How much does a skiing holiday cost?

[ReviewingTheSituation]

This may seem like a ridiculous question on many levels, as I realise it's very much a 'how long is a piece of string' question, but having just come back, and thinking about next year already, I don't know how much to budget! I know what we paid, obviously, but don't know if that's over or under the odds.

My trips are always booked separately- not a package, and include flights (with luggage but not skis), transfers, half board, lift pass, ski hire. What would you expect to pay (for an adult) for that, out of school holidays? Incidental/on the mountain spend not included...

I'm going to go and add up what we just spent, to compare!

£600-700 for flights, transfers and a HB hotel in a good location but the lift pass will vary hugely depending on the size of the area and whether you want a full area pass or just a local one.

Double that (at the very least) for school holidays

Anywhere from lots to crazy money. Never cheap.
We've paid 8k+ for all inclusive ski holidays for family of 4. And 3 to 4k when organised myself going to smaller local resorts tour operators don't go to.

£6.5k for three half-board and including ski hire and ski school. Also pay for lunches and drinks on top of that (about 130E per day). That’s in school holidays so prime time

We estimate about £2.5 - £3k for a week at Easter. Apartment £400, self-drive about £400 for fuel/tolls, £100 overnight stay en route to mountains, £1200 lift pass for 4 of us, £120 boot/ski hire for dcs (booked in advance so cheaper rate: dh and I have own skis/boots), £80 parking in resort for week, no lessons needed as we can all ski, Eurotunnel either £200 or free with Tesco clubcard vouchers. We self-cater, so costs are lower and often take lunch out onto the slopes with us when it's sunny, and spending money is on top, so depends how often we want to eat out etc. We always go with friends who stay in similar accommodation so can all meet up to ski together and then for drinks at the end of the day. Any self-catered meals are kept simple and we do a shop at the bottom of the mountain before driving up, so have plenty of wine/beer and are not restricted to paying inflated bar prices.

It might sound hard work but we've done it so many times that it's the norm for us: I like the independence and having our own space in an apartment, but depends what suits you.

We usually budget £3000

About £2k per person, French Alps.

Interesting. I just added up everything from our trip and it came to just under £1,200 each (inc all our lunches/drinks etc). The last few trips we've done have been as part of a big group, sharing an AirBnB and SC (and booking accom/flights a long way in advance), so I hadn't really got a handle on total costs as they were spread out so far and split various ways.

We didn't scrimp on this trip, so I'm pleased with where we ended up. It helps that lunch/drinking in Italy is WAY cheaper than France!

We used to do it a lot cheaper when we lived in Germany and could drive, in term time as we could take kids out, self catering apartment than now we are in the UK, skiing over Christmas, flying, hotels etc.

This year just over £7k for two adults, two children in Tignes at Easter. That's in a chalet with friends so includes food, transfers, ski hire, ski passes and lessons. Got lunches to pay for and one evening meal out.

Never actually written the amount down before and makes me shudder but skiing is my favouritist thing to do ever. Would happily live on dry bread and water for a while!!

Ours usually come in roughly around the £1000 per person mark. We book things independently. There's four of us.

We're going for Christmas this year and have splashed out on the accommodation this time. It's £2k for a two bed self catering apartment, but it is ski in/ski out. Ski school is literally outside the slope side door.

We've offset it a bit by flying into an airport further away and getting the train across. Saved about £500 doing that.

We're planning to throw a couple of hundred pounds at private lessons for DH and I this year too (separate instructors) as there's things we'd each like to improve on.

With passes, hire, ski school (DC), spending money etc on top of that, it's probably going to be closer to £5k. Just don't remind DH. He knows. But he's enjoying the denial at the moment.

But as a PP said, it's my favourite thing ever, so we make it work.

Flights - around £300-350 return (inc baggage)
Accommodation - EUR 950 B&B
Ski passes - EUR 550
Ski Hire - EUR 300
Ski school - EUR 300
Lunches - around EUR 25 per day
Dinner - EUR 50 - 70 per day
Transfers - EUR 250

That's for 2 adults and 1 child in the school holidays. Don't think we could get it for much less. Totally worth it though.

