Skiing with children

[Ivonne19]

So I'm a newbie skier and have only ever been without kids pre-covid. Fast forward and we have two little ones - I'd love to go skiing and somehow take them with us.

Does anyone have any recommendation for chalets or hotels that offer childcare?

How old are they? Ski Famille, Esprit, Mark Warner are the ones that spring to mind if you want wrap around childcare. Pricey though.

The cheaper alternative, which might work well especially if you are fairly new to skiing yourself, is put them in ski school/creche in the mornings while you get some runs in, and then keep them with you and muck around in the snow/pool etc in the afternoons. If you go this route best to choose a resort with non ski stuff to do, or apartments with a pool.

Ah amazing thank you! We would prob have my mum with us as well and she doesn't ski, but I didn't want her to have to do all the childcare. We are also obviously going to take turns/ be reasonable and prob only do the mornings skiing.

they will be 3.5 years old and nearly one year old.

Kinderhotels in Austria would be an option as they cater specifically for families with children, but these can be quite expensive. As a typical example, look at the Ellmauhof in Hinterglemm.

At three and one, the children are obviously too young for ski school and few villages or ski schools have a creche (and those that do tend to start at 3-4 years old).

Stay in a resort as close to an airport as possible! Long journeys to the ski areas are not great. If someone is a non skier, make sure there is a pool and other things to do. Otherwise it is boring. As a non skier, I know. The 3.5 yr old might get ski lessons?

Hmm sounds like you don’t really need the full Ski Famille/MW type shebang with your mum coming but equally I can see she might not want it all on her!

Would your 3yo be ok in morning ski school… it’s very cute and non scary at that age, lots of pootling round penguins on tiny skis, if they are happy in nursery they will probably like it. If so then I would recommend it, make sure you get an English speaking instructor - most likely in larger, Brit heavy resorts rather than tiny less known ones.

Happily you can avoid school holidays so prices should be less insane. Suggest early or mid March, more chance of sun but out of school hols.

Agree look carefully at transfer times, they range from 1 hr to 3.5 hrs and on windy roads with tired kids you really want to minimise. A few French resorts with short transfers:
Flaine, Samoens, Morzine, Chatel, Les Gets, Avoriaz. Morzine is especially good for non skiers. All family friendly and with English speaking ski schools.

Chalets are good as you have a proper living room to retreat to once kids are in bed. We’ve done Consensio and VIP ski and they arranged nannies for the kids. VIP were still very nice but not too bad price wise. Consensio were spendy but you don’t mention a budget!

I would recommend Esprit or similar. There isn’t a too much to do with small kids in a ski resort. Most don’t let them ski until 4, though some do. Many have decent pools, some have a small soft play but IMHO not enough for a week’s entertainment and it’s usually too cold to spend much time outside, especially if your kids are the kind to kick
off mittens and hats for fun. Your mum may well struggle to entertain them all day.
The crèches at Esprit etc are really well set up with toys etc, and well equipped to take the kids out for snow play too. What would your mum want to do when she isn’t with the kids? IME there isn’t generally much for adult non skiers either unless they are the kind to really enjoy the scenery with a book from a cafe for hours on end.

Thank you all so much for the amazing suggestions - will check them all out. We would be going with our extended family including my dad as well (but he skiis) so my mum will be happy to see everyone and have dinner together etc. will take a look to see if some of the ski schools take slightly younger as he can always have a go in any case. Thank you all again :)

We went with Ski Famille this year, and would definitely recommend. Yes, it’s expensive, but worth it. Everything is in the chalet that you could want and more. If you feel like you’ve forgotten anything for the kids, chances are they will have it there. Childcare was great and did lots of activities with them. Each chalet has a play room which you can use whenever you want to, also things like prams.
Every one else in The chalet has children so if yours is screaming then all the other guests understand, and have probably been there before.

Thank you will deffo check it out!

Possibly Leysin "nearish" Geneva. 1) you can get there by public transport straight out of Geneva airport (train, then funicular from Aigle) it is a couple of hours and quite a nice trip, you could probably drive it in an hour or so 2) There is a proper ski school for very young skiers opposite the leisure centre, I think they take them from 3, mine were 4, so it might be that, check. The leisure centre is a bit soul-less, but it is warm, has an eating place etc. 3) there is a great tobogganing park nearby, with dumbed down runs for the under 5s, adults love it too 4) Leysin itself is normally pretty snow sure and offers skiing for the adults attending, look, it isn't Val D'Isere, but it sort of "does the job" if you just want to do some skiing 5) we used to stay at Central hotel, it has a warm swimming pool (all on one height, so no baby pool) "multiple connecting rooms" for families, and can be B&B and evening meal, we found the food to be quite good, raclette etc. the experience is quite busy, lots of families (very few brits), but if you have young children, it can be reasonably helpful. You can also get apartments there (sep building over the way) which were a bit soul-less and basic, but to be fair, were very cheap with a double bedroom and a small room for four (and weirdly a sauna), but you still got the pool and the facilities. Main moan is you have to walk down to the ski area down a road with no pavement (ten minutes but can be tense with 4 under 12 year olds as was my case) there are ski bus etc. but was not that straightforward. The nursery slopes with a couple of button lifts used to be free and up a road just behind the hotel, but I am going back 12 years or so now a) bet the are not now free, and b) they were only any good for those that could walk up and just about ski on them (so those that can use a button lift, my youngest could manage this but only once they had been to the young skiers ski school) and even then, patchily. Swiss prices, although there is a Lidl type supermarket in the town. Ski-ing is always expensive, and hard work with young children in tow, but very much worth it to get them ski-ing in the early years, so the only worries (much) later on are about how to cope with the lift systems and the piste map. Have a great time x

