Hi,

So we’re off skiing this winter and yet again it looks like we’ll each be spunking a grand up the wall. Seems kind of ridiculous, we should have booked a self-catered chalet months ago at a discount, booked our flights months ago, got an early booking discount on the ski pass and stayed in a secondary resort still linked by a lift to the main ski area. I recon it could have been £550 all in. And that means I could have afforded a 2nd week later in the season as well.

I don’t know what the point of this post is really, just pissed off! Would be interested to know what other people are paying “all in”.

Cheers,

M

£1000 all in is about right.

£550 is really slumming it and unless you are a student then skiing really isn’t about slumming it. If you are in a satellite resort you ski less because of busses and long lifts, you are on the piste later and have to leave earlier to hit the last lifts and you end up skiing the same route every day. You miss a lot of the après, self catering sucks.

You could reduce the £100 to maybe 8-900 by being prepared but that is all.

It’s a grand each at least
Ferry £130
Hotel £650 (not slum 1/2 b)
Ski pass: £190
Fuel: £75
So that’s a grand and we’ve not added lunch or beer yet or a couple of hotels on the way to break the journey.

I reckon it’s possible to loose half that in one bar if you get it wrong 🙂

Can you book last minute?

Booked 2 weeks before a couple of years ago. £399 for a £1000 brochure price – flights, transfers and accom and