More Val d'Isere questions I'm afraid..

[43Today]

After reading people's responses to my question re beginners and Val d'Isere (thanks for input btw) am now very close to booking a catered holiday for me and my 2 teenagers (14 and 12) at Hotel Champs Avalins at La Daille, pre-Christmas 2011, with Igluski. (Yes I know, original question was for me and DP in March..)

Anyway - can anyone recommend a good ski school and ski/boot hire place as both kids have never skiied before and don't speak much French. What should I expect to pay for lessons/hire? Also, I haven't skiied for 25 years and am not sure what to do about lift passes - I feel it may be unwise to invest in 3 adult 6-day passes but what would others suggest?

Any other comments would be very gratefully received!

Can't advise on boot/ski hire places, but you may want to check out the Val d'Isere website here for info on ski schools/rental shops.

Don't buy a lift pass for your kids if they're beginners. They will use beginners slopes for the first day or two, which are free, and the instructors will tell them when to buy a pass. You can buy separate passes for either the Val d'Isere area or the whole Espace Killy (more expensive and includes Tignes) but it's doubtful you'll need the full area pass unless you're planning on doing a lot of skiing.

Ski hire I would use snowberry fantastic quality equipment and you can leave your stuff there overnight so you don't have to carry it around they are right on the slopes at the rond point where the buses stop. You can get basic equipment cheaply if you book online. The ski schools meet in the centre of the village so you will need to ge the bus from la daille up in the morning.
Ski school I would use oxygene again very good
Lift pass wise I would ask ski school about your boys and see what they say.

Right, I've not been to Val yet (off tomorrow) but have been to Tignes before and obviously have investigated passes for next weeks's trip.

General ski resort advice I would say get a 6 day pass. I've always had a 6 day pass even when first learning to ski. You may find you only ski mornings and are too tired to ski in the afetrnoons but you'll probably want to ski every day. And by the end of the week I bet you're skiing in the afternoon as well. A 6 day pass is normally cheaper than say 4x 1 day passes. The price difference between the Val only pass and the bigger area pass was hardly anything - maybe 20 euros for a 6 day pass difference.
If you have days with no pass there often isn't much else to do in resort.

You may struggle getting childrens group lessons in Dec, I've struggled getting DD in a group lesson for next week. All the ski schools apart from one said they don't do group lessons until Feb. Only ski school that would take dd was Oxygene. We've paid 410euros for 5x morning lessons nad 5x lunch. Which is very expensive compared to what we normally pay through Esprit, I guess Esprit do a discount price with the ski schools.

All the ski schools will have English speaking instructers. I've not used Oxygene before but have used ESF and Evolution 2. I've found them both goo, Evolution 2 slightly friendlier and often cheaper. You could ask ski schools if your kids are old enough to go in adult lessons, there will be adult group lessons all year. They might say you have to be with them.

Evolution 2 in Val quoted me 100euros for a 2 hour private lesson, but that lesson can be for 2 people. So you could have both your kids in a private lesson every morning - 500 euros for 5 mornings of lessons.

Val d'Isere is an excellent choice, but watch out for the blue runs back into the village - they are really hard and should be red runs, so it is often best for beginners to go back down on the lifts.

For ski hire, I have used Ski Republic - didn't ski last year as was expecting DD, but used previous years they were really good for the money, and 2 for 1 offer:
www.ski-republic.com/en/

I'd avoid ESF for lessons - classes are big, and you can't guarantee that the instructor speaks good English. Oxygene are good as are Evolution 2.

Mountain Masters offer excellent private lessons, but are a bit pricy - the best tuition in Val, IMHO.

I would also say that oxygene are good or evolution 2 have used both in val.