Ski resort with swimming pool and childcare…?

[hollydolly64]

We really want to take the kids skiing, but I have a 2 year old I want to come too. Therefore I am looking for a ski holiday with some kind of childcare for half the day while the others do ski school.
In the afternoons I would like to take them all swimming, so we are either looking for a ski resort with a nice municipal pool (husband looking terrified having flashbacks of the rigidly enforced speedo law at French town pools…) or ideally a hotel within the hotel/apartment block/whatever.
Any ideas? We don't really mind where we go, but have a sadly rather (relatively) small for a ski holiday budget of £5k for 6 of us :(

[hollydolly64]

Actually I take back the :( for the £5k budget - 1st world problems….!

[mimolette]

Quite a lot of the Esprit properties have pools and they specialise in great childcare.

[boobyooby]

Club Med every time ...... the kids love it

[redhat]

we went with mark warner last year and had childcare and a pool.

[TheGreenTriangle]

I was beaten to it, came on to recommend Esprit. We've been with them 7 times since having kids and the childcare has been excellent every time.

If your kids have ski lessons booked through Esprit, depending on the age of the kids, they'll have Esprit staff accompanying them on the lessons as well as the ski instructor. And the kids - instructor ratio is normally very good.

The catering was dodgy one year, but that can happen with any kind of chalet catering. Surprisingly their hotel catering was very good (I'd previously feared mass catering).

[TheGreenTriangle]

Oh yes, forgot to say that many of Esprit's locations have a pool and sauna

[Gattabianca]

Avoriaz has the nicest pool I've been to in a ski resort and lots of childcare options plus stuff to do in the afternoon.
Snowbizz in Puy St Vincent is very affordable with in house childcare and ski school and a pool. We are going with them for the first time in a few weeks specifically because of their combined ski school and childcare.

[hollydolly64]

thanks, will look into all of these! On a previous thread I read about the kinderhotel in Serfhaus which looks amazing on t'internet - anyone been there?

[mummyagainin2016]

Alpe d'Huez, Les Deux Alpes, La Plagne (1800?) and Kaprun (Austria) all have fab municipal pools.

[sparechange]

Tignes has a good pool which is free with a lift pass
Try Ski Beat for childcare. Some of their chalets might have pools as well
They had one in Tignes called Arctic which had its own pool, from memory...

[Tuiles]

Chilly Powder in Morzine is amazing, with in house childcare. They don't have their own pool (yet) but are steps away from the Telecabin up to Avoriaz with a fun pool.

[dontcallmethatyoucunt]

I've been with Mark Warner and Esprit, but the best option IMO - and cheaper - was a nanny from T4 Nannies in Tignes. Tignes has a great pool too.

The nanny was allowed to use our chalet as a base and kept the kids entertained. We also asked for a nanny that was confident to ski and she helped take our youngest DD out on the nursery slopes. When our DD got tired, she then took her off whilst we carried on skiing with our eldest.

The Nanny was flexible and prepared. She sat for us one evening, but best of all we were able to meet her where it suited us and the kids and we didn't have to fall in with the set routine of the holiday company. She came out to dinner with us a couple of times and it was great.

We booked the catered chalet via Iglu, but booked T4 nannies ourselves. I think if you want to keep costs down self catering might be cheaper. Esprit and MW are very expensive in the holidays.

[Upatnight]

Still haven't quite nailed it down - any further recommendations?! X

[Upatnight]

Nailed our holiday down I mean! Following with interest as have 2,4,6,8 year olds this year!

[boobyooby]

Seriously have a look at Club Med, we are off again with them and remember the price you see is all inclusive and includes ski school and lift passes. This year is our "cheapest" ski holiday yet ..... last year we literally spent about 60 euros in town on some tourist toot for the kids!

[YorkshireTeaDrinker]

We went with Snowbizz to Puy St Vincent last year, going again this year (in two weeks time!). It's affordable (self-catering), childcare and ski school are excellent. We will likely be repeat customers for the next few years.

[snowgirl1]

As others have mentioned, Tignes has a pool - we went to Tignes at Christmas with Crystal who have childcare, but Mark Warner and Esprit both have accommodation and childcare in Tignes.

Alpe D'Huez also has an outdoor (heated!) swimming pool and think Crystal also have childcare in that resort.

I've found that travel operators all seem to have childcare in France (or sometimes Austria) so your husband might have to deal with getting some budgie smugglers :-)

[ladyofthepalace]

Val d'Isere has a fantastic new sports centre/pool.

[Ktay]

Serfaus has 2 kinderhotels; we stayed in the Loewe which I think is supposed to be the slightly less smart of the two and it was lovely - pools are great and food very good too. No idea about childcare but they have b good facilities eg soft play. NB this was in summer but would go back in winter in a heartbeat if we could afford it!