Thank you so much for the detailed reply! Looks like I have a lot of research to do now, so really appreciate it! Will let you all know how I got on :)

We did a kinderhotel in austria, called Brennseehoff. It was brilliant!
I dont ski, so used the hotel spa, chilled out while the husband went to ski. 4 meals a day inclusive, creche, spa, childrens activities, really decent soft play area, indoor and outdoor swimming and jacuzzi, introductory/ ski lessons for children and inclusive shuttle bus to the slopes. The husband took the 6 year old skiing and my 2 yr old was in the creche or with me in the childrens pool. Almost everything was included in the final price.

Definitely get the 3.5 year old skiing, in France most resorts will have fun lessons for them. They can achieve a lot more than you would think!

Pick a big resort with nice swimming pool/ spa/ bowling etc for afternoon and non skier activities.

All the big French resorts will have Club Piou Piou through ESF - it’s like a creche/ski hybrid programme for 3YOs. I think it’s only if you want the English ski schools that they might not take under 4s.

We tend to go with my ILs who don’t ski and they want fine dining, really nice shops and a certain level of chalet with a gym
and pool so it feels like they’re still getting a holiday - so Val d’Isere is usually where we end up. Your mum sounds like she might be a bit easier to please though!

We've done it quite a lot. A couple of times with Ski Beat and then sorted our own nanny privately, this year we used MyAlpineNanny who were good in Plan Peisey / Les Arcs. We've also been with Le Ski and Neilson before which was also good (and they sort the childcare). Depends if you want a private nanny part time (which might work well for your mum) or a full time creche type thing. With My Mountain Nanny our older kids went to ski school in the morning and nanny came every afternoon which was great. It's not cheap obviously but it's convenient as if you're in a chalet they just go there and look after them/take them sledging etc.

My experience of ski schools etc is that my kids didn't want to go to ESF before they were 6-7 because of the language barrier. They hated it. But both were fine at 4yrs going in a group with an English speaking instructor and other English speaking kids. This year my 7 year old did go to ESF with a friend and she was OK but it's because she's older and wasn't alone. Most the kids were French as we weren't in UK hols. But she is fine with that now but at 4 found it overwhelming I think. Obviously all kids are different!

All our ski trips with our kids have been brilliant. We've been most years since my eldest (now 11) was 1 and loved it every time. Effort - yes and costly but worth it and they both love the snow. This year we are planning on driving and self catering as the kids can now ski with us and it is just generally much easier than it was but I am glad we put those years of effort in getting them out there from a young age. DD1 is better skier than me now at age 11 and she's skied 4 times due to Covid and being too young on the other trips.

I have also heard great things about Kinderhotels!

Also with Le Ski I know they sometimes have (cheaper) single rooms in chalets which might be good for your mum to save on the cost.

Places we have been all with an OK transfer and all been family friendly.

Morzine
Les Arcs
Plan peisey
Meribel
La Tania

Ski schools in Austria always have English-speaking instructors for children. If the groups are mixed, the instructors will instruct the group in the various languages - German, Dutch, Danish, English etc. - so that all of the children understand what they're supposed to be doing.

This is very doable OP. Mine are teens now but we skied most seasons since had a 3 and a 1y old. We did a combination of all the suggestions here, Ski Famille, Cristal, creches and morning ski school. The packages from Ski Famille etc are really very expensive because of the child care and I don't think you will need that if you have your mother with you, a really excellent idea.

Somewhere that worked really well for us was Les Arcs 1950 as, at the time, there was a crèche in the village, may be still there? So we would put DS1 in morning ski school, and DS2 in the crèche for a couple of house while we skied, then in the afternoon we'd get them for lunch and then either walk round the town in the afternoon, ice skating (penguins), sledging etc, worked really well. Sometimes we'd put them both in for a couple of hours in the afternoon as well and ski a bit more ourselves. I can't remember the age for the crèche, which was v good, but I'm sure DS2 was about 18 months at this point? Though we did do a couple of Ski Familles at that point that come with a nanny so I may be mis remembering. DS3 went pretty much to ski school from 2.5/3 as was with older bros etc.

With a gran along to do a few afternoons or mornings I think you could easily make this work in a resort with a nice creche without paying the $$$ for dedicated childcare. As long as you choose resorts like Les Arcs 1950 that have nice towns to walk around, I'm sure your mum would be happy to have them most mornings/afternoons and could drop/pick up from crèche for a few hours which would give you more flexibility. I remember making DH, who was a novic earlier at the time, bomb it down a Black and a Red to get back to the crèche for pick up as I had got stuck over the other side of the mountain 😂