Full board at Xmas with older teens/young adults

[JudyBlumesBlubber]

Hi,
We want to do full board at Xmas in the French/Italian Alps with a group including older teens and young adults (youngest 16).
We like the sound of Club Med or similar but don’t want to be in a kids zone given the ages of our young people. We like the idea of chalets but are worried about the ages of the others, e.g. people with babies walking at 6am or wanting it quiet at 9pm.
Our only request is that it must be high given the time of the year and have proper catering through Christmas ideally with a Christmas gala. Our budget is about £2K pp.
Any thoughts on where might fit the bill? Thanks.

Full board? You really want to come back to the chalet for lunch every day?!

We’ve been told that there are limited lunch options on the slopes on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day which is why we were considering all inclusive. Fair enough - the workers will also want to celebrate with family but it leaves us without food possibly!
If we knew other places were open, I’d be fine with half board too.

Is £2Kpp enough for full board at Xmas? Seems cheap to me for peak holiday time Or does the fact that that it's the Xmas hols actually make it cheaper?

Good question @dollopofsauce
We usually spend £10k at Feb half term which is meant to be the most expensive week. So I had thought that £8K on just accommodation and food with ski passes, hire and travel on top will bring it to £11-£12k which I hoped would be sufficient. I may have been wrong..

I don't think £2k is insanely cheap - we are paying about £1.6k pp that week for half board. I think Club Med was more like £2.5k pp when I looked but that does include lessons or a guide.

Personally I would go half board, especially if the hotel has afternoon tea. Fill up on breakfast, sneak a bread roll into your pocket, then be home in time for tea.

We have just paid £3k pp inc hire and passes. it’s an expensive time and high resorts more expensive still.

I found a catered chalet almost impossible to find without sharing but we are a larger group. We have often used Club Med for that reason. There’s a good mix of ages.

Those are insane prices. Can I recommend getting a nice airbnb with dine in options at a neighbouring hotel? Even if they don’t advertise it they are often happy to provide it for a relatively modest price. That way you’re not paying a premium for two or three hotel rooms.

if you do want to have full board then then some of the Sowell hotels in France are good value and the Familotel ones in Germany and Südtirol likewise. Latter tends to have a spread of ages in my experience, not just littlies, and you can do full board for a modest extra cost.

I have self catered before but it’s tricky over Christmas and New Year when mountain restaurants and supermarkets are not always open.
In the end we paid a bit less than £2k pp for all inclusive including a celebration dinner on festive evenings. That’s for two people per double room and ski in/ski out. Travel is also expensive at that time of year.
Now let’s hope it snows! We are going high so should be fine..

We are a similar group of adults and young adult and teen DC. I couldn’t find anything remotely suitable in that price range (or frankly any others) when I booked in August. Sorry

We settled for bed and breakfast in a hotel in les arcs - mostly because I probably won’t ski due to injury and appreciate the spa facilities and we’ll have the Christmas Eve/Christmas day galas. It’s about £2.5k pp for the accommodation.

Sorry I see you found something! Well done. Let’s keep fingers crossed for snow 😊

I got a decent discount because of booking late (!) so the overall price for accommodation would have been more a month ago. Not worth the stress though and I wished I had booked it earlier! It’s a 4 star rather than 5 so that’s probably the difference.

Now off to book passes and ski rentals through the hotel.

For those still looking, I notice Mark Warner is not expensive and that includes accommodation, childcare (we don’t need that) and flights! The reviews were terrible for the hotel in that particular resort so I swerved it. It would have helpful for the travel which we’ve had to organise separately.

Having worked several ski seasons and skiied at Christmas many times we’ve never struggled to eat on the slopes or in the resort ever on Xmas, boxing or NYD. The people who work in ski resorts (and are locals) don’t really take any time off during the season as it’s so limited, the uk staff get a day off. We just had our day off not on Xmas day, or if it fell on our day off we moved it to accommodate.

i know you’ve already booked, but for others I recommend the company I’ve worked for a few times - ski Miquel. It’s a large chalet/hotel - so you get the chalet feel but with a mix of guests (ie you’re not single occupants, hotel style bedrooms and en suites) but breakfast, afternoon tea and dinner all served in big family style tables. Unlimited wine and cheese board follows every night. We holidayed with them a few times before I worked for them!

That’s v helpful @Catsonskis ! I will save that for next time.

I see you’ve already booked but for others reading, I’ve ski’d almost every Christmas Day for probably the last 12 years, albeit in Switzerland, and the mountain restaurants certainly are all open as normal. We own a place so it’s always self catering and most of the supermarkets are certainly open enough over the period too to not struggle for a dinner and a breakfast. Where we are the evening of the 24th is more of a ‘thing’ for family celebrations amongst the locals than an all day on the 25th like it is for UK people. The smaller shops may close early or open late, but the ‘major’ supermarkets are open, though slightly shorter hours on the 24th.

As @Catsonskis says, its a peak week for a very seasonal set of employment and money generation opportunities so places are open as resorts are busy with holidaymakers.