopping areas.

The closest we came to perfection was at Chalet Hotel White Eden at Ste Foy.

St Foy has a great beginners area (we did not have littlies then but since some were in the planning stage Laughing

we looked at that zone and it seemed great). The Chalet was truly ski in/out though not for our complete beginner on the first 2 days. The pisted ski area is too small for advanced skiers for more than a couple of days but the off piste opportunities there are great and, with a guide, satisfied the need for adventure. The keenest skiers also did a day trip to Val d'isere (the chalet would have laid transport on for us without additional cost but the kids, all then in their 20`s, couldn`t resist driving) everyone was happy for the 8-9 days we were there. There was a hot tub, and a sauna but no pool. We were there just as the Chalet opened with new operators and whilst it had not quite started offering lunches I believe it did the next week or so. In the mean time they were very happy for us to picnic on the sunny terrace. Breakfast, afternoon tea and dinner were included and always really good. Rooms could all be booked independently but I made a group booking and got a great discount, it was mid-Jan.

With 2 under fives now in our family I would happily go back there but I`d choose March rather than January because the weather is usually warmer. With small ones its really useful to be really close to where you are staying.

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Have you thought of the Wengen area (or Jungfrau more generally)? Railway in/out, plenty of different ski options, Eiger Express, etc.
No idea on budget, but Jan is as good a time as any, cost-wise.

Might be able to find ski in/out in one of the smaller places in the area (I've only been in summer, so don't know how much of that there is).

You know it makes sense.

Thanks @RedandWhiteFlachau. The kids and grandchildren are all emphatic they want to go to Les Saisies, where the grandchildren all learnt, and have lots of fond memories.

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

A snowHead

@Lucywuk,

A snowHead

Is Courchevel (Moriond/1650) an option? If so, our chalet host the other week told us one family had booked the entirety of this (up to) 22 person chalet for the week we were there: https://www.leski.com/courchevel/chalets/chalet-rikiki.

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

I'd ask ask the non skiers what is important to them. If it's pool then a hotel might be better. Or might be lifts they can use to get up to the mountain restaurants for lunch.

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My OH and I stayed at Rikiki many years ago (around 20 years ago.....), on a "last minute" booking. It was very good. On the chalet staff night out the other guests in the chalet, who were very friendly, invited us to join them but thankfully I remembered from reading some reviews that the restaurant they'd booked was very expensive! We went out and bought some super charcuterie, fresh bread and tomatoes and an expensive (for us....) bottle of red wine and played chess by the log fire in the chalet. It was lovely. We had driven down, because my OH had a heart condition and I wanted to have a vehicle on hand. I had kept the following week free of work and we just pottered around - found the resort of Crest Voland by accident, skied over to Les Saisies, fell in love with it and bought an apartment. So in the end it was quite an expensive holiday!

Rikiki would be very good for a family party if you could get ski school for the kids in 1650. It's easy enough for adults to get a bus to 1650 but not ideal to have to schlep up there with little kids who can't manage their own gear.

Help!!

2023 ideas for Large family ski holiday

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