Help me book a fanily ski holiday!

[Atalune]

I don’t know where to begin. It seems very complicated!

I want a week with 2 kids, lift passes and food. A package basically.
I look at the websites and feel overwhelmed and bamboozeld.

Ski in/out
Ski lessons for kids
Lift passes
Catered
Flights and transfers
France or Italy
Kids are 7 and 10 and novices.
DH and I are experienced.

Help meeeeee!! Please

We go ski in/ski out, would never do any different. Definitely lessons for kids.

We have always gone half board in a hotel but catered is fine if you're in a chalet.

Andorra is fab for families, as is Les Arc. We use Crystal usually.

Ski in and out sounds great but often under delivers. Access will be off/on one piste that is unlikely to be accessible to all skiers in your party. Don’t pay a premium for that.
A chalet would be great for a family and for keeping track of costs. Depending on time of year, you could look at smaller resorts like Risoul as you are unlikely to eat up the kilometres you are paying for in the bigger resorts. Look for snow making facilities if you are going early in the season or low, as for beginners, even the easiest slope is scary if you are scraping on ice or rocks. Les Deux Alpes often has reasonably priced deals and the baby slopes are fantastic for learners and available without a lift pass. Once they progress, the glacier offers really easy confidence building terrain along with nice cruisy blues. There are jolly bars in town too.
If you do want a bigger ski area, check out the Ski Club GB for suitability for different levels. I often see Val d’Isere touted as for experts, but it has brilliant fast lifts and lots of really long gentle runs for beginners. My cautious step daughter learned there, she loved the Madeleine run and her instructor. If you stay in Le Fornet or La Daille it is often cheaper than in Val d’Isere village but they are all linked by a frequent, free and reliable bus service. It is easy to descend to the village to meet the ski school at lunchtime, and you can save money on extortionate mountain restaurant prices by having something in the village. Le Petit Danios is good and close to where the ski schools meet, also the bakeries and Spar.

We love Courmayeur in Italy as a couple, but I wouldn’t recommend it for beginners as there aren’t enough really easy pistes to progress to once they leave the baby bowl. Cervinia in Italy is better for beginners and the Ventina red run is my favourite ever piste; 14 km of varied terrain. Competent skiers can also ski over the Zermatt side if they exhaust Cervinia. Lovely hot chocolate and Bombardinos!
We self catered as a family, but I’d have liked to try a chalet. Inghams are a good company to look at packages, we’ve done a mix of packages and DIY, depending on deals.

Club Med are worth looking at for an all inclusive ski package. I enjoy hotels more than Chalets, kids provison is good and as its all inclusive you avoid the additional costs which make it a reasonable option overall.

Check out esprit
Courcheval 1850
Crystal 2000 chalet hotel
It’s got everything you need childcare ski lessons fab food ski in ski out with a sort of private piste right outside perfect for practicing on

Oh my days this is all

AMAZING

Thank you all for your specific and detailed replies. I am off to google some places now. (hot chocolate or vin chaud)

It's not just the resort's that are important but making sure you're at the bit that's closest to the slopes (I.e. not down hideous stairs in ski boots carrying kids ski gear) and easy to get back in the afternoon. The kids will pick up skiing pretty quickly but will still need an easy run back. It's crap having to get the bus. We were at alpe D'Huez last year. The les bergers end. It was brilliant for kids. Easy access to a big bowl of nice greens and blues but also easy for you to get further afield quickly and still back in time for ski lessons finishing. And pretty snow sure. Not particularly pretty but most French resorts aren't.

PickleSarnie makes a good point about avoiding long walks with skis. However many resorts have ski lockers and/or ski rental at the top of the main lift. This is bliss as you are are unencumbered except when on the slopes. Walking in apres-ski boots is no problem at all.

Good point re lockers lightdrizzle! Even with ski carriers and what-not. Every foot in ski boots trying to drag kids and carry all their shiz is like a mile without ski boots/children/shiz. Dumping it at bottom of slopes in a locker is brilliant.

^^p.s. obvs don't mean dumping children in the locker at the end of the day!

Highly recommend Neilson, especially their mountain collection chalets, and we have just discovered Andorra after years of going to France (we like a big, advanced ski area and weren't disappointed)

We had been put off a family ski holiday for years because we felt it was just a bit overwhelming to get all the right ingredients together for us all to be catered for.... Until... we discovered www.alikats.eu

We went to a fully catered chalet in the Montriond area of Morzine, which is on the huge Portes du Soleil ski area.

Alikats organise everything (if you want). Ski passes, lessons, ski/boot hire delivered to the chalet, transfers from Geneva (only an hour away), sumptuous food, afternoon tea, unlimited wine anytime. They transport you to/from the slopes every day, so no walking anywhere in ski boots. I have to give special mention to the food - it was outstanding!

I can honestly say it was the best ski holiday ever! The PdS ski area suited the whole family. The kids are now better skiers than us!

Highly recommended!

We go to Andorra. It’s really family friendly with great skiing. Cheaper in terms of food/drink/ ski lift passes etc than other areas in Europe.

+1 for ski esprit or club med

Pretty pricey options but the best introduction. Ski esprit better for new English children skiers I would say.

Arc 1950!! Would highly recommend.

Another vote for Arc 1950. Literally doorstep skiing. My kids are 9 and 7 and they loved it there.

We stayed at this amazing catered chalet with fire pit, sauna and hot tub, daily lifts to the ski slpes/lifts and picked up. breakfast, afternoon tea, three course dinner with wine.
Jayne and Sid were wonderful hosts,
www.purealps.com/

Arc1950 is absolutely stunning. True ski in ski out!!