Appartment or holiday home in ski area in France or Austria

[nonappies]

Hi skiers, can anyone recommend a holiday home or appartment near the slopes for a family-friendly ski holiday? I´m considering France or Austria... I just want self catering accommodation, nothing else..

Thanks!

Hi nonappies.

I have only just started skiing again after the baby years(!) but last year DH and I had a break in Avoriaz in France on our own. It's just above Morzine.

It is a really high, traffic free resort and pretty even tho it is purpose built. The ski school for kids looked really good and there were plenty of shops and restaurants.

We got an apartment (tiny) but slept four for £140 for four nights. From the visitor book tho, there were families that had stayed for a week! Can't remember the name of the company but it was one of those owner rentals sites where you book directly with the owner. I'm sure it would come up if you did a search.

We hired a car and drove from Geneva in a couple of hours.

This year we are going to La Rosiere which from the feedback on MN sounds excellent for families but we are going the whole hog and staying in a catered chalet.

Thanks Twizzler, had forgotton that there are lots of purpose built resorts in France.. maybe France not so good.. I think I´ll look at Austria!

Austria very pretty but some of the purpose built resorts can be nice too. Avoriaz has been built with lots of wood not concrete like some of the older resorts.

Also, as it's purpose built, there are lots of smallish but cheap apartments (IF price is your consideration!) But...if not, then a nice luxury chalet in Austria might be better!

Hey twizzler, can you give me more info on this owner rental site? I need something for 4 nights too and most places it seems to be 7 nights as standard.

I found this one last year but ended up not booking (only beacaue we went to a hotel) www.ownersdirect.co.uk/austria/A60.htm. Or this www.ownersdirect.co.uk/austria/A37.htm.
I would suggest the Austrian tourist board site www.tiscover.at where you will find thousands of apartments. Too many resorts to mention but another one on my hit list is Serfaus en.serfaus-fiss-ladis.at/urlaubsplaner/unterkuenfte/appartments.htm

We spent New Year in the Austrian resort of Zell am See. It was our first time skiing and we had an amzing time.

Zell is perfect for families. We SC in these apartments apparthotel post

To be fair, the website doesnt do the accom any justice at all. The rooms are beautifully decorated and the kitchen are all well equiped with Miele appliances. I still dont understand why the website is so awful as the aprtments are amazing!

They are approx 100 meters from the Gondola and the bus station to the slopes is just a 25 metre walk around the corner.

I would highly recommend these apts

Thanks for all those links. Some lovely properties.. I wish the tiscover website had better search facility as I have had some fantastic rentals from them in the past. Isn´t 1500 quid a bit excessive for a holiday appartment for one week?

I would recommend looking at Ski collection website..they have some nice appartments (divieded into luxury and cheaper categories). We stayed at Cimes Blanches appts in La rosiere - fabulous appartment and lovely swimming pool, steam rooms, jacuzzi etc if you like that kind of thing. Perfect resort for families.

Cimes blanches are quite pricey but they also have other appts in la rosiere - les balcons which are supposed to be good too.

Hi janmoomoo.

Was trying to remember the website name last for Avoriaz. It came to me today!

www.avoriazlets.com

You can see the availability straight away. There are lots of different sized apartments from studios to chalets. The one we stayed in was in the SNOW building and was ski in/out as a lot of them are in this resort. I really liked it and would go again and take DS next time as it was a real family orientated place.

They have horse drawn sleighs and caterpillar type transport to and from the main car park(which kids would love looking at/riding on!). The childrens ski school is right in the centre of the resort. There are plenty of shops, restaurants etc. and lots of children eating out.

The skiing was good too.

Good luck with your search!

I would suggest these apartments near Samoens which are within easy walking distance of a ski lift. Samoens is a lovely old town and there is plenty of accommodation in the town as well but the chalet I suggested is close to a quieter lift and is run by very friendly English ski enthusiasts.

We like Samoens too - and there's a decent (and not ridiculously expensive) nursery in the village too if you've got little ones.

nonappies and janmoomoo - did you manage to book anything?

Have changed my name from twizzler, just to confuse things!

Havent booked yet, still looking. Links v useful. Also lots of cheap last minute deals coming thru from Igluski so might check them out.

When do you want to come?

sorry that sounded a bit abrupt - I meant which week are you looking at? Have you already booked flights?