Skiing with older DCs - any suggestions?

[WhatsWrongWithYou]

Want to go for a few days in the week before Christmas if we can get in anywhere.

We've only ever been to the one resort in Italy before now, which has been okay but I find rather dull after four consecutive years.

I'm not much of a skier but the only thing there is for me to do when I've lost my nerve had enough is sit in a cafe with a crossword book .

Plus it's a small resort so there isn't really a ski school to join in with as such; you book individual lessons which costs a fortune and the instructor works you too hard you don't get to meet anyone else.

Saying that, the DCs have been in group lessons but English is not really spoken much in this area so they're limited by that.

(This would probably be heaven for a lot of dedicated skiers - no Brits!)

We don't need childcare as the DCs are 9, 13 and 15, and we'd like to avoid a chalet/hotel full of other people's screeching toddlers, although obviously a mix with the odd tiny thrown in is fine.

Don't know where to start really and I can see DH booking us in again unless I sort something else out quickly. Oh, and plus we hate the idea of having to queue for more than five minutes for the chairlift. . Any contributions welcome!

This has disappeared already! Anyone around?

With 3 children, I'd look for somewhere you can get a family discount on the lift passes.Some resorts offer 10 or 20% off for multiple purchases of lift passes, some offer formulas 2 adults + 2 kids. Chamonix has a lift pass which costs the same for 2 adults and 1 child or 2 adults and ANY NUMBER of children under the age of 16, so 2 adults + 3 children costs 584,50 for a 6 day pass.

France has loads and loads of self catering apartments.

That's really useful info, but tbh I'm more interested in finding the right place with good varied skiing and the opportunity for the DCs to meet others their own age.

I think chalets that take children on a schoolholiday week are likely to have children. We have always found other kids for ours to play with. Been with Crystal and snow world. Even esprit often have lots of older kids in the school holidays. With esprit its worth asking them the ages of the other kids. Other companies will often tell you this too. Re ski ing if they are good skiers the older ones can join programmes like teen extreme.

That sounds good - any particular resorts?

(Feel like we're doing this all the wrong way round; having always gone independent, now looking for a package!)

i think you could try one of the big tour operators and go to a reasonably big resort - your kids won't need creche so much as a teenage club.
you could try mayorhofen, kaprun or zell an zee in austria or maybe andorra - lots of other brits so prob lots of kids around. in france i would think somewhere like alpe d'uez would be ok, or maybe flaine.

i would absolutely recommend canada (esp whistler or banff) - your kids can cope with the long flights, the jet lag and the transfers, and will really love being able to speak the lingo. they have terrific teenage programmes there (snowboard/ski camps etc). whistler is my personal fave ski resort ever, so i may be biased

oh plus whistler has lots of stuff for grown ups to do too!

We have been to Whistler a few times, which is just fantastic. Didn't have kids at the time, but there were people coming from Europe because the ski school was so fantastic. They have a great half pipe there too if your kids are snowboarders.

Thanks - would love to cross the Atlantic but we only want to go for 4/5 days really.

DS1 went to Lake Tahoe with the school and it's completely spoiled him for Europe!

Will look at the other places thanks again.

www.rocketski.com. Prices over Christmas from as little as £1500 for family of 5 for a week including flights, transfer, ski-in-out hotel, half-board, games rooms, in-house ski hire. Take off approximiately £100 each for accommodation only, that's less than £30 each per day for room and half-board.

This company also sells holidays to school/youth groups, so the hotels may also contain groups of teenagers, could be ideal for your own.

The company has exclusivity on their hotels over the ski season and reviews on Tripadvisor are quite positive about them.

I think you should go independent. The week before Christmas is a great time to go, we're going for the third year in a row (before Christmas that is). The last 2 years I've taken DS on my own (when he was 6 & 7) for 4 nights. We're Austria fans (look for good "Advent" packages from hotels) and have done Seefeld (flew to Munich & train but actually much closer to Innsbruck) and Serfaus. Serfaus has a much bigger & higher ski area, flew to Innsbruck then got train to Landeck & PostBus to resort. I can suggest other places if you like?

Forgot a couple, can recommend Hinterglemm. Also Schladming as you have a proper town for non skiers & teenagers plus it's on the train line from Salzburg. Others that are high & recommended (but I haven't been to) are Obergurgl and Obertauern.

Thanks so much orientierer - will have a look tonight.

We've always gone independent but as we knew the resort it was relatively easy; looks like we'll have to do the same again as it's rather close now and I can't find any availability for short breaks in that week.

I agree it's a fab time to go; last year we went during Christmas week and it was blissfully quiet at first but once Christmas day had been it went crazy with people.