Puy St Vincent - DIY ?

A snowHead

Hello,

I would welcome some advice please, we were thinking of going to Puy St Vincent for the family holidays with Snowbizz that has an excellent reputation here on snowHead

.

I've priced up the equivalent holiday independently and DIY option works out cheaper for me (holidays for a family of 3 in March):

1. by the air option ( 20% of saving of £247 ).

- flight from London (Ryanair) plus private taxi transfer
- the same apartment block (Mona Lisa Apartments)

2. accommodation only option gives me 70% of savings (£236 to book Mona Lisa apartment DIY vs. £800 via Snowbizz )

You can place the child into the same ski school (the time of the lessons is less convenient though: 9-11am opposite to 11-13am for Snowbizz clients).

The resort does their own kids club (igloos, tobogganing, skating rink) with flexible options.

I really liked everything I read about Snowbizz but considering the savings we would probably go independently.

Any experiences about doing family holidays in Puy St Vincent independently and more suggestions would be very welcome....

A snowHead

This is the problem we have found. Anywhere set up for English families seems to come at a high price.

Cheer yourself up by comparing snowbizz to ski esprit, mark warner or crystal and even with the mark up on accommdation snow bizz are I think cheaper than the other companies. The snow bizz ski school is very good and they choose their childcare staff carefully. As they are only in one resort you get a personal service and michel the owner is very involved and available to talk to if you have any problems (compare this with going with a large company and the MD far away in his London office)

We went with snow bizz the first time we took the children skiing and both children enjoyed their lessons and were happy at the afternoon creche. The staff were very good and we used one of the nannies for babysitting one night.

This year we went DIY to la rosiere using ESF lessons and lunchtime creche and our under 5 yr old was a lot less happy with the set up. The ESF lessons plus creche option was also quite pricey.

I would imagine most English families going to puy st vincent would go with snowbizz so if you were to do ESF lessons they would probably have few if any English children in them. If you have older children maybe they would do reasonably well with the ESF lessons. However I don't think I'd go to Puy unless going with Snowbizz - it is not that extensive in terms of skiing.

Where is the ice rink - is it in 1400? I don't remember there being much other than a few cafes in 1600 where the mona lisa appts are.

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

snowymum, thank you for sharing your experience.

You need to Login to know who's really who.

There's probably a reason the web site is in French. I'm all for saving money but are you not being a tadge cheeky?

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

You'll need to Register first of course.

z, I can see your point absolutely and it would in theory be a good option to DIY and save the money but a couple of things you should be aware of:

1. Snowbizz flights are decent charter flights, include a generous baggage allowance and include free ski carriage and a meal

2. Can't argue with that saving really, the apartments will be the same, obviously you are paying a premium for the Snowbizz service

3. the same ski school - yes ok, it is the same ski school and the same instructors but unless you are holidaying with Snowbizz then your child will not be in the exclusive Snowbizz english speaking classes. What this means in practice is that if you book the group class directly with the ski school your child will end up in a french speaking class with french kids, I doubt there will be a single other non-french child in the class. The instructors all do speak english but this lesson will be conducted in french.

4. The resort's own kids club will be entirely in french and all other kids will be french. Snowbizz have their own creche and evening Kiddie club for their clients.

IMO you go to Puy for the full Snowbizz service and as snowymum says they are much cheaper than many of the other family ski specialists and do provide quite a unique service. Puy is a very french resort, there will be very few Brits who go there independently. This adds to the charm of the place, it is very friendly and the locals are very welcoming to the Snowbizz clients. This must be due to the fact that Michel, the director, is a local man and so already had good relationships with the service providers there.

You had already mentioned in the other thread that your son was not entirely keen on the idea of ski school, I really think he'll be less keen on the idea of being in a french class. Also there's a fair chance that at age 8 with 2 weeks experience he might well be in a class with younger french kids, whereas with Snowbizz' own groups the age group will probably be similar.

The ice rink at Puy 1600 is just up by the hall and the 4 man chair, it's natural so is obviously weather dependent, was closed in March when we were there.

When are you thinking of going? If you are not tied to school holidays the prices are better, and you can sometimes get a free child price, or if you are really flexible you might be lucky with a late deal.

If you want to go the DIY route perhaps consider a different resort where there is a large British clientele and so has dedicated English speaking Ski Schools with classes which will be mostly full of Brit kids. That way you can do your own thing but still be confident in the quality of delivery of the instruction. Examples of schools would be Prosneige, Magic Ski Academy, New Generation, BASS. There are others.

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

sarah, has a point about the ski school. Since Puy is a very French resort and the only English (majority) tend to be the Snowbizz clients so your children will most likely be in a ski school with French only children. May not be a problem if yours speak French but it could be an issue, I guess.
Otherwise, I have to say it's a great resort and we have had many wonderful holdiays there with Snowbizz.

After all it is free

how strange have just been looking into this myself got a price from snowbizz and then looked at diy and you are right it does look alot cheaper. Again I am worried about the childcare option as my daughter is only 4 and although has been in piou piou before looks like she would have to do this again because of her age.

I am working on my friend to come with me and bring her daughter of the same age then at least if we do book independently she will have someone to play with.

have you any idea of the times of the piou piou as I cant seem to find any details

carla

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z, go with Snowbizz if you want to use their childcare facilities and you think your children will enjoy being with other UK children in ski school. Go DIY if you don't require either of these things but would like a small/family friendly resort where most people are French and although not picture perfect the resort does have a huge amount of charm.
Snowbizz are good value, and we've been with them because we wanted their services on the holiday. My children have done really well at their ski school and really enjoyed the clubs.
The transfer is also really simple with Snowbizz - one coach per flight little or no waiting around.
If it's not in your budget to be with Snowbizz then you will just need to consider how you'll do in an essentially French resort with French tourists (we like it for that reason but I appreciate some people prefer to be with other English speakers on their holidays).
There are a few who post on here who have apartments in Puy. Not sure if their clientelle are mainly Brits, so there's a chance that there will be some non-snowbizz Brits there. But it's not a mainsteam destination so as I've said that may cause you concern in the ski school.
You could always ask what their view is on putting your children in their ski school times when you're there. If it's quiet they may not mind making an exception. They are very flexible people and Michel who owns the company is always around. That said, it may not make business sense for them to do that.
Enjoy yourself, whatever you decide.

snow reports

johnnyh, well summarised Very Happy

z, having met a couple of English people who live in nearby Vallouise at my French lessons, they struggled at first because of the lack of English spoken in the area. One of the apartment owners in Puy sadly died last winter (Petel), but there are others who will probably be around on the forum. It is a very French resort, we like Serre Chevalier for a similar reason, but being larger there is far more English spoken there then in Puy. Not a problem for adults, but a little one might struggle in a French speaking ski class ( a similar CLub Med class neearly put my youngest off skiing for life). Have you taken into account the cost of the kids club , which I assume will be included in the price with Snowbizz?

You know it makes sense.

Helen Beaumont, I didn't realise Petel had died. That's terrible news. Do you know what happened?
He was one of the people I was thinking about when I mentioned apartment owners in Puy as I remembered he used to give snow reports etc. That's very sad news indeed. He used to run Alpsun didn't he?

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

johnnyh, I am not sure what happened, Chris (from Serre Che) posted on here about it, but didn't give any information as to how. As we were in the Uk for most of the winter I didn't find out.

Help!!

Puy St Vincent - DIY ?

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