Booking a ski cheap all in ski trip for Christmas with teens

[TabithaJM]

Hi there,
I am looking to book a ski holiday for my family at Christmas - 5 of us and kids are pretty much grown up - 16, 20 and 22. Myself and my husband have skiied before but we're not very experienced and the children haven't skiied at all. I am looking for an all in deal which isn't too costly to include lift passes, ski and boot hire, half-board, lessons, travel and accommodation. Has anyone got any recommendations for places to go to at Christmas?

@TabithaJM we stayed at hotel Ivy and Elena and used ski school Steve. It was about £5k for 5 of us for the week. It could have been quite a bit cheaper but we spent about £1.5k on private/our small group lessons. I needed some 1to1 as I am a deeply rubbish skier! That included eating out lunches and dinner and alcohol.

[quote TravelLost]@OhCobblers you need to transfer the QR code to the French app (easy).
For teens, they would need a test every 2~3 days to put on the app. About 25 euros each, . You also need to find a chemist doing those tests (I know I looked at Tignes and I couldnt one in that particular resort)[/quote]
A quick google showed me four pharmacie / test centre in Tignes doing antigen tests. If they are required for passe sanitaire you can be sure they will be freely available. But to be honest looks like this thread has moved on to Bulgaria!

@boismint They are NOT freely available at all.

They were not this summer for people not living in France (I paid for mine despite being french). They are not free anymore for french residents who don't have the two vaccines either (This was because some antivaxxers were havig two or three tests a week to still get the pass wo having the vaccine)

Bottom line though. It's essential to check what the requirements are in the country you are going! Especially as rules change quickly and what is possible now might not be possible in a few months time.

@TravelLost I think you have misunderstood. "Freely" means widely. I was not saying they were free. They are very easy to acquire for visiting tourists at a cost of 25 euro.

Fair enough

Good luck with this op!
By all in do you mean flights, transfers, accommodation, meals, drinks, lift passes, equipment hire and lessons?
I looked a couple of weeks ago - we have 2 dc who will only have had 1 vaccine (like your 16 year old). Things have changed (got more complicated) for the 12-17 age group since then, but when I was looking Switzerland was most straightforward take them to (assuming you’re fully vaccinated). Club Med offers absolute everything - properly ‘all in’ but was going to cost £9k for 4 of us! We haven’t booked anything,
Let us know what you decide.

Cheap is a relative term, skiing is expensive! Scotland is quite reasonable for skiing as you can drive and self cater. We went quite cheaply to Germany once, booked separately of course

I'd consider a destination outside the eurozone (not scandi countries though!)

Andorra 'can' be cheaper, but depends on the £/E rate. When we went, it was almost 1:1 and ended costing a fortune for self catering

DH went to Romania years ago as a beginner and found it fascinating, and cheap.

Sotchi- Russia has spend a great deal upgrading their facilities, but I have no idea about visas or covid restrictions there.

I personally enjoy Italy over France for friendliness, food and costs. One consideration could be Livigno in Italy. Its duty free due to it being so high and remote. I haven't been there is a few years though.

The benefits are that their season is often longer due to altitude. The duty free aspect was fantastic. We bought camera equipment, perfumes, food and alcohol much cheaper than we could in the UK. You could buy your Christmas gifts there! I used to return with almost a suitcase full of dried porcini mushrooms, parmesan, liquors and other deliciousness! The downside is that the transfer is 3hrs, but was worth it IMO.

We often bought a package deal holiday, but approached a skishop in resort on arrival. I always found they offered a better deal to go direct, rather than using the holiday company.

I used this website a great deal. You can out in your requests- high altitude, good for beginners, good food etc and it will show the results.

ANYWHERE will be expensive over Christmas though, and you might struggle to find anything so late.

Norway and Sweden has amazing skiing facilities - but not cheap. Not sure what prices are compared to France/Austria/Italy but wont be cheaper. Not as high mountains but cross country skiing is as popular (probably more) than downhill and is a good family activity (bring food/drinks in a back pack).

Don’t understand the concern about Bulgaria - they are very well established ski resorts and are just as well set up as France, Austria etc.

Facilities in Bulgaria, particularly lifts and infrastructure, are far behind those in Austria and France. It is cheap, but in the busy weeks such as Christmas, it can easily be a case of £700 wasted rather than £300 saved.

Here's a famous video of Georges Bar, Borovets, Bulgaria.

@Rapunzel91

Norway and Sweden has amazing skiing facilities - but not cheap. Not sure what prices are compared to France/Austria/Italy but wont be cheaper. Not as high mountains but cross country skiing is as popular (probably more) than downhill and is a good family activity (bring food/drinks in a back pack).

We went to Sweden in 2019, self catered with a couple of other families and were surprised at how reasonable it worked out. Op - don’t rule it out without pricing it up carefully

OP we have done Christmas week a few times as a family of 5 very cheaply (Italy), but not as an all-in package. Easy jet flights (not Saturday/Saturday or Sunday/Sunday), car hire, Airbnb apartment. Self catered but ate out for everything but breakfast.

If you want a package, the cost will ramp up because not many ski resorts cater for 5 in a hotel (for your half board requirement) so you're looking at multiple rooms.

As @Africa2go said, Christmas week can be done fairly cheaply (as far as cheaply goes with skiing). We found that flights were more reasonable than February half term: £700 instead of £3000 for 4 of us. We booked our accommodation via VRBO 14 months in advance and got it cheap too. Similar accommodation is more than double now.
We go self catering and only eat out for lunch.

Hi @Africa2go,
Could I ask which area of Italy you went to?
Thanks

@TabithaJM Cervinia. High enough for early season, great skiing for all levels, pretty main street (Christmassy), option to head over to Zermatt, most of the accommodation (good mix of hotels / SC / AirBnBs) is 5-10mins walk from the slopes, decent food and reasonably priced.