Val d'Isere at Easter

[Skidoddle]

We are going skiing for the first time as a family at Easter. Any tips for this resort? Should we book dinner reservations in advance? Ski school?

I would book ski school asap! You might find a lot of the spaces are already taken as it’s a peak week. Book ski hire etc as well. If there’s particular restaurants you want to visit I would do it ahead of time but if not you should be able to do it in resort a couple of days ahead.

As the snow has been bad the high resorts like Val/Tigbes and Val Thorens are going to be really busy this Easter!

Can anyone recommend ski hire places for kids at Val di Sere? Also is booking essential? We are going week leading up to Easter weekend. The problem I see with booking is you have to pay and commit then.

Our oldest learnt to snowboard this year so might want to ski a few days then board or vice versa depending on snow conditions. Are there hire places that can be flexible on that? We've only hired in Austria and they were always reasonably flexible on this sort of thing even if you had to pay a bit more

If you’re turning up on a Saturday and want to collect your rentals I would pre book, same goes for Sunday first thing. They will have all your details and you’ll be in and out. You also usually get a much cheaper price booking ahead online. You could probably save the price of a board and boots rental for the week so just get both.

Also rental shop depends where you’re staying, all the big standard shops (skimium, precision ski, ski republic) will be a similar price to one another so go with what’s closest unless you need specialist equipment.

Thanks for the tips I've had a quick look and will be booking some soon. There is a bit of a price difference. We've always either taken our own or booked them with the kids ski school package

I guess we'll be arriving Saturday midday but can also leave it until Sunday to collect (although worried all good kit will be gone by then) since we aren't doing ski lessons

For school holidays I would definitely pre book ski hire and ski school. Our kids did ESF (all the way from Piou Piou to Gold Star) and loved it but not everyone likes them. Oxygene and TDC have good reviews (I’m thinking of a refresher lesson with TDC the next time we go to Val D’Isere). For ski hire Snowberry are amazing but you do pay for it. When we stayed in the apartments at La Daille, the Skiset shop there were also really good.

We were last in Val at Easter in 2022 and I’d recommend booking restaurants, at least during the day for that evening. La Source were very good for pizza.

There's an Intersport at the bottom of the piste which is one of the if not the closest place for ski hire. You can leave your skis there and boots if you wish. It worked well for us as, towards the end of the day, I'd drop my stuff off and get a drink from one of the bars next door whilst the DC did a few final laps on the green runs into the village.
If you want to eat about 7.30 in the evening, it's worth booking in advance but we tend to do it by running around on the evening we arrive and booking for the week.

So we've booked the ski equipment for the kids. I'm dubious about the quality for the price though but we'll just have to see.

There is no need to prebook ski passes is there? It's no cheaper to just buying them on the day is it? Prefer to book as little as possible in advance just in case something happens and someone can't ski for whatever reason.

I'm not sure on restaurants to be honest we never know what we feel like doing so prefer to play by ear. Sometimes too knackered to go out, sometimes can't be bothered to cook. We'll just have to wait and see. We can book one day for the next night but no more than that as we never know how we'll feel.

Another question are the supermarkets open on a Sunday? We won't be arriving until late on Saturday afternoon/evening depending on the traffic.

If the supermarkets are anything like neighbouring Tignes, they'll be open daily from 8am - 7pm. Might close for a few hours during the day but usually open again at 4pm.

No idea about Val d'Isere, but we were at a French resort at half term and there was a decent discount on a 6 day pass if you bought it 10 days (or more) in advance, so I'd say it's at least worth checking.

On supermarkets, Sherpa in the centre is definitely open daily, but shuts early afternoon and then reopens at about 4/4:30pm.