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!

When DH and I went as a couple we used to get brilliant deals by waiting till (fairly) last minute and then taking the last two spaces in a chalet, with flights etc included. The chalet operators often heavily discounted the last spaces as any £ was worth more to them than empty spots.

Not possible with DC in school holidays, everything is booked solid ages in advance.

I think the cheapest is around £1000 per person if you need everything.

The lift passes are the highest. Our local is €52 per day. So your looking €300+ just for lift pass now for a week. So even if family come to visit so they get ‘free’ accommodation, the passes are expensive. And ski hire adds up if you need it.

Car hire has also gone through the roof. Pre covid it was €30-40 ish per day, now its €100+

@LabraDabraDoo

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.

This did make me laugh. I shall be having words with my FiL who has failed to buy any sort of ski chalet at all.

I’ve just got home and I reckon we spent about £2000 for three (2adults, one toddler) for six days (5 ski days) plus food. We stayed in an apartment and only ate out one night but did eat in restaurants on the mountain most days. That also includes flights (inc skis), car hire, fuel and lift passes. Our previous trip (2020) cost about that much just for the hotel (half board) so for us it does vary massively. This one was a bit last minute and the apartment choice was partly based on making it a bit more covid secure and partly better for the toddler.

At least a grand per person, particularly if you need ski school and ski hire for everyone. We get budget flights and SC in an Airbnb apartment, but it's still a grand by the time you add up all the lunches on the mountain, dinners out, apres ski drinks, etc.

I think the variables make a huge difference. Obviously you need the basics : travel, accommodation, ski passes, but after that, how you holiday has a massive impact on the cost :

Family of 5 :
Ski school - add £800/900 on
Ski hire - add on £500/600 say
Lunch on the mountain every day (compared to making sandwiches) - maybe £10-20 per person per day (so £300-600)
Dinner out - £20-30 (or more) per person per day so anywhere between £600-£750 for 6 nights.
Drinks / snacks - do you stop for coffees / elevenses? Do you join in with the apres ski for a couple of drinks at the end of the afternoon / kids have a crepe or ice cream etc? That can massively add up too over the course of a week.

So, I think the basics are relatively fixed - it's all the extras that determine how expensive it is.

Like all holidays really.

Ours is the most we pay for a holiday out of any type we take, but the 5.5k we’re spending this year does cover travel, four really good meals a day in a nice hotel, kids club 12 hours a day, ski school, lift passes, ski hire, ice creams/hot chocolates. Everything but alcohol, which isn’t a huge cost for us. Reading through these posts there are massive variables - the cost will depend on what sort of experience you want to have.

Like others have said, it’s the extras.
I’m away with my two teenagers atm (just me) and I think I could do it for less than £2k for all of us, all in. I drive, stay overnight in an Airbnb, s/c apartment, ski/boot/locker hire (no ski school anymore), picnic lunches, eat in our apartment most nights.
Sounds really dull but it works for us.

I’m surprised how cheaply some have done it.

We did our first trip for the 5 of us this last week.

£3,600 for lift passes, equipment hire & self catering apartment.
£480 for lessons (private lessons for me & 3 DC)
£1,500 for flights - booked late after getting cold feet about the drive
£300 for car hire as transfer quotes were ridiculous

Had 2 dinners out - £120 total, & 2 rounds of coffee/soft drinks £30, but self catered the rest which I don’t really count as we would have to eat at home too!

So ballpark is £1k per person really. Flights were the kicker though.

When should we book for cheap deals for next year??

@DistrictCommissioner £3600 for lift passes and equipment is quite expensive.

We've just been to France (also a family of 5 inc 3 teens) and ski hire (Intermediate level) was 120 euros each (we do have our own helmets), so 600 euros, booked on line before we went, and ski passes for 6 days were about 200 euros for adults and 160 euros for teens, also bought online before we went. Thats more than we'd normally pay in Italy but pretty standard in France. Thats about £1250. To spend £3600 on passes, equipment and accommodation, thats £2300+ for a self catering apartment. That would be really top end (we stayed in a luxury chalet this year, ski in ski out, hot tub etc and didn't pay that much for 5 of us!). We've had AirBnBs before for less than £1000 for the 5 of us.

*meant £3600 for passes, equipment and accommodation!

We've just been and for Feb half term it was roughly £1k each with extra for food.
So flights £1k ( but we could have got these cheaper if we'd booked straight away they were carry forward Easyjet flights) apartment £1k for 2 bed in village, £1k for lift pass and ski hire for 3 oh and actually car hire, petrol , speeding fine (sigh) on top.
We didn't include lessons this time so that would be another £150-200 on top per person.

We actually went Crystal year before last, I just picked the cheapest suitable holiday for half term, and because transfers are included it wasn't any dearer than DIY. But the prices for 2023 look astronomical (luckily after this year no more family ski holidays as DH has decided not for him)

About £1200 excluding flight but including food, lift pass, ski rental, accommodation, entertainment and group lessons. That's via staying at UCPA in a double room. The accommodation is very basic and I thought it was an excellent deal but I can see it's fairly average according to this thread!

Wow, I’m shocked at some of these..!

We usually go with Club Med so you pay up front but absolutely everything is included. We literally don’t spent a cent once we arrive

BA flights, private mini bus transfer, lessons if you want them, lift passes and anything you want to eat or drink is about £1,300 per adult, cheaper for the kids

I can’t believe people are spending the same to self drive and self cater

We usually self cater and self drive, and none of us needs ski school, so I assume our costs are a bit lower than many even though we’re a family of 5. For a week I usually budget around:

1.5-2k for lodging
1.5k for lift passes and rentals
500ish for food for 5 for a week

So… 3.5-4k for a week.

@Sparechange

Wow, I’m shocked at some of these..!

We usually go with Club Med so you pay up front but absolutely everything is included. We literally don’t spent a cent once we arrive

BA flights, private mini bus transfer, lessons if you want them, lift passes and anything you want to eat or drink is about £1,300 per adult, cheaper for the kids

I can’t believe people are spending the same to self drive and self cater

The cheapest Club Med we could find was circa 10k for a week for a family of 5! Are your children school age?

They do random sales through the year where they discount the trips by 25% so it’s worth looking out for those
I guess that 5 of you means 2 or 3 rooms though, where as we can cram into one

But we aren’t tied to state school holiday weeks so we do have a bit of flex on Jan and March to find cheaper weeks which helps