Ski holiday ? Recommendations

[Mallarky]

Want to try a ski holiday this winter. Want to go over Christmas or new year period 5 adults 1 child all who have never tried a skiing holiday before and on a tight on a budget!!! Any recommendations?

Bump

Christmas and New Year is one of the most expensive times to go as you probably have found out! The week of 7-8 Jan looks quite reasonable.

Iglu ski (sorry can't do links) have some good deals - they sell off Ski Companies holidays and have some good deals

Difficulty would be getting somewhere snowsure (high altitude and/or glacier) and suitable for beginners at a reasonable price. Also make sure the resort has other activities in case someone doesn't take to skiing. Agree Iglu is probably a good place to get a some ideas and prices.

But where will i find high altitude or glacier?
Our families holidays usually consist of beach pool so have no idea!

Have you got any brochures yet as that might be agood starting point for information even if you eventually book elsewhere. Most tour operators (Thomson etc) would list the features of resorts and give them ratings for different levels of skier. At that time of year you would need the skiing and nursery slopes to be at an altitude of 1500m or preferably above. You may find somewhere like Kaprun in Austria would be ok and within your budget, as if there isn't snow in the village itself the glacier is just a bus ride away. There are also a number of French Alp resorts such as la Plagne, Les Arcs or Flaine, which might be suitable for you but we haven't visited those. Unfortunately the traditionally cheap countries , Andorra and Eastern Europe, may not be as reliable for early season snow.

hth

Would go into a travel agent and ask for advice (high resort/beginners) even if you don't book with them. Also phone a company like Neilson (who we went with last year) and get advice from them, they have a good brochure

There is a good site called www.ifyouski.com which has loads of personal recommendations posted on it - also ski holidays and resort info.

The Neilson website has a good section where you can post a query over a resort or search on old queries - there are bound to be similar questions to yours on there - usually the resort reps answer and are very helpful - we are not package holiday people but would def go with Neilson again - were very impressed!

Good luck

C&P from IFYOUSKI.COM:

The Resorts

Below is a list of resorts we've put together whose suitability and convenience will help any beginner enjoy the passion of skiing...

Les Arcs
La Plagne
Les Coches
Flaine
Valmorel
Risoul
Les Deux Alpes
Valmorel
La Rosière
Seefeld
Cervinia
Villars
Saas Fee
La Thuile
Arinsal
Soll
Soldeu - El Tarter
Ellmau
Mégève
Les Gets

(You will need to check the altitude of these resorts though)

No fantastic advice but wanted to say we tried skiing for the first time last year (we were in Sweden anyway so managed a couple of weekends). I really hope you go for it - we had such good fun, even though the kids were hugely better than us!