How much are you paying for your Ski holidays for a family in school hols?

[Eggmcmuffin]

So I'm looking for a ski holiday for 8 adults and 4 kids (4 families) in the Easter hols. We all used to ski pre children and would love a catered chslet in the alps but the prices are bonkers! 6k for a family of 3 inc flights and transfers. Is this just what it costs?! Has anyone booked anything decent for less or got any tips. We all went to poland in zakopane last year and it was fun but would like a proper ski resort this time.

We’re going to La Plagne in Feb half term. 15 of us. Flights, transfers and catered chalet for £880 per person. No way would I be paying £6k! We went to avoriaz at Easter this year and it cost us £5500 for 4 of us, but that included all our food and drink (stayed in all inclusive hotel), lift passes and 4 hours of ski school per day for the children.

That sounds amazing! Did you book with a travel agent or do it yourself? Can i ask who? That's much more what we were hoping for price wise. Even bulgaria is more and been there and it's not great. I love la plagne and les arcs, great choice 😍

Chalet booked with club alpine, flights with wizz air. When we went at Easter we stayed at the belambra in Avoriaz, the prices for Easter are really good, then we flew on easyJet and booked transfers separately.

We went new year week to Les Deux Alpes with Sunweb. £940.00 per person for everything including lift pass, accomodation, travel, food. But it was self catering rather than a catered chalet and we drove.

Easter is cheaper but you have to go high. 3 people, alpe d’huez, 4 hotel with breakfast. Flight to Geneva, car hire and 3 lift passes was £4000 last week 4-11th April. 4 hotel, ski in and out at new year in val Thorens for 4 of us was £8000. We like ski in and out as I’m too old to be carrying stuff… Andorra at February half term was cheaper than France.

Less than £3k. We drive, stay in the valley, rent a flat for about €600. We have our own kit. And lift passes aren’t horrendous in Puy St Vincent.

We have just dropped 9k and feel
quite happy as a lot less than last year.

If you’re willing to spend it, someone will take it off you.

Went at new year to les Deux alpes.

1/2 board in a fairly basic hotel. Flights and coach transfer.

We ended up buying lunch on the slopes every day as 15 year old ds was 'starving:

All in just shy of £10k 😱.

Not sure I'll be rushing back this year.

New year is the most expensive week of the year. Easter is cheaper so better value. Another issue is catered chalet holidays are a vanishing breed; it’s only really Brits that do them and there are no cheap Brit staff any more (thanks to Brexit) so you are limiting your choices to those still operating at the pricier end. If you are happy to consider self catering and eating out you will find much more choice.

£6k family of 4 week at Easter - that’s for a 2 bedroom apartment ski in ski out, big well known resort, flights and private transfers. But doesn’t include food or ski pass hire lessons etc. guess those will have added £2k.

You can definitely get cheaper in various ways

1. go lower. Stay in a small satellite resort where you have to get a cable car or lengthy shuttle to most of the slopes and it will be cheaper
2. pick a small resort with less skiing - accommodation is cheaper and so are lift passes
3. go later - second week of April is cheaper than earlier in Easter, but more risky for snow
4. Child shares your room
5. drive
6. self cater (but actually self cater rather than eat in restaurants). Stock up in a big supermarket en route from the airport rather than paying inflated resort minimarket prices.
7. go with one of the really cheap companies and have limited expectations for the accommodation and food

We have used Club Med at Easter or the week after Christmas and we find that the best value as it is all inclusive - food, drinks, lift pass, flights, transfers, ski lessons and entertainment all included plus childcare for younger ones. The only thing we pay for is ski hire and even that it’s much cheaper if you hire it from a shop in town rather than from club med itself.

Ours is £6k for Easter in a hotel with pool and half board. We’re not ski junkies so will always pay a bit of a premium for facilities. If we were all about the skiing then I’m sure we could drop £1-2k by getting a self catering, basic apartment.

I'm really not sure how you've managed this as well did La Plagne last year on a show string and it was still over £6k. Did you drive? A ski pass just for La Plagne (not Les Arcs as well) was something like €360 for 6 days. Ski lessons just for the morning were similar per child. Staying in a bigger group is a good way to keep costs down.

OP, I came to the conclusion it's hard to get costs down that much as no one aspect of the holiday is horrendous and can be easily saved on, each element is just quite a lot! Flights are expensive at half term but driving can be very stressful if it snows a lot. Ski lessons basically cost what they cost. Some smaller resorts have cheaper lift passes. Staying out of resort and travelling in saves on accomodation but that really isn't the holiday I'm after, especially with children.

@Bliiinkour Easter trip - we flew with easyJet (booked the minute the flights came out), transfers with skiidy Gonzales, lift passes are BOGOF at Easter so that was a decent saving, ski school £500 per child, adults didn’t do lessons. All inclusive hotel was £2200 for the 4 of us, so £5500 all in.

For La Plagne, £880 includes flight, transfer and catered chalet, but we will need to add on the cost of an instructor (we’re hiring a private one for 6 days 9-5 for our group of 7 kids so will be about £400 per child for the week) and lift passes. So will come in at just under £5500 for 4 of us, all in. I’m actually amazed we’re getting Feb half term for the same price we paid at Easter!