Skiing holiday - on the cheap!

[skeggycaggy]

We want to plan a skiing holiday for the far distant future, with 3 kids. Happy to do budget self catering, off the beaten track locations... any hidden gems?

It depends what you consider cheap. Flying can add a lot so if you could drive it's a lot cheaper.

If you are confident and know your resorts, you can rent somewhere on Airbnb just outside a resort which will be cheaper.

If it's your first time though I would recommend staying in a resort. My kids are experienced skiers but still struggle carrying their equipment any distance.

When the kids were smaller we skied with snowbiz. They are based in the resort, you can do self catering, ski in / ski out - essential if your kids are small. You can book ski hire / ski school / kids club / creche etc.. through them on an item by item basis so you only buy what you need.

We always drove and did self catering, not sure I would describe it as cheap but excellent value for money, family business and brilliant experience all through.

We have also used snowtrex, they have deal bundles with discounts and you can self drive. Some experiences better than others but reasonably cheap by skiing standards.

Not a particularly 'hidden' gem but the best value holiday we had was Samoens. Easy to drive to (only 800m up), lots of great value self catering apartments, quick gondola up to ski area with a big free car park.

Similar, Brides les Bains at the bottom of the Meribel area. Again, good value self catering but the gondola up to Meribel takes about 20 mins so need to plan that into timings for the day.

This is it ChilliMum, we don’t know our resorts. My only ski experience was in NZ, DH used to go on lads trips years ago, probably can’t even remember where! So feel like we lack a lot of basic information... I’ll look up the companies you mention! Maybe that sort of thing would work for us.

Thanks IsThisNameTaken I’ll look them up.

Come over to the Skiing topic OP! Lots of advice on there. If you're stuck with school holidays it'll be harder to do cheap but can still do cheaper.. ie. drive/self catering apartment/smaller resort etc.

If you're ski novices in the Alps and you want to go as cheaply as possible I would do what my friend does. She saves up Tesco clubcard vouchers all year and they spend them on the Le Shuttle train. They fill their large Volvo with themselves and their 3DC, she does a big cash and carry shop before they go (you could also visit a Hypermarche en route) and they drive. The Grand Massif area would be a good one for you to look at. It's Flaine, Samoens, Les Carroz, Morillons and Sixt (although I wouldn't stay in Sixt - it's set apart from the others by a long track), and there is plenty of SC accommodation. It's not ritzy or expensive, but each resort has its own ski school, so you just have to drop your DC off and pick them up again. Skiing isn't a cheap holiday and there is no way to cut costs with lift passes and ski and boot hire, but driving and SC will certainly reduce the bill considerably. Prices for lift passes and local hire shops are all online, so you can see what you'd be paying. An all-in company like Snowbizz would also be great for a first trip. All their accommodation is SC and it's known to be very reasonably priced.

Val Cenis is good value all round. I would also recommend self catering and driving there. Easter is the cheapest time to go with school age children and Val Cenis is high enough to have reasonable snow in early April. It can get a bit slushy on the lowest runs later in the day but your kids probably won’t notice. We went with Peak Retreats and stayed in Chalets de Flambeau but there are cheaper accommodation options eg les balcons du village which are well located. Snowbizz mentioned above are also good particularly if you have under 5s as they have a good childcare set up.

Cheapest one DH and I did was Bardonecchia near Turin. But agree with other posters, with kids you might be better driving across to France as the cost of flights soon adds up.

If you're looking at driving, try Erna Low - they specialise in self-catering accommodation and price includes a Eurotunnel crossing: they should be able to offer you some good advice about resorts and what they all have to offer. Peak Retreats is another one that specialises in self-drive/self-cater. If you're going to book your own ferry/tunnel, and want budget self-catering apartments, try Pierre et Vacances.

Consider what time of year you want to go - if Easter, you will need somewhere with a good record of late season snow, but often lift pass prices can be correspondingly high, and you won't get the use out of them in your first week of skiing. At Feb half term, many of the popular French resorts can be very busy, as that's when the French schools are off, but if you stick to resorts that are less well-known and not popular with the Brits, you're likely to get better value at that time of year.

You might get more responses if you post on the skiing thread, OP - I'm sure lots of people there will be able to offer advice.

