St Anton - Mark Warner or Esprit?

[MumOnAlma]

Hi Mums

We are looking at skiing next spring (2011) with some friends. Our baby will be coming up for 18 months and their 2 coming up for 1yr and 2yrs - so all needing creche, baby listening etc, rather than any kids skiing.

We are considering St Anton, and wondered if anyone had advice as to whether Mark Warner (Chalet Hotel Schweizerhof) or Esprit (Chalet Hotel Adler or Chalet Hotel Alber) were best. They all seem to have their own pros and cons in terms of baby listening or evening creche, on site nursery, proximity to St Anton town centre and on site on site spa facilities (in case anyone ends up not skiing) and ultimately price. So if anyone has major likes or dislikes for any of these 3 hotels / 2 operators that might help us decide!

As our friends have 2 kids, they understandably want a 2nd/interconnecting room. Unlike summer holidays it seems with skiing, you get badly stung for 'under-occupancy' on a 2nd room as children under 2 do not count! Do any family operators NOT have this policy? - it seems such a rip off when skiing is already so expensive.

Thanks for any advice.

I don't know anything about Esprit's St Anton offering, but we went to the Schweizerfhof with MW when our DD was 18 months. We went to La Plagne with Esprit last year (DD was 2 and 1/2) - so I can compare the 2 companies.

Overall MW St Anton was fantastic - excellent food, excellent childcare, friendly staff, cosy/friendly atmosphere, loved the skiing. Didn't find the creche (as opposed to baby listening) a problem as DD is a good sleeper and went down fine every time, but could be difficult if your LOs are sensitive to noise. If you go, ask about the nearby restaurant you sledge down from - have never laughed as much. Downsides were the pretty dated interior and lack of ski in ski out. A spa would also have been nice as we had a couple of bad weather days... That said, we are booking MW St Anton this Xmas primarily because of the childcare - no one has a good time if the kids are unhappy!

Didn't have a great experience with Esprit in La Plagne (even though the hotel was very fancy pants). Childcare in the daytime was indifferent (a lot of bored teenagers who didn't bother to engage the children and had no idea how to reassure parents) and DD refused to go. Baby listening worked well though. I got ill, and we think this was due slap-dash standards in the kitchen. We have been totally put off Esprit becuase of the experience we had with the childcare in La Plagne. Even though its cheaper, I am simply too scared to book it and risk a ruined holiday for all because my DD is unhappy in childcare and we feel too guilty to leave her there.

Hope that helps!

I went to the Chalet Schweizerhof this year with Mark Warner, and would support the views of the earlier note. All round very good. Good for kids, straight forward simple rooms, they can get you baby sitters if you want to go out, good trasfers to the ski lifts morning and afternoon, well managed ski hosting for 2 days and a very well managed front desk. I would go again with them.

I also went the following week with Esprit to the Chalet Alber.

I will never again go with Slki Esprit. Rooms dirty, food very poor, wine undrinkable (you only serve french wine in an austrian ski resort beacause its cheap), the front lobby was used for ski and boot storage and sank. Overall staff attitude very poor, though one or two of the nannies were pleasant.

We thought about leaving, and told the ski manager and ski rep that I would have if it had been a hotel and I had not paid in advance. I filled in a customer incident and comlaint form - as I sit here today there has been no effort made by Ski Esprit. We paid a lot of money for the ski Esprit holiday and it was a complete rip off.

So do not go to St Anton with Ski Esprit, in fact don't go anywhere with them, save your money and go with others.

If you have not been to St Anton before - it's a great resort, so do go there - high quality skiing and apres ski.

I just booked a couple of weeks at Schweizerhof with MW yesterday - I've read a lot of reviews and the only real complaints I've seen is that the ski school (well, not ski school, ski "fun") for toddlers isn't up to much - but my baby will be 6 months so that's not really up for debate with him!