 Poster: A snowHead
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I can imagine this will be an interesting thread.
I need to book kids tuition for my impending trip.
Eldest -12 can ski reds easily/has skied blacks. I would like her to ski better. Tuition isn’t negotiable (my husband wants some adult skiing time also).
Little fella - 6 - is in a club in an indoor snozone in uk. Can ski a bit. Definitely needs more lessons. This is probably not relevant but hey ho.
Now we are staying at the bottom end of the valley in LM at coeur des loges. esf pickup I can see is at Croisette area.
Someone has suggested oxygene to me but it’s up in reberty 2000 which as far as I can see is 20 mins on bus (which isn’t going to go down well with my OH) I think croisette might be a bus job anyway if the lower slopes aren’t open.
In order to maximise the chance of exploring this vast ski area, kids are going to need some lunch supervision. Otherwise we’ll be stuck close by in LM. Has anyone experience of the esf lunch club? What do they feed your kids? Do they get a choice? I have a picky eater and really don’t want to be spending 40EUR on lunch or whatever for her every day if she’s going to eat none of it.
Is it easier to get access to wider 3V from reberty or croisette? I think oxygene lessons start at 9.00 which would be good for getting up and away instead of 9.15 which is esf start time where I imagine queues will build up?
Has anyone experience of oxygene?
Comments welcome!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Prosneige are/were based in Les Menuires, I have used them for one on one lessons, not group, but that is 5 minutes away on the bus.
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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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I don’t think they do lunch club sadly @blahblahblah, 
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Can’t help on the schools but I’d be avoiding a change of busses which I think is the necessity to get to Reberty.
But depending on what time the lessons start you could ski if the kids are ok on blues and aren’t too slow. The lifts start at 9 so if lessons meet time is 9:30 it’s easily doable since it’s one lift up from Croisette (Menuires chair) and one blue down for a few 100m (Boyes)
As for best access Reberty is maybe marginally better. For VT is a short ski down to Bruyeres gondola which takes you to the entrance to VT in one lift. But it’s not like it’s much harder from Croisette, up Menuires and then Mont de la Chambre chairs to same peak.
To get to Meribel & Courchevel valleys is the same route. If in Croisette you add the option of going up Roc1 and Roc2 but you’re still just above Mottaret so that doesn’t buy you much and the transfer from Roc 1 to 2 is a pain in the butt as it’s flat and not right next door.
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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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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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I'd def recommend looking at TDC, the Development Centre, if you havent already. They are brilliant! i dont have kids, but i love their clinics and style of teaching. Everyone i've ever spoken to with kids have said that they absolutely loved it too and have definitely improved.
They dont start in LM, but you might find they can work something out if you contact them?
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We tried lunch with esf for 3 years in an attempt to have a longer ski day, menu looked lovely to me but daughter wasn’t impressed & suggested it was too “French”/unfamiliar so waste of money for us… & she usually eats anything. Getting around 3 valleys is pretty easy so we can now go quite far, pick up for lunch and get back out, with everyone being much happier (she’s now 11). We stay in Meribel and have made it to VT or Courchevel and back in time for lunch(or at least one of us has) before regrouping.
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We've used ESF for our kids in La croisette a couple of times. I have no issues with ESF, was like 220E for a weeks morning lessons which means everyone gets a bit of time to ski. They'd probably learn a load more in private lessons or maybe some other schools would have smaller groups. We usually go in March and groups are about 8 kids. Depends on your expectations. If you want competitive skiers it's probably not for you, if you're happy for them to learn a bit and have some fun I think it's fine. Our older one wants to do the freestyle week next year, she def caught the bug. The younger one prefers drinking hot chocolate and trying to make slush puppies with the snow. Our eldest is 16 now and the youngest is 13. They've done loads of ESF schools over the years, the only deciding factor as to whether they enjoy it is the teacher, and whether they like them or not. Almost always they have done.
I wouldn't sweat it too much, I think it's such a privilege to get to ski as a kid that I don't lose any sleep over which school to use.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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You can also get pretty far in the ski school window. I did lessons at the same time as the kids and we got out to pretty much all corners of the resort over the mornings. That was without lunch club but obviously the instructor knew exactly where they were going so we did a lot of KM each morning.
When ours were 6 we used to take them home at lunchtime as they were pretty knackerd. Try and fire them up on supernoodles and hot chocolate and get a little bit of skiing in in the afternoon. If you're used to skiing without kids you might need to get used to a much slower holiday pace. Trying to cajole a small kid into more KMs doesn't work out too well - speaking from experience.
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I did lessons at the same time as the kids and we got out to pretty much all corners of the resort over the mornings.
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Is that worth considering? Ski school isn't only for kids and if your group were late back, the kids would be ESF's responsibility?
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Thank you for the suggestion of prosneige - we did indeed use this one. I would recommend.
Can pick and choose lunch days too.
Only slight hiccup was that we missed the bloody start on 2 days due to that awful bettex lift!
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Highly recommend the quality of Prosneige tuition …. recommended to us by a Snowhead who teaches himself in the Belleville valley.
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Always been faultless for me.
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You know it makes sense.
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So - my kids are now adults but in about 2005 we went to Tignes with Esprit and I refused to pay their ridiculous prices for ski school and booked them into ESF with supervised lunch. At the chalet the other parents (who frankly were up themselves) said ESF would allow the kids to cry, would let them wet themselves (?they were 4 and 6) and wouldn't feed them suitable food - basically we were terrible parents for even contemplating using them.
The reality? The kids went with their ski instructor in the morning, then he took them back to the office where another instructor met them and took them to a local restaurant for lunch - I have no idea what they ate, but they weren't hungry and both came away with a love for grenadine. They were the only kids in the "lunch club" (we really were bad parents  ) and the lunch supervisor instructors (they had a different one some days) didn't always speak particularly good english - but the kids weren't phased at all and learned some french.
After lunch they were taken back to the office where we picked them up at about 2pm. The instructor would also stop for a drink during the lesson on the slope - I don't remember giving them any money for that.
It seems that ESF have now made this much more organised if they are providing meals in their club rather than taking them to restaurants - but the point of my post is that the kids survived and they recall it with great fondness.
As for the question about menu and food choice I would email them and ask - and location location - shlepping them about carrying skis is not great.
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