Ski holiday advice please

[Icefireski]

Hi,

Last year I set up a tiny chalet company based in France with my partner. Our first season went well but our guests were mostly adults or families with secondry age children.

We'd like to be open to young families too, but the problem is, we don't have children ourselves so we don't really know what to offer to make this happen.

So far, we've got cots, highchairs and baby monitors and arranged a contract with a local childcare company.

We've tried to make a draft web page: www.ice-fire.co.uk/#/skiing-with-children/4549582071. But, to be honest, I'm not sure if this page is helpful or completely wrong?

Are things like cots and highchairs so standard that this is useless info or is it good to know they're there? Is it ok to ask parents to provide bottles and sleep suits - or should we try and source these ourselves? Is there anything glaringly obvious that we've missed?

If anyone had 5 minutes to reply, it would be a massive help to hear your feedback, suggestions and holiday wishlists.

Thanks in advance,
Heather

Make it very clear how very child friendly you are.
Parents will want to bring their own bottles and sleepsuits, and most will even bring their own bowls, spoons for babies/toddlers.
For toddlers it has to be really safe as far as balconies, stairways etc.
Parents with little ones will want to have a room close by to the lounge, so they can relax in the evening (or try to) and be within easy reach of sleeping babes etc.
Microwaves I found are brilliant for heating up baby food/bottles of milk , so hopefully your chalets have these.
Change mats are vital for nappy changing . Some may bring their own but also having one there on arrival is great.
You could also empasize that you can provide very small toddlers size helpings of any meals...
Shepherds pie
Fish pie
Spagetti bolognese
(nothing spicy for little ones)
Also offer plenty of full cream milk for toddlers if they are drinking cows milk (most do after 1 year old)
Cots and highchairs are vital and very important for parents to know if you have them....otherwise they are stuffed basically.. !!
Also you wish to purchase a bouncy chair which you can put tiny babies in. Its a reclining sot of deckchair shaped thing for the floor. Its somewhere to put tiny babies that cant sit up. Brilliant when mum/dad other kids to deal with and cant be holding tiny baby all the time.
Hope this helps !

Looks good to me, fantastic service.

Tbh, I'm not sure how many people take babies on ski holidays... I would have thought 3-8 would be the most poplar age group that would require special provisions.

We are just back from Val Thoren, but went without our son who is just 4.

Things that would make our life easier

-as short a transfer as possible (obviously out with your control )

• plenty of info about activites that are available near by for days that we don't ski
• toys/dvds
• baby monitors
• tasty fuss free food. Burgers, pizza, pasta, shepherds pie, casserole etc
• plenty of snacks available as and when required... Yoghurts, biscuits, bread and juice
• black out curtains

Swimming pool near by?

Have bookmarked your site for next season

Hi,

Glad you like the site! Short transfer times are a plus here (1hr30 from Chambery) although we're not as high as VT.

Thank you both for taking the time to give such thorough replies and such great suggestions.

There are some things there which now that you mention them are obvious (eg we have steep stairs but put stair gates up for families) but which it hadn't occured to me to put on the website. We've got microwaves, full cream milk for kids etc too so I'll get to work and put them up onto the webpage now.

Other things like blackout curtains, and a baby bouncy chair I'd never have thought of in a million years but I can see how they'd make a massive difference for parents - especially if they're flying and can't bring everything they'd like from home.

Hopefully by putting extra details about things like this on the page, it'll take away some of the worry of travelling with babies and toddlers, and get some more families interested.

Thanks again - please keep the suggestions coming this is really helpful.

Best wishes,
Heather

The more info the better IMO.

Have a list of things that parents can pre order from you like nappies and wipes with a price list. That way they dont have to use their baggage allowance on these.

A few young childrens DVD's and a DVD player, a couple of plastic sledges that parents can borrow and a box of cheap plastic toys would be a god send although you might have to disinfect them between kids. Cots and bed bars to stop little ones falling out

Also, one of the best holiday companies we travelled with (Scott Dunn) sent us a menu in advance and then their chef rang me to talk through the toddlers food so we knew they had a menu of simple stuff the kids would eat. A godsend when you have pre school kids

Oh yes a bed guard would be fab, ds still has his as he often does bed gymnastics whilst asleep.

Just a little thing, but looking at your website, I would remove the things that you don't provide like bottles and sleepsuits. Honestly, no one would ever expect you to provide these, focus ob the positives!

If you haven't already pop onto snowheads forum, it's quite a busy site, mostly "snowheads" but quite a few parents too. The guy that runs it is called Graham and is very approachable.

Tbh I wouldn't take my wee boy to VT... Too far and nothing else to do other than ski!

Looks like a lovely web site .
I like the red background etc.

Thanks Elastamum, I love the idea of having a pre-order service for nappies etc. We occasionally get requests for things like that now, which we just pop onto our shopping list, but we could easily open it up as a service with a downloadable shopping list for nappies, wipes etc. Great suggestion!

We've got dvds, sledges etc and some toys, games and books although most are more suitable for older children. It wouldn't be a hassle to get hold of a few spare pre-school childrens toys though to add to our stock. . . .

Thanks for all of the lovely thoughts and suggestions everyone - looks like we've got loads of work to do!! Please keep them coming if anyone thinks of any more . . .

We had this year's hol in Les Coches, it was fab! Ds was 13mo and it was fine as the company we went with provided a creche etc for all the babies/toddlers/kids.

Only got one suggestion...think a steriliser would be worth investing in as I wouldn't fancy lugging one of these on holiday with me!

The website is well laid out and it make me want to go skiing again!