Neilson or MW ski ?

[holymolybalamory]

Any experiences?

we have 4 children diverse age range to put in ski school. They don’t want to go in with the little ones so thought maybe a package would be better

any recommendations would be amazing.

Is their ability diverse? Mw will be significantly more expensive.

Yes mixed bag. Eldest is comfortable on black runs, the middle two blue/red and the toddler needs a crèche. Most importantly they need some holiday pals to enjoy the slopes with

How does the choice of tour operator affect which class the children go into?

If you go to any large resort in Austria there will be several ski schools to choose from and all will do a "ski off" on the first day in order to grade the children (and the same for the adults) and put each child into the appropriate group. I'm sure that ESF, Evolution 2 and the other French ski schools do the same, as do the Italian schools.

Even if you book a package with MW, Neilson, Crystal, Inghams, Heidi etc. the ski schools that they use will still follow this system for group lessons and you are always at liberty to choose a different ski school than the one that the TO has chosen to work with.

This has not been our experience. The ski schools sort groups by language, ability and age. Which meant my middle 2 were with much younger children and felt out of place. I’m thinking of going with a UK tour operator so that there will be more English speaking children to sort into groups.

also ability wise my eldest has outgrown the children’s groups but I don’t want her in adult groups. We want something aimed at teens

I was a rep and a ski instructor for many years and have not generally experienced this in Austria, Canada or Italy. All of the schools that I have worked with have sorted by ability first, followed by language (if there have been sufficient students to form one-language groups) and age. In Austria all of the instructors speak English (many are from the Netherlands and Scandinavia) and Dutch and Scandinavian teens invariably speak English.

I would think that going with a British TO actually increases the chances that your children will be placed in a group with a wide range of ages. If there are only, say, 16 British children, and if the TO has an agreement with a school that the British children form their own groups, then the age range might well span from 5 to 14 in two groups of eight/nine as the instructors will sort by ability. Even if there are eight 14-year-olds they will not ski together in one group if two are near beginners, three are experts and the other three are somewhere in between - or if they do, they will ski at the pace of the slowest person.

In 2027 the UK the half-term week in mid-February coincides with the same holiday across most of northern Europe. The largest ski school in any Austrian resort will probably be expecting something like 250+ children in that week which means that they can form all sorts of groups specific to age and ability far more easily than if they only have 30 children to organise in a given week.

Another option would be to look at the individual ski schools in afew larger resorts to see if they offer lessons tailored specifically to teens. This is not very common in Europe, but in Whistler, for example, there was a program called "Ride Tribe" (or something similar) aimed at young teens.

Thanks @Havananananaso what your saying is what I’m looking for does not exist? We’ve skied in Austria , twice with all the children and loved it but the older children need something a bit more. I’m not opposed to trying Canada and tying it into a wider trip but we’d aim for Easter not half term so we could get away for longer

It does exist, but you'll have to search a bit and in most weeks there will not be the numbers required to run a course - for the simple reason that most teens will be at home and in school except over Christmas/New Year and February half-term.

Small resorts and small ski schools won't usually have sufficient guests to be able to create groups specific to teens, even in the peak weeks. The best chance is to look at the big schools in the big resorts to see if they offer a teen program. I've already mentioned Whistler (I've just checked the ski school website but it currently has no details of the 2026-27 programs) and in Austria, I can see that the Skischule Arlberg, probably the largest school in Austria, is advertising teen groups but with the caveat that there must be a minimum number of participants for a course to run. Of the two largest schools in Saalbach and Hinterglemm, the second-largest ski area in Austria, neither Snow and Fun or Furstauer appear to offer teen courses.

Easter is comparatively quiet in most ski resorts and my guess is that it would be very unlikely that there would be sufficient numbers for a school in Austria to run a dedicated teen group. Even though Easter falls relatively early in 2027, I would hesitate to book a ski holiday anywhere other than in the highest resorts - and that would be my advice for any of the European ski countries.

In your shoes OP I would go in the first week of Easter as English are off school then but French/Austrians are not. And then I’d choose a ski school known for English speaking instruction like New Generation or Oxygene and ask for an English speaking instructor. If you do this the chances are that 90% of the kids in the lesson will be English.

I do think MW or Neilson are a decent option especially if you need a creche. Not a lot of difference between them tbh, it’s worth reading reviews for individual resorts. But I would quiz them quite carefully on what age ranges/abilities will go in a lesson together. The bigger resorts will have more kids and therefore more chance of your kids being in an age/ability appropriate group.

PS Tignes was absolutely stuffed with British teens last Easter. I have no idea what lessons they were in of course but there were so many of them, I’m sure some must have been in group ski school lessons. But yes ski schools will split on ability not age.

PPS New Generation looks like they have specific lessons aimed at kids who are 10+, as long as they can do blacks. And they are very english focused.

I was coming on to suggest new generation too - small groups of English speaking kids, they split by age and ability, and the lessons are super fun. My 10 year old spent most of his time bombing down reds and blacks, or in the snowpark.