@ReviewingTheSituation. You did ask for outside of school holidays didn’t you?

Who pays £350 for flights in term time? I’m going in a couple of weeks and my flight was £92 return including hold luggage.

[quote Muchtoomuchtodo]@ReviewingTheSituation. You did ask for outside of school holidays didn’t you?

Who pays £350 for flights in term time? I’m going in a couple of weeks and my flight was £92 return including hold luggage.[/quote]
I should clarify that my £300-350 budget for flights (and indeed all my budgeted costs) is not per person, but in total for 3 people and in the School holidays! I normally try to get it around the £300 mark (so £100 return pp similar to your price) but some years it is slightly more. I did once manage to get it for £200 in total which I was really pleased with, but it is normally around the £300 (absolute max £350) mark.

I achieve this by booking early and more often than not flying into Munich rather than Innsbruck. Even with the longer travel time the other end it still saves a massive amount of money.

I achieve this by booking early and more often than not flying into Munich rather than Innsbruck. Even with the longer travel time the other end it still saves a massive amount of money.

We've done this this year. We're flying into Vienna rather than Salzburg. Have saved about £600 and that's taking into consideration the £120ish the train will cost us (total, 4 people).

We've got the train from Salzburg to Vienna before. Its comfortable and straightforward and you get picture postcard views through the windows.

We booked ours almost as soon as they went live, and they're for Christmas week. £104 per person return was a steal as far as we were concerned.

I just paid 433 euros for 7 day lift passes for me and 2 DC. Ski and boot hire another 150 euros for DC, I have my own. We have our own apartment so accommodation is "free" (still pay a mortgage though!) we spend a lot on food and wine, but there are 8 of us here. I paid 59 euros yesterday for panini and drink for 6 people yesterday including 2 beers which I thought was ok.

@BlackLambAndGreyFalcon, we usually do book well in advance but not this year! It definitely gets you the best prices on flights 👍🏻

I'm desperately waiting for Easyjet to release their December 2022 flights!

I have tracked door to door costs (so inc all food and drinks and incidentals) for our trips in 18/19, 19/20 and this season and it's coming out at an average of £973 pp for our family of 4 for 4 holidays. This is for driving and self catering in decent apartments (no sofa beds, some with pools etc) and not exactly scrimping on lunches and the odd evening out in high mileage French resorts in school holidays. Most weeks the kids have had ski school but there's minimal equipment costs in there as we have a lot of our hardware, depends if the kids decide to ski or board.

As a family of four we have spent anywhere between 3k and 7k all in.

I paid (3 years ago) £440 for flights each, £140 a night for a hotel room only, slept 4, £299 for ski hire, 6 day lift pass and orientation (an hour with a guide as a group). Food was a lot, Canada.

Just got back from a week at ClubMed Serre Chevalier.
9 of us , all adults except 5 year old.
About £12,000. Including flights, transfers, ski pass, ski school and guiding,, miniclub with ski lessons for child, all inclusive so all drinks, three excellent French meals a day, lots of canapés and tea time crêpes, swimming pool and entertainment.
More expensive on the face of it than in our days of driving down or chalet holidays, but great value, worth every penny.

Why Easyjet? We booked December about a month ago through Air Austria. I searched flights on Skyscanner to find the best deals. Got return flights for £104 each.

We're usually around the £4.5-5k mark all in for a family of 4 in haf term. Flights booked very early, usually for less than £150 and we tend to go either catered chalet or small hotel.. anything between £450pp (ski bus to slopes, very basic) to £750 pp. DH and I have our own equipment and kids don't need lessons which saves a bit. We tend to snack bar type places for lunch and kids like to ski all day so don't spend much on other activities or apres other than a few beers.

5-6k for five people, all inclusive hotel, ski school and guiding, equipment hire, lift passes, kids club etc., driving ourselves.

Less than 2k here for a family of 4, including food, lift passes, equipment hire and few lessons. We don’t pay for accommodation, but FIL had sense to buy a chalet in a beautiful but cheap little resort. Our main expense is the drive here and back as we stay in an okay hotel and get a nice meal in Troyes. If we had to rent an apartment it would be another 600 I guess, but I reckon we could still do it for less than 2k if we were careful.