 Poster: A snowHead
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We really enjoyed our holiday in La Rosiere with Esprit last year, but my husband hates flying. Has anyone managed to book a late deal with Esprit and managed to knock anything further off the price by making their own travel arrangements?
I have read old posts about them adding horrendous supplements that increase the "cheap" last minute deals by up to 50%, but couldn't find anything about them making reductions.
We are thinking about driving and reckon it would cost about £500, so would really like to pay less than £1000 for basic holiday with chalet/half board - Esprit seem to have late offers of around £1200. Don't really want to self cater and we do want childcare for at least morning plus lunch. Does anyone have any alternative suggestions please?
Thank you in advance.
Rebecca
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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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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The booking conditions at http://www.espritski.com/booking-conditions/ state "There will not normally be any price reduction in the event that you choose not to use our flights." . Some friends of mine have used them a lot and speak highly of them. I find the child care /ski packages very confusing.
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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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Rebecca, had you thought of using one of the dedicated clearing houses for chalets like Alpine Answers www.alpineanswers.co.uk
or even use http://last-minute-ski-deals.co.uk/ to see what availability and and what discounted price the availability certain operators have left.
Alternatively, if you can avoid the peak holiday dates wait right up to the very last minute, ie. a couple of days, if you are really flexible with your choice of resort.
Tour operators to check out ..... SkiTotal, Skiworld, VIP, Leski, Kaluma (V-Posh).
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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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The Esprit package is exactly that. We did 8 Ski Holidays on the bounce with Esprit, the last two of which we drove as we lived in Italy. On neither did we receive any discount as the flights cost Esprit almost nothing in real terms. Our kids have now grown out of Childcare so we do all our travel independently and it is cheaper. But you have to ask yourselves what the key element of your holiday is? I think Esprit is the best childcare on the market and their "Chalet Hotel" concept is great, but if you want to drive then I would go with "Snowymum's" recomendation and look at the Family Ski operation.
It sounds as though your kids are quite young (?) and we found that the Children always cost more than us in the long run, whether or not it was Childcare, Supervised Lunches, Snow Club or Ski lessons, it mounted up. Nowadays they ski with us in the morning and then hit the Snowpark in the afternoon while we enjoy long lunches again. We have also transitioned to Self-Catering. A bit of forward planning and a large cool box and you can drive to the Alps fully provisioned with two pot dishes (Chilli, Bolognese, Curries, Casseroles deep frozen) just add Pasta or Rice as required!!!
As to last minute offers, we once got the last two beds in Ski Esprit's Chalet in Chamonix at 3 days notice for £600 all in, including lift passes. But that was "Sans Infants" and no childcare available!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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We are self-driving with Esprit this year. We couldn't get a discount for not flying (excuse they gave was that part of the ABTA Bonding was that they sold a package) - however, after some protestations, I got a small discount - but not for self-drive.
Last year Mark Warner gave us a discount for self-drive, but this year they wouldn't when I tried to book, despite their brochure suggesting they would. So I took my business elsewhere.
I've looked around, and there are some companies like http://www.familyski.co.uk/ and http://www.skibeat.co.uk/ that do family-friendly holidays with child care provision. However, FamilySki's chalets didn't seem as nice as the better of the Esprit ones.
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Moira, Head of Marketing from Esprit here.
Just to clarify our position re self-drive. As we only operate chalets or chalet hotels we do truly link all our flight seat numbers to our bed numbers in order to be able to provide the whole package (ie flights/transfers/beds) to every guest therefore any flights that are not used by a guest who prefers to self-drive literally remains empty and we still have to pay for it. So no reduction is normally given for guests opting to self-drive. We appreciate this may disappoint some prospective guests but this is the situation.
Regarding horrendous supplements - we don't levy anything horrendous I hope! What our late deals do not include is any child care or ski pack costs so naturally the actual price paid will be greater than the basic deal if these elements are required.
I hope this explains our position but if anyone wants to contact me directly please do so: moira.clarke@esprit-holidays.co.uk
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Hi
I have been with esprit, and snowbizz many times and would say that the level of service is far superior with snowbizz, the only downside is that they only go to one resort. I would also recommend skifamille and premier neige as better alternatives to esprit.
hope this helps
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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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Family Ski Co are offering serious discounts for January skiing. childcare, travel all extra. We were extremely impressed by them last year.
They are very family-orientated, the food is good home cooking rather than cordon bleu. Child care was excellent in every way.
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Esprit are a great company. Worked for them and would recommend.
Good to see senior people from the company answering people's questions too.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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I did book a self-drive offer with Esprit one year - they hadn't availability on a flight for a last minute booking and discounted it to reflect the self-drive aspect. Right time, right place essentially.
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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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Thank you for all the responses.
My children are 8 and 5 and we have been taking them since the first was 3 months old, but until last year had never done a family package, we had always booked childcare independently with varying results. So, it was amazing last year to do the Esprit thing, and have everything taken care of for the children. It really made our holiday ... except for the flying, not that there were any problems, just the phobia. We take them out of school so should be able to book something pretty last minute, but don't want to leave ourselves without childcare (were intending to do morning ski school and supervised lunch, picking them up for the afternoon).
My comments about horrendous supplements were nothing to do with the standard childcare and other additions as we've done this many times and know how much the childcare/ski school/lift passes etc cost. I had read old threads where people were saying that there were various room supplements eg for balconies and bathrooms where there were no rooms without balconies or bathrooms!
I had no complaints about Esprit at all and want to use them again, but money is an issue and we're possibly too lazy to self-cater, though have considered doing the cool box filled with one pot meals thing.
Thanks for the alternative suggestions, I will have a look at them and try to make my (our!) mind up!
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a different take on it - I used to have a phenomenal fear of flying, valium was the only way to get me near an airport let alone on a plane not so long back but did a fear of flying course at Heathrow, still get nervous but have literally been round the world since - think it was the predecessors to these http://flyingwithconfidence.com/ but was def BA endorsed - and it made a huge difference, can highly recommend them, there were loads of people on the course and from all ages / walks of life, might be worth a thought for the future? Do hope you get some snow sorted for this season tho!
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