Family of 6 ski trip for under 8K February half term

[Skelligski]

We haven't gone on a ski trip as a family before and I'm just starting to research.

First quote from all inclusive provider came back at £20k which is not doable.

I think we need to go for a less fashionable, less busy location. Ideas? We could also drive instead of fly but I'm wary about doing this if we only have a week in the half term.

Children are aged 8, 10, 13 and 14. The eldest 3 can ski at a basic level, ie: they have been skiing once before each.

@Giraffesandbottoms

This thread is a bit sad given all the other threads this evening about people who can’t afford food (I say this as someone who went skiing this year so I understand you, I just think it’s a bit tone deaf within the context of the struggles people are going through).

Oh behave.

Are the pregnancy posts tone deaf because some people can't have children?

How about those moaning about husbands when some people are widowed?

Or those about going for a walk when some people have no legs?

People have different lives. The variety of threads reflect this.

@bumpytrumpy

It’s not relevant to compare to pregnancy, because there hasn’t been a sudden hike in infertility that makes this suddenly a bit insensitive. There is an enormous cost of living crisis at the moment. I just read a thread where someone couldn’t by a 55p snack. I think it’s a bit much, personally 🤷🏻‍♀️

#firstworldproblems

This thread is simply in the wrong place. If @mumsnethq could move it to the skiing board, it would be better.

I don't go onto threads about private schools and moan at the OPs because other people can't afford to send their children private.

@Skelligski

It would definitely be worth looking at taking them the week before half term. We were originally planning to go at half term, but flights were £3000 for 4 of us (Easyjet).

We switched the search to the week before and flights dropped to £300. Accommodation dropped from £1400 to £700 too, so it really did help massively.

This year we're going over Christmas, but are opting to fly to Vienna and then train the rest of the way as flights to Vienna were £400 return for all of us and Salzburg was about £1000. Even factoring in the train, it'll be cheaper, and public transport in Austria is excellent.

Hi OP, we've moved this to the skiing board as requested.

This thread is simply in the wrong place

Agreed! Glad it’s been moved

Might seem crazy, but look at Canada. We found with 4 kids and the dollar being stronger than the euro, it worked out cheaper.

Just had a search on Crystal Ski for 2 adults and 4 kids and you can get a 2 bed apartment, ski in and ski out for £5k in Tremblant which is about 1.5 hours north of Montreal. The resort is perfect - shops, restaurants, a pool, ice skating, tubing etc all within walking distance.

It’s not the school holidays in Canada then so should be fairly quiet. Lots of lovely long green runs for beginners. Just colder than Europe, but you’ll still have beautiful clear sunny days.

20k!!! We’re going south of France next week (Easter hols). Self catered for four of us. Reckon it’ll be about 2k all in!

I would suggest going at Easter to a high altitude french resort. If you look at the snow forecast and webcams this week you will see that one can often be lucky with late season snow and even if it’s warm and sunny there will be enough runs open for beginner kids. The accommodation prices are much less than half term and it will be more relaxed with lower numbers in resort.

If you have four children self drive with a TO like Peak Retreats is worth considering as their prices include flexiplus on eurotunnel.

Generally in most ‘average’ ski areas you will be able to ski easily for around £1000 per person per week. Ie £6k should be plenty.

If you go to a slightly cheaper area, self cater etc then cheaper. Also cheaper if you don’t need to hire all equipment. And 4 of the 6 in your case are children, so ski passes will be about 2/3 of the cost

If you have four children self drive with a TO like Peak Retreats is worth considering as their prices include flexiplus on eurotunnel

This is one of the reasons we like Peak Retreats! Stop at the hub, go and stuff your face, fill a bag with more food to take with you, and head to the front of the queue of whichever train you fancy taking!

We’re a family of 5 and even in peak time can get us all skiing for a week for around 5k (though admittedly none of us needs lessons). We drive and self-cater. We can usually find a nice apartment with either a hot tub or small pool for around 2k for a week. As I’m sure you know, some places even within the same resort region are cheaper than others. For example, Tignes will cost far less than Val D’Isere, even though they are connected. If you like Megeve, stay in St Gervais. Cervinia is cheaper than Zermatt, Soelden cheaper than Obergurgl, etc. You definitely don’t need to pay 20k to have a nice family ski holiday!

We’ve done all inclusive before, but we actually prefer self catering as at the end of the day it’s nice to just vegetate and munch our way through whatever we fancy eating. We tend to ski in the morning, swim in the afternoon, and then we’ll either do something simple like frozen pizza or we’ll go out to eat (or order in) if we don’t fancy cooking. Honestly it’s so much cheaper and personally I think self catering gives more freedom.

I couldn't agree more with the self catering comment above. We're the same. We like to eat what we want, when we want. We essentially live on pizza, pasta and baguettes for the week. And that's absolutely fine with us.

We don't factor our food into holiday budgets as we'd have to go shopping in the UK anyway, so anything we buy to self cater is part of our general monthly budget.

I am so horrified at some of the prices quoted on here for accommodation but 20K for a week's ski holiday is beyond my wildest dreams!!

We go skiing to The southern alps every year and do it as cheaply as poss - 4 will cost average €800 for lift passes, €1200 travel costs to drive down including ferry, fuel and tolls and overnight in B&B hotels in transit, then an average of €700 in accommodation in an apartment for a week. We do a big shop in a supermarket in the main town nearest to the resort (they have Lidl and Aldi too) and this means we don't have to pay in-resort prices. We buy fresh bread daily from the bakery for lunch and make our own sandwiches which we either go back to the apartment to eat or have as a picnic on the hill. Evenings we take it in turns to cook.

To keep prices down we have bought skis second hand off ebay, stuck them on top of the car for the journey and sold them again once they have been grown out of. However we now buy new but last seasons skis and they are well priced and we sell them again once both DC have used them and grown out of them. We used to just book rentals in advance online- there are tons of amazing deals, use inter sport or another of the big companies but check out deals for companies close to wherever your accommodation is booked for as many of these are in a franchise so you can also get cheap deals in independent shops.

We book accommodation on booking.com, there are some amazing deals, book accommodation you can cancel and if an even better deal comes up you can switch. For 4 of us we book a 2 bed apartment that sleeps 6 (we don't ever put anyone in the living room) but have previously booked 3 bed apartments for not much more. 3rd bedroom is usually bunk beds. Chalet accommodation would be so much more I imagine but apartments suit is fine as we are mostly out on the hills

Ski school is expensive, we don't bother any more but worth it if you can afford it. Book direct online. ESF is generally the cheapest.

I recommend serre chevalier too, this is at the higher price end for us, and there are several smaller resorts in this region which are cheaper,

It's the catering issue that's tripping you up OP. We went to Val Thorens for a week this February half term, self-catered chalet that was ski in-ski out and cost 9k for the 6 of us (including flights, transfers, ski hire and lessons for some of the group).