Family Skiing March / April 2026

[whenitsover]

Hey! We did our first skiing trip earlier this year to Sierra Nevada - kids loved it, good English speaking skiing school, and ease of getting kit, skis and proximity to ski lifts. It was also an easy drive from Malaga. However it was limited for meals out for apres ski, and there wasn’t much variety in terms of intermediate slopes.

so next year we have three weeks to plan a ski trip - sat 28th, 4th April and 11th April. Half term in feb is too costly for us.

any ideas on where to go? I’m drawn to France or Austria for some reason, but can look at Italy Switzerland etc.

Forgot to mention we are on a budget as a family of 4 - aiming for about 5k all in!

That’s a small budget for France in school holidays to be honest. We’re going to avoriaz 28th March - £2000 for all inclusive hotel, £1400 flights, £400 transfer, £1000 ski school, £600 lift passes (buy one adult get a child free), so with ski hire will come in around £6000. We self catered last year but ended up costing more due to the price of food plus eating out at lunchtime. If you can drive you’ll get it cheaper - self cater and stock up at a supermarket in the valley.

The April dates are too late for most of the resorts in Austria and Italy - for example, Saalbach closes on Easter Monday (6th April) - and the words "Switzerland" and "budget" are rarely found in the same sentence.

Having said that, somewhere like Saalbach would still be good for w/c 28th March, and should be within your budget. Not all of the slopes will be open, but the Ski Circus is huge and there are still far more pistes than in somewhere like Sierra Nevada. The main advantage that Sierra Nevada has is that it is at a high altitude and therefore will likely have more, and better, snow than most resorts in Austria at the end of March.

Yeah it is, we try & scrimp by doing self catering as we find it comes out cheaper. Forgot to mention that hubby doesn’t ski so saves on some money

I’ve heard good things about avoiraz - can I ask where you’re staying as that’s a good AI price and which ski school you’re using?

Staying at the belambra. Using supreme ski - they do 9-1 lessons which works well for the kids. My husband doesn’t ski either but he enjoyed the resort.

Sierra Nevada is great for late season ski for that reason - I’ll look into saalbach. Any recommendation on where to stay be it hotel or self catering apartments?

peak retreats have floated la flaine, serre chevalier and plague soleil. Any idea if they will be good for skiing in March?

Thank you - that’s quite a decent ratio! At Sierra Nevada I got my kids private lessons as they were beginners and I wanted to accelerate their learning but classes would work well now.

Sorry I meant 9am - 1pm, group size is max of 6

Needs to be a high resort as very late. I went to whistler (Canada) that week and it was a bit melty! For affordability look at smaller resorts in Austria as higher thus colder, avoid the ones you have heard of. Alternatively think about driving and getting an airbnb to France or Switzerland if something is affordable. Making packed lunches, and perhaps just sharing a portion of hot fries to accompany it is a great way to save I found, we also only did 3 days skiing and spent the rest of the week not in resort but eg went to Luxembourg, Munich, Fussen.

Saalbach has plenty of centrally located hotels, as does the neighbouring village Hinterglemm. Both are on the same lift pass, which also includes Leogang, Fieberbrunn and Zell am See/Kaprun. A self-catering apartment will cost about £1,100 for the week.

Many resorts will have end-of-season offers - for example, Saalbach offers one free child's ski ticket for each adult ski ticket purchased. For the non-skier there is a pedestrian ticket available which means that the family can meet up for lunch or afternoon drinks on the mountain.

Also, public transport is free throughout Salzburgerland, so you can take the Postbus from Salzburg Airport to any resort in the region free of charge. Free transport also applies to the trains. A private or shared taxi transfer to Saalbach for 4 will cost about £200 each way.

One final tip - Sunday flights to and from Salzburg with Ryanair are far cheaper than Saturday flights, so you could fly out on Sat 28/3 but return on Sunday 5/4 (or even Sunday - Sunday) and save a few hundred pounds. Either spend the extra day skiing, or go for a day and night in Salzburg on the second Saturday.

Montgenevre would work well. High, reliable, sunny, good value, lovely public spa pool, ski links to Italy.