It depends - also a family with 3 children here. If you want to go at Feb half term, have your children do ski school / want to drop them off and ski as adults without kids then you're restricted with the days you can go (usually Saturday to Saturday) which is more expensive for travel.

We go at Christmas mid week - either to Austria or Italy - and sometimes for 6 days instead of 7 - so Wednesday to Tuesday etc. We also went on 2 Jan one year when the children didn't go back until
10 Jan or something. That way, the flights are really cheap (I think we paid £300 for all 5 of us last time we went and hired a car at the other end which was much cheaper than driving and much less hassle).

With 3 children, having private lessons for 2 or 3 hours for say 3 or 4 days doesn't cost much different to ski school and they actually get better tuition.

We've used AirBnBs in Austria and then either AirBnBs or local small b&bs in Austria via the resort's website - once you book that, the owners usually have connections to a ski hire place so you get a discount. Lift passes are what they are - expensive, no getting away from that.

We tend to eat out other than breakfast which increases the cost, but Italy (not so much Austria) is much cheaper than France.

The first two years we brought our five kids we went to Slovenia! Was really great for beginners . Amazing value too.
We even stayed half board in a 4 star hotel and the entire trip came in at under 4K ( euro ) each time . Including lessons, gear, lift passes etc .
Now they are too good at skiing for Slovenia as it’s limited enough so we usually go to Austria . But they still speak fondly of their days in Slovenia . Kranskga Gora was the resort . I would highly recommend . Although we live in Dublin we flew with Easyjet from London to Ljubljana.

Georgia

Took our kids to Scotland, means you can drive, no insurance needed, lessons in English and you don't have to book a full week. Aviemore area has plenty of sc

Italy cheaper than France, and not that much further if you drive over. We ski on Monterosa at a couple of small resorts, although my DD has now outgrown them, but we still go back for the odd weekend (we are fairly local). Some of the less flashy resorts have reasonable ski pass costs, although after the write off that was the last 2 seasons I would imagine they’ll be going up. Ski lessons also reasonable, usually €35 an hour for a single person, €45 for 2 people. If you use someone regularly you might be able to strike a deal.

If you do drive down and want to bring food, don’t shop in the uK as with Brexit if you’re stopped and checked much of it might end up confiscated. Plenty of reasonably priced supermarkets off the motorway before you get to your resort. Italy still cheaper than France, but nothing stopping you stocking up on delicacies in both countries, however buy your wine in Italy! Definitely cheaper.

The Dolomites are also very good but a bit pricier, but you can save on motorway tolls by avoiding France and driving down through Germany and Austria. Skiing in Alto Adige/Sudtirol is a bit like skiing in Austria in some ways, but with better wine (can you see a theme?).

First timers last year and keen to keep costs down.

Would you take them out of school for the week?

We went the week before February half term and flights dropped from £3000 to £300. Accommodation dropped from £1400 to £750. We went self catering. We never put the food budget into our holiday budget as it's similar to what we'd spend on food at home anyway.

Lift passes are the killer, but we managed to find a discount website to buy ours which saved us about 20%. However they were still around £600 for the four of us for the week.

Ski school prices stay the same in both term time and holidays (at least they did where we went).

We went to Rauris in Austria (just outside Salzburg) and found prices in resort to be reasonable. Even up on the mountain, when you're a captive audience for food and drink, it was still reasonable. On par with the UK really. Some days we took packed lunches, other days we ate out.

We paid for a ski package for the DC, so lessons and hire were all included. It was 6 day hire and lessons and was €190 per child. DH and I opened for private lessons and shared an instructor. We had three mornings of lessons and the school offers private lessons for up to two people for 2 hours for €120, so €30 an hour each. Each additional person in the group is offered at a €20 rate. We hired our skis/boots/poles separately. I can't remember what they cost but overall hire + private lessons worked out roughly the same as the adult group lesson + hire package for the week (approx €220 each). But by having private lessons we had the afternoons to ourselves and had focused attention so progressed faster.

We saved money by getting a train/bus/taxi from the airport to resort. Reasonably easy if you're comfortable using public transport abroad.

Decathlon is excellent for low cost clothing. I got DS2 an all in one ski suit for £13 in the sale. Also check FB Marketplace and eBay. I got my salopettes for £3 on eBay.

Go high enough if going early or late season.