Non-skiing family booking first ski holiday?

[Q105]

I saw some really useful advice here last year for booking a ski trip for a couple where one was a novice and the other was going to learn.
DH and I have been waiting to book our first ski holiday since the arrival of our DS and hope that 2024/25 will be the season… DS will be 5.
We will fly from LHR or LTN, DS will be in school so it will have to be Feb Half Term, and we’re seeking somewhere that will provide sociable family scene, enough beginners ski space and reputable lessons, ideally in Europe with shorter transfers. We’d prefer a hotel and ski in-out to minimise travel.
There just seems to be SO many variables that I don’t feel confident booking with the first company on the Google search without understanding a bit more about the pros and cons.
Any resort and/or package company recommendations? Any tips? If not a package, what does one book first??
Many thanks

For first-timers I'd recommend using a package company - there are so many unknown variables to consider if you've never done a ski holiday before.

All of the major companies (Crystal, Inghams, Nielsen etc) will have family-friendly offers for half term. Regarding transfer times, Austria, flying in to Salzburg or Innsbruck, has generally shorter transfer times to resorts (60-100 mins) than France or Italy, which can often be 3 hours or more up narrow winding roads. The travel company will provide the coach transfer to and from the resort.

There are of course hundreds of resorts to choose from. The really big, expensive resorts are really best for experienced skiers - as beginners you'll be paying for access to great steep and off-piste areas, 99% of which you won't go anywhere near. Instead look at some of the smaller resorts where there will be more than enough for a week and a friendly family vibe.

You could look at this thread > Small, snow sure family friendly resort? | Mumsnet

We book our flights, accommodation etc separately. We've never really stayed at a true ski in ski out but it's not a big deal. Even if the hotel isn't central to the slopes, many have free heated boot rooms in town so you can leave them there. My friends are big fans of the Club Med hotels which include everything and ferry the kids around all day (but they seem to pay around £10k for a family of four at Feb.)

Our favourite resorts are Tignes/Val D'isere (staying in Tignes Le Lac) and Zermatt. We used to get the overnight sleeper train with couchettes from Paris but they've scrapped that so it's the Eurostar or flying with a slightly painful 2 hour transfer. Zermatt is very expensive and not so good for beginners though (but some amazing hotels overlooking the Matterhorn).

We did St Anton last February - a train ride from the Swiss airports and not as expensive as Switzerland. Nice skiing, not busy on the lifts at Feb half term and a nice town centre.

My other tips would be to book the British ski schools (personally I'd avoid ESF) and shop around for ski hire. It's also usually cheaper to fly to the Swiss airports on the French border than trying to find a decently-priced flight to Chambery at Feb half term.

I prefer skiing in Italy, due to the good food and family friendly people. The ski club link below is helpful. You can filter for beginner resorts, off piste things to do, ski in-ski out etc. We've used Crystal ski many times and I think Neilson once. The location of the actual hotel in the resort can have a massive baring on how ski in/out it is. Read trip advisor reviews too.

The most ski in/ski out I've stayed at was Hotel Du Col, in Sestriere, Italy. 2hr transfer from Turin. We went 3 yrs in a row as loved it, but this was all pre-covid. We aren't beginners though, so could ski from there to many other resorts in the milky way. From the ski room, you walked/skiied under the building and you were on the slopes! Dinner was an all-you-could-eat, delicious buffet with wine included. There was a bar within the hotel, along with a sauna, jacuzzi and steam room. It was also close enough to walk to shops/restaurants etc within the town. Only about 25% beginner slopes, but might be plenty.

Home - Ski Club Of Great Britain

DS will be in school so it will have to be Feb Half Term

My top advice is do not go at Feb half term! Go the first week of Easter - assuming your school breaks up around end March/start of April. French schools and most other EU countries are not on holiday at this time so it’s much cheaper, quieter and sunnier. The snow gets a bit slushy by 2/3pm but beginners are generally done with skiing by then anyway. You do need to choose a fairly high/snow sure resort.

Beginners can do well by choosing smaller resorts with less skiing - you don’t need the 100km of pistes and the resort will be less busy overall. However if it’s a small resort with fewer Brit visitors make sure you can get English speaking lessons.

agree that for your first time, going with a package operator makes a LOT of sense.

i would do Austria if it’s for beginners. Niederau is probably the best as it’s really geared up for learners and the nursery slopes are brilliant with easy ski lifts.

