Summer mountain holiday with kids club and English-speaking children

[CompleteMere]

I’ve been thinking about a summer holiday in the mountains (preferably either Austria or Switzerland but open to other suggestions). It would be just me and DS, who’d be 7-8. He is starting to enjoy being quite sociable on holiday so I’d like somewhere with kids activities/ a kids club so something like a Kinderhotel would be ideal. However, I’m a bit worried there wouldn’t be any other English speakers there and that might defeat the point. (I am not sociable on holiday 🤣 so I don’t mind about lack of English speakers. My French is decent and I could get by with German and Google Translate.)

Is there anywhere you’d recommend for a decent chance of other English-speaking kids in a kids club, or experience/reassurance that it would be fine if there aren’t? Small kids play together without any language barrier but I imagine it’s harder for the 7-10yos.

I’ve been on two holidays to two different familienhotels in Germany (last year and the year before) so not exactly what you are looking for, and they were fantastic for activities and childcare/supervision but I have to be honest they spoke much less English than you might expect and in that age group the kids didn’t speak much English at all. As an adult it was fine but I know my 8 year old daughter found it a bit frustrating

Thanks! I’m weighing up this vs something like Neilson/Mark Warner so it’s useful info - might be worth doing this while DC still ok to “have fun” with just me if necessary!

Look at kinder hotels for Austria. They are amazing holidays for families but no guarantee of English speaking.
Hope someone will come along with some experience but I’ve never found this in Switzerland- and I live there. Maybe in Ski season yes.
The other option could be to look for international schools that offer summer day camos eg Zurich International School does this. He goes to day camp, you stay in a local Airbnb/hotel and explore while he is at camp.
Im sure some of the schools in the mountains will offer this.

No recommendations but a mountain holiday is always a good idea. We go independently to the southern French alps… no kinder hotels here - the kids have easily found friends camping, but that isn’t what you’re looking for. Good luck OP. I’m sure you’ll have a fab time.

We’ve stayed in two Austrian Kinderhotels and love the concept. The first time was for skiing in February half-term and there was an international crowd and our 7 year old loved it. Went to another at Easter and it was almost exclusively German speaking and we all struggled a bit as most of the staff didn’t speak English either. We had a great time but it’s probably going to be our last trip to one!

What about a campsite? Eurocamp or similar.

I’ve done summer Kinderhotel holidays and found there are usually a few English speaking kids, either mother tongue or reasonably fluent. My son also enjoying running around shooting stuff with kids he spoke no English to at all. I’ve always found the staff in the kids club spoke good English. You can’t guarantee it but I don’t think there’s ever been no kids to be friendly with.

Have a look at Alpine Elements. I haven’t used them but know they have a summer programme in Morzine with kids clubs.

Hinterglemm in Austria is stunning and they have a good kinder hotel there. Everyone around often speaks English (admittedly I go there in winter). Regardless the age barrier and non speaking English won’t be an issue.

A lot of European kids speak fluent English by age 7-10 (mostly it's compulsory from age 6 or 7).

Try Morzine, very English speaking

I can recommend the Alpine French School summer camp in Morzine. The kids went off for the day to do fun French lessons in the morning and outdoor adventure activities in the afternoon. Loads of English kids and they had a brilliant time. Morzine is lovely too.

If you want English speakers then I’d look at at a British operator like Mark Warner or Neilson.

We’ve spend lots of time in the Austrian alps (including many Kinderhotels) specifically to improve the children’s German. In fact, we hate it when the locals try to practice their English on us!

Whereas our German remains resolutely basic, mostly because we’ve never really had to use it! I’d agree though that somewhere with a dedicated English facility means you don’t risk a bored son. It’s very much chance what you get elsewhere and we’ve had enduring friendships made (penpals) all the way through to siblings having to spend more time together than they really wanted to between the appearances of English speaking children.

I went to eurocamps with my parents when I was little in Italy. Always made loads of German and Italian friends round the place who all had fairly good English already and wanted to test it out on me. I also learned a few italian and germen words while playing with them. That experience made me very open to other Europeans and in fact I eventually married an Italian and now live in Italy with two bilingual kids!

I wonder why German families don’t look for German speaking childcare when they go on holiday in France or in the UK….. rather seem happy to want to learn and embrace foreign languages

Why are Brits so keen to speak English when going abroad?

It’s a bit chicken and egg but if we were taught languages properly from 6 or so I expect we’d be keener to “practise” when abroad. My son (for example) won’t have learnt any other languages at all so while I think he’d be excited to try and chat to kids in their own languages he’d get stuck quickly.

Active Elements maybe

Possibly club med

Alpine elements

We did Alpine Elements a few years ago and ended up not using the kids club as it appeared it was just a young rep watching a couple of kids for a couple of hours, didn’t feel like a proper kids club IMHo
might have changed though

Oh that’s a bit rubbish @Notaschoolgatehun. I haven’t actually been with them but just have them on my list as an alpine holiday possibility. What was the trip like otherwise… we don’t actually need the kids club but interested in feedback on the rest of it?

We have been on several Alpine summer holidays. If you want all inclusive I’d recommend Club Med. All activities are run in French and English. MMV club hotels are a cheaper version of Club Med. Most of the children will be French but the children’s club leaders normally speak English as well. You could also look at Peak Retreats summer holidays which are mainly self catered but a lot are in high end self catered accommodation with pools where your son would probably meet other children.

@minipie the rest of the Alpine Elements was fine, nice chalet and friendly hosts. We are familiar with Morzine and tended to do our own thing though so didn’t use the reps much.
Good value as you got a pass that gave you access to lots of things as part of the trip. Was a few years ago .

We’d happily speak other languages - we both can get by in French - but for kids who aren’t learning a language in school or exposed to it daily via media, it’s a challenge to acquire enough at a young age to be able to interact with other children in a natural way. My kids have done Duolingo German for years but one of them said to me this morning, coincidentally, that Duolingo doesn’t teach ‘proper’ German that you can speak. All of them have chosen German as their language option at secondary and understand a decent amount now but no such thing when they were 6/7 and keen to make friends. And to be fair, at that age, the kids they could make friends with easily were either other British kids or bilingual kids living in other countries, not European who had learned enough English already to communicate freely. That’s been more a 10+ thing.