 Poster: A snowHead
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Who:Two families with very young children. Adults all competent skiers, two kids (4yo) on their first ski holiday and two toddlers not skiing.
Travel: One family drove, using eurotunnel, with overnight stop. All went smoothly. Other family (us) flew with BA. Originally booked Gatwick to Grenoble but covid meant flights departed Heathrow T5. Nightmare queues and delays on both legs so we'll drive next time!! Hired a car at Grenoble, not a great experience in terms of long waits and unhelpful staff, car was fine, kids car seats terrible.
Accommodation: Stayed in MMV Les Chalets des Cimes, booked via tourist office. Very happy with apartment, 4 bedrooms, use of pool, heated ski lockers, ski hire shop within complex ideal for getting our kids set up, bakery delivery service, underground parking. Location was fairly convenient at top end of resort. Could walk 50m and get onto skis to reach both ski school meeting points. By day 3 our kids could ski to ski school, but was a 10min walk downhill the first few days. There is a ski bus but not that regular. Could ski back to within 50m of apartment using a little track off a green piste.
The skiing: Nice variety for a family trip. Mont Bisanne has lots of easy greens and blues on open sunny slopes. There are a few reds/ blacks but these are short and undemanding. Just below the main village are two long carpet lifts in a tunnel that serve an easy green slope, so great for progression beyond the ski school snow garden. There's also a short chair that serves a slightly longer green and Le Signal main car park, which meant we could ski with the kids to within 100m of apartment and then a short walk uphill. The Chard de Beurre peak has a couple of nice long runs through trees, as well as acting as a gateway to both the gentle ridge above Les Saisies with short greens and blues, and also the link to the wider area. La Leggette had some fun treelined blue/red/black pistes that were enjoyable. There was some lovely short but interesting skiing in the valleys between Les Saisies and Mont Vores, which held the snow well. Due to late season and weeks without snow, many of the lower runs in the wider area were shut. This wasn't an issue for us as we were tag teaming childcare so only out for 2 or 3 hours at a time, and we still had around 70km of piste to go at. There are a couple of elf runs for kids,but us grown ups enjoyed a zip though the forest one.
Weather/snow: The first few days were pleasantly warm and sunny, skiing in just a base layer and thin jacket. Ideal for my kids. There had been no fresh snow for weeks but all pistes above 1600m were well maintained. Grippy corduroy first thing, soft spring skiing later in the day. Pistes were very quiet, we saw more walkers than skiers. Often we only came across a handful of skiers on each piste. Midweek, the weather closed in, with sleet at village level making the snow porridge like, heavy and grabby. Not fun. Snow was better higher up, above the freezing line (1800m ish) and visibility was better on the tree lined runs. By the end of the week, it was dumping with snow down below 1000m, so the last day was great if a little cold, cloudy and flat light. Reluctant to leave on the Saturday, as it was still snowing and another 20cm of fresh had arrived overnight.
Ski school: There is ESF and ESI. We booked our two into a private ESI for one hour each day, mostly so we could request an Engligh speaking instructor. Instructor was competent but was rather brusque and business like, rather than jolly,which our 4yo took a while to warm to. Both kids made great progress, from never put on skis and shuffling in the snow garden, to skiing a green and bits of blue from the top of Chard de Beurre on day 5 in a poorly steered racing snowplough. ESF looked busy, often with large groups of littles, one instructor at the front and the other at the back. Instructors appeared friendly and fun.
Resort: Les Saisies is essentially one main street with some nice cafes/restaurants, a wonderful chocolatine, and a few shops. Very French, friendly and pretty. There is a sports complex with bowling, pool, etc but we didn't visit. La Vache was great for the obvious fondue style meal and very welcoming for our kids. There are a couple of piste side cafes, with basic food, that worked well for us.
We were self catered and the resort supermarket was limited but fine to meet our needs. Note that some accommodation is in a satellite area at the bottom end of the village, which is almost ski in/out but less convenient for the resort centre.
Overall verdict: We had a great holiday in an authentic French resort with easy, quiet piste cruising and great beginner pistes. Not much to challenge advanced skiers but we were ok with that,focusing on getting the kids needs met. Accommodation was great other than the walk to/from ESI ski school on the first few days for our 4yos. Very good value for money resort, cheap lift pass.
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