I also love Sestriere mentioned by pp, took Dd there when she was 3 and it was also where I learnt to ski 30+ years ago!

Big package companies

Crystal Ski
Inghams
Neilson
Skiworld
Esprit
Mark Warner
Club Med

Plus absolutely loads of smaller operators- but often the smaller ones don’t include flights. Tend to specialise in one or two resorts and IME are a bit higher quality than the large operators.

There are also “Accumulators” who list holidays run by lots of other companies so maybe a good place to start. They also give good advice by phone. Here are 3 big ones:

Igluski
Ski Solutions (recommend)
Alpine Elements

We always used to go with Powder Byrne when the kids were little. Worth checking out as well - for comparison purposes if nothing else as they were expensive even then - but the kids clubs were excellent as was the service from PB staff.

Avoid feb half term if you can, first week of Easter in a high altitude resort will be much nicer!

Tignes or Val Thorens (hour or so shorter transfer) with a big company who will organise everything for you and have staff on the ground to help with any queries.

Thank you everyone. Particularly @minipie for the phone call recommendations.
I’ll have a look through the links. I think the fact that not even one of us has skied before makes this all the more daunting, but appreciate the experience here 👍

We learned to ski in Rauris in Austria aged 38, 6, and 8. Rauris is a tiny resort, so not intimidating for beginners, and impossible to get lost. The second time we went, we opted to stay in this slope side accommodation, which was gorgeous and offered direct access to the Adventure Rauris ski school meet point (we've used them and they're excellent).

https://www.booking.com/Share-nQjGuZ

Rauris is around 90 minutes by train or car from Salzburg.

We opted to pull ours out of school the week before the February half term, and the savings on flights and accommodation more than covered the cost of the the fine. We did notice an increase in people towards the end of the week, so agree that February half term will be busy.

Were skied February, Christmas, and Easter and Easter is by far our favourite. Longer days, lighter nights, warmer weather.

Rauris would be no good at Easter, but one of the high French resorts would be absolutely fine. We love Les Arcs. It's a huge ski area, but would be a fabulous place to learn, with long, gentle blues. If you stayed in 1950, you'd get the full family friendly, ski in/out experience as you can literally ski through the village as it's car free. This guys YT demonstrates it well. I'd recommend Evolution 2. Lessons in English and a maximum of 8 per group.

I think it's about 2.5 hours from Geneva, but have only driven it (10 hours from Calais) so can't comment with any authority. Next April we're getting the train there from the UK, so are looking forward to relaxing on that.

To answer your questions. We always book it independently.

First we book accommodation. Go for Saturday to Saturday as ski school generally runs Sunday to Friday.

Then we book flights as soon as they open, or if driving/train, book Le Shuttle/Eurostar around the same time as accommodation.

Next we book ski school. They usually take bookings from the September before the season starts.

Then lift passes. They usually go on sale around the November before the season starts and there are often early bird discounts if you can book then.

Then ski hire. Though in Rauris we booked it with the ski school at the same time as lessons and got the DCs as a lesson + hire bundle.

Then the rest sort of falls into place after that.

If none of you can ski there is limited benefit to ski in ski out locations. You need to be near the skischool meeting point and nursery slopes which could be in a different area.

At 5 I'd definitely pull out of school for a week, February half term is the most expensive time to go skiing!

February is when European schools take a skibreak , can get very busy and best avoided. Either early January or end March are quieter times but you may need to check height and snowsureness of resort slopes.

February half term is hell on earth in ski resorts.

I was also going to say this, ski in ski out is fab if everyone can ski, otherwise can present real issues…if you have to ski down from accommodation to lifts but can’t ski, then erm..tricky 😊. Also, coming back, depends on what the run down to the accommodation is like.

It will cost you, but would definitely recommend Mark Warner so you don't have to do any thinking and DC will be well looked after

Good advice above but to add do not get ski in/ski out as first timers especially with a young DC. Often you find those places are a lengthy route round by road, because the piste is in the way and sorry if this sounds obvious but you can’t ski down the piste because well, you can’t ski. You need to look for a short walk to the ski school meeting point.

Also don’t go to Val d’Isere. Every piste back to resort is now a red or black excluding one blue run to La Daille. It’s a schlep to get to the handful of green runs and even some of those are under classified because it’s Val and everything is steep. Also it’s just mad expensive for eating and drinking and everytime I go yet another reasonable lunch option has shut in favour of something hugely pretentious. Tignes would be better. If you went for the Club Med there it would super easy as they sort everything.

All the points about ski in/out are spot on for beginners, but just to say that Arc 1950 is the exception there as the village is designed that way, so you'll have a short walk to the ski school meet point.
Popped back to post the link to this old thread, which gives you an idea of hoe things work when you're out there.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/ski-snowboarding/3893018-First-time-skiing-how-does-it-work

Definitely go first Easter holidays week as beginners - while “hell on Earth” is definitely hyperbole this year is set to be a busy one with many countries on holiday for the same week of 10 Feb.

it’s also not always better. We had far better conditions week of 30 March last year than we had at half term, when it hadn’t snowed in a while.

I had such a different experience learning in val d’Isere - endless greens and quite happy to download by gondola; there is no rule saying you have to ski back. A lot of runs back to resort are suffering these days in a lot of places anyway. That said I agree a less expensive and extensive resort will do for a whole family of new skiers! Don’t bother with Powder Byrne unless you like paying for guiding staff you won’t use as you will need lessons.

Placemarking!

Just echoing what others have said about feb half term - avoid avoid avoid! The airports, roads, hotels, ski schools, slopes will all be packed and it will be miserable for you all. Not to mention 3x the price of another week

Is there no possibility of going this season before he is in school, so you don’t have to pay holiday prices?

I would phone one of the ski travel companies like IfYouSki or Iglu Ski and ask for their advice. They sell
holidays for lots of the companies mentioned, plus smaller ones and both are really good and honest once they know your criteria

There are also specialist family companies like Ski Famille which are worth speaking to

my other tip would be that you are better borrowing decent ski clothing from friends, or buying second hand rather than buying new cheap stuff from Sports Direct/Decathlon. It’s bulky and never as warm or waterproof so you’ll be less comfortable

Having skied extensively when kids were young, I would say go with a specialist family ski company such as Ski Famille or Ski Esprit (we went with both, and also with general ski companies such as Neilson, and found Ski Famille to be by far the best.) These companies will have accommodation set up especially families who are learning to ski.

Ski Famille would have ski nannies arriving at the chalet at 8.30am to take excited children off to ski school, and would follow their lessons round carrying all the sun cream, snacks, extra clothing, and anything else they would need, and be on hand to carry skis, pick kids up when they fall, take them to the loo, and bring them to meet you after the lessons at your prearranged meeting place (which might be, say, a restaurant.) If you paid the lunch fee they would even take them back to the chalet for home made lunch (cheaper than a mountain restaurant and more child-friendly) and then bring them to meet you for an afternoon of skiing with you.

The other bonus of these companies is that the accommodation is small and relaxed with generally only one or two other families in - just enough other people to have some other adults to chat to and for the kids to have other kids to play with, but not so busy you don’t get to know everyone. We often found there was only one other family in our chalet, and would quickly establish if we were going to dress up or down for dinner!

Tbh, it really didn’t matter where you are if the set up is right. We went to various French, Italian and austrian resorts, plus a Finnish one. The only one I would not go back to was Finland - too cold for small kids and too much walking everywhere. Everyone saying you want a small resort - it doesn’t really matter, you can go as far or stay as near as you want in a bigger resort.

And at 5 years old, trust me on this, you’ll want to take him out of school. The price will be about half what it is at half term. The ski companies will often do last minute bargains to fill chalets at half price. He will not miss anything he needs to be a part of in school till Year 6! I’d give anything to be able to go back to those days where you could take them out and it not really matter! (Mine are firmly in GCSE/A-Level territory now.) There’s loads he can learn on a ski holiday anyway without any stress if you do it right.

To give an idea of the difference in price - here’s the current price list for Ski Famille. It’s about 2.5 times the cost in half term compared with the cost for the quieter weeks. And if you look on their offers page they have the quiet weeks down at half price in a variety of resorts too - you can get flights and chalet-catered accommodation for a family of 3 for £1500 in Les Gets in January which is ridiculously cheap (ski school and lift passes are extra but are a fixed cost that is not dependent on which week you go.) Same holiday, same chalet will be about £6750 plus ski school and lift passes in half term.

Les Gets would be a lovely place for a first ski holiday with a young one. Not so pretty but reberty/bruyeres too. I would second going with a specialist if you want to make it easy on yourself especially as you will be using some sort of childcare/ski school combo. It’s so nice for the kids if they can hang out with the same friends they ski with.