DIY ski trip

A snowHead

Planning for the 2023 season!

In the past we have always gone skiing with a tour operator, e.g. crystal ski, club med and we have done it with snowtrex once too. This year we are hoping to go DIY and I'm researching on Chalets. Are there any good chalets/chalets website you could recommend? Our only requirement is that it has to be ski-in, ski-out and in a big-ish resort (e.g. no smaller than L2A or Alpe d'Huez).

Thanks in advance!

A snowHead

Hmm. It's a very big field out there. Are you looking for a catered chalet, or self-catering. And what dates? What sort of budget? Fly or drive? How many bedrooms do you need?

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

Thanks. Self catering looking at either March or early April. We will fly there. Looking at maybe up to £500pp for the chalet for a group of 8 to 10 people. Ideally no one has to be in the sofa bed in the living room. Bunk beds are fine. So probably 4 or 5 bedrooms.

The chalets that came out from Google that made our criteria (ski in ski out, big resorts) are all super expensive like £8k+ for a week. I'm wondering if I used the correct search terms! Maybe I should google apartments instead of chalets?? Puzzled

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The second or third weeks of March are good for France - after the end of the 4 week French school hols, but usually good conditions. Yes, definitely search on "apartment" rather than "chalet". If you google "chalet" you often come up with catered chalet prices. To get a general idea of what's out there you could look at the website for Peak Retreats. They have high-end apartments in a big range of resorts. Their prices include a return eurotunnel crossing but it's easy to deduct that if you don't need it. Don't forget to budget for transfers. The high costs can come as a shock to people who are used to using tour operator packages. But you get a FAR greater choice of accommodation if you DIY. Good luck.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Chalets Direct solutions room is quite good - if it's still going that is.

You post you desired requirements, chalet operators post their replies, you sift through looking for one that matches.

Ski in/out always comes at something of a premium, big resort can both be a plus and a minus when it comes to cost - You can get some good deals because there are usually more operators (depending on resort), but it can also work against you - if the resort is large, then there are fewer ski in/out chalet options which puts the price up.

There's also a shift in the market towards self catering.

You'll need to Register first of course.

@euanovsky, I spend a lot of time googling different places. I have looked at VRBO, booking.com, Air BnB, sunweb has some larger places as well although not fully DIY they are great value and self "drive"

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

@euanovsky, you could try talking to Peak Feeling. https://peakfeeling-ski.com/. Last March they found me a chalet in Val d'isere for €5300 which could sleep 12 in 6 bedrooms. They also found a chef for 5 days at around €250 per person.

I also search the agents on the resort websites.

Good luck.

After all it is free

We go with a big group of friends each year. Previously this was to a budget chalet, but post Covid/Brexit price increases mean it was much cheaper this year to go to a hotel. Bonus is we get a much better standard of accommodation as well. We went to the excellent Ours Blanc in Les menuires which would meet your requirements for big area and ski in/out.

Not self catering but B&B, and the breakfast buffet is great. Some decent cheap places to eat out in Les m.

@euanovsky Your criteria are simply far too wide. You'll get viable suggestions from the Forum, but they'll be very random. I suggest that you narrow down the locations a bit based on a few criteria. It's common for people to return to somewhere they've been before and liked, because it's much easier to judge what's on offer ('Only 300m from the lifts': yes, but a vertical difference of 100m so it's a queue for a crowded bus - and so on).

So narrow it down a bit to a few resorts (yeah, include one you've not been too before just to see); take a look at some agency websites for an idea of prices and accommodation on offer; and as mentioned, contact a couple to start the ball rolling.

This coming season I'm not sure that flying is as attractive an option as it once was. I know five people who've flown recently, and they have all suffered cancellations and rescheduling. So perhaps just cost out a driving alternative just to see and as a backup if flights become an issue. Typically, a car journey is around £500-£700 return depending on the vehicle and date of travel (although some SNowHeads will claim it can be done cheaper). Last season, there were periods where car hire seemed to be cripplingly expensive and people were switching to self-drive late in the day, which isn't ideal.

It's a common theme on SnowHeads that people book their flights first, without much reference to destinations, then find that the car rental is hugely expensive or problematic, or they can't get a transfer given the time they arrive. It's often better to select your destinations first, then work backwards from the ideal arrival time to see what transfers and flights and rentals will work best for you all. Sometimes this will make the choice of resort for you, given the logistics and costs.

Hotel versus apartment depends on the makeup of your group. Personally, if it's families, an apartment is much more flexible and gives everyone space to come and go and relax as they wish. For a set of adults, yes, don't discount a hotel in your mix of target accommodation. As you'd expect, accommodation prices can be very sensitive to distance from lifts and amenities (that bargain may turn out to be a drive away from the shops and lift, down a steep icy access track). And beware the apartment issue of stuffing as many beds into as little space as possible - compare on the basis of both number of bedrooms and m² - our 68m² 2-bed apartment is advertised as a 4-person accommodation (or 2 adults and 3 children) but in some resorts it would be double that as 3 (tiny) bedrooms and a sofa-bed at the cost of much less living space.

On a secondary note, some apartments are serviced by a central heating and hot water system while others may be serviced by their own immersion heater. In the former case, hot water is effectively unlimited, which is nice. In the latter, you may be waiting literally hours for the tank to re-heat if everyone arrives back at the same time. And don't forget to check for decent wired broadband: anyone like us who has this (wired to the apartment at around 36 Mbps) tends to clearly mention it - if it's not mentioned, then be suspicious that you're sharing a low-bandwidth wireless system with lots of other people. In our village, there are some apartments that don't have any Internet connection at all, which is hard to credit, given that it's available.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Decide on your first choice resort and in addition to search resources already mentioned most French resorts have their own reservation systems. For L2A the link is here https://booking.les2alpes.com/ (nothing to do with Booking .com). This will give access to a whole range of accommodation in the resort at French prices ( without any additional mark-up from a UK travel company). Very often they will run discount offers on lift passes. Also research local estate agents as they also have separate accommodation not bookable through any other source.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

snow reports

Excellent - thank you all for your great advice! Will do more research based on what's mentioned Cool

You know it makes sense.

Sunweb and Snowtrex are well known for providing accommodation and lift pass packages (apartments and chalets), plenty of options from them on the self catering front, won't be much cheaper in the big resorts but if you open yourself up to less well known/smaller resorts (many with extra areas on the lift pass you can get to easily if your driving) then you will find plenty of options....

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

A snowHead

Just done a quick and dirty search on Abritel.fr (used to book directly with French individuals pre COVID but switched for protection and ease of late cancellation and full refund!).

Les Arcs, 16 March for a week, 5 bedroom - well placed (100m from nearest lift and possibly piste running by side of accommodation) about 5k Euros.

A snowHead

Help!!

DIY ski trip

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