Hotel Alpin

The Alpin is a very pleasant, clean hotel with spacious family rooms. We had a separate sleeping area with bunks for the children (but most rooms are large quads with one sleeping area).

The food at the hotel is of a good standard, but not gourmet! It is buffet style and there are many courses with numerous choices (great for fussy eaters) as well as an early, children's menu. The hotel also has a fantastic pizzeria, which serves great pizza, baked in a wood fired oven.

The health club has a pool and sauna. Pool was very clean, but very cold (we wished we'd taken a wet suit for our 2 year old!)

The hotel is located in a charming Tyrolean village, right opposite the church. The resort itself is rather limited,but very pretty, so would probably suit families with younger children resigned to an early night!

The ski area is a couple of minutes away on the free ski bus. Once up the mountain, (10 mins in a gondola) you can easily check on any young children in the ski kindergarten between runs, as the lessons are right next to the main ski area.

The ski school was fantastic. they were great with the little ones, and held an awards ceremony at the end of the week, in the village. Esprit nannies were always in attendance at the ski lessons. i felt very happy leaving my 4 year old daughter, even when she wasn't feeling in the mood to ski. The nannies also took children to and from ski school and lunch, then back to the village for indoor activites in the afternoon, leaving us totally free from 9.15 am.

The creche was excellent too. My two year old daughter settled in well. The staff were very capable and friendly.

The Esprit reps were great, and offer some nice extras, such as baby listening, a torch lit walk, and a horse drawn 'sleigh' ride.

The only downside with this resort is that it is fairly low, so we had a bit of a panic about snow conditions before we left. Having said that, we went in December 06, when conditions everywhere were poor. In spite of this, Scheffau opened on time whilst neighbouring resorts had no pistes open. if you are brave enough to risk the snow conditions before Christmas, this holiday is amazing value for money at the start of the season, in particular (with guaranteed child places). we paid less than