 Poster: A snowHead
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Our kids have grown out of family ski type chalets, and next year we cannot ski with our friends. Thanks to our investment in lessons our 2 kids, aged 11 and 14 ski like demons. Can you recommend resorts/hotels etc which will be good for their skiing and their (non alcohol fuelled) social life
We note that, as next year all of UK has the same Feb half term, all chalets appear to be bnooked up already!
Aged mother skier
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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St Anton. Our 13 year old kids loved the skiing and there's the sort of nightlife which will look like the acme of sophistication to an 11 and a 14 year old, especially if they're boys (our daughter looked down her nose at the more extreme manfestations of the effects of alcohol on inexperienced brains). It's not a particulalrly lovely town but it's not bad. Good bad and indifferent restaurants. The skiing, on and off piste, is great. The resort has chalets, apartments and hotels of all standards. At half term, the cheapest way to go is do it yourself (we trained it this year, which gave us 2 extra days).
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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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frilly, welcome to snowHeads!
For a number of years we've been going to Simon Butler Skiing in Megève, which offers a package including instruction from their own English-speaking staff. The kids will be in a group of similar demons (with whom they can safely socialise in the evening) and the same goes for Mum and Dad!
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Try going at Easter instead, when the ski day is longer. If you get them out at 8:30 and ski through till 5:30pm with a lunch break and then an end of day drink stop they will have little time to worry about their social life, the evening consists mainly of shower, dinner and bed. My boys are 11 and 13 and this is their preferred option, they say they can socalise at home or on a summer holiday, ski holidays are for skiing. On this basis I recommend an apartment centrally in Val d'Isere or Val Thorens (although being French you get a lie in, lifts don't open till 9 or later).
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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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I agree that Easter would be a better bet, though it is later next year; this year Easter was a powder fest of mammoth proportions! Personally, I would be a bit concerned to let kids of that age loose in a place like St Anton. Another option is a resort where there are no big dangers, and where you can safely let them go off on their own, or with kids their own age. My most expert offspring is now 30 and after two seasons in Val D'Isere he is a seriously good skier (days off with his BASI 1 flatmate taught him a thing or two). He enjoys himself in this small, unheard of, resort with empty pistes, snowparks uncrowded. He spent last Tuesday snowboarding one area of unpisted snow, with a very steep lift, which he said would have been tracked out in half an our in Val D'Isere. They spent all day finding fresh lines through the powder. At a younger age they all used to racket around with their cousins, all on blades, doing lots of the sort of off piste that most people say is impossible with blades, getting lost down the bottom of gullies, spending half an hour climbing out, etc etc. But in resorts where the true dangers were strictly limited (they had huge fun in Valmeinier/Valloire, for example, with some other kids from the Snowcoach chalet hotel). They skied themselves silly till the lifts closed and their need for evening entertainment was pretty limited. What they DIDN'T want to do was ski around with us all day - they were actually perfectly happy to spend the evening with us, they enjoyed games like pictionary and a drink of Baileys made them feel very grownup. Probably much too tame for today's kids!
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We've just been with two 13 year old and an 18 year old. They LOVED Avoriaz better than anywhere they've been before. This is because they could hang around in the snow parks all day, go back to the piste side apartment anytime, muck about on sledges (shopping trolleys) on an evening. There's also bowling, a games room, ice rink and a generally good teen-scene.
They are begging to go back but going in school hols next year and I reckon it will be too crowded there. Would only recommend it during term times.
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frilly, agree with marmalade that Avoriaz would be a suitable bet from the opinion I got of the place. It is also nicely self contained resort... not lots of through-visitors and also no where to far to wander off to... except of course the falaise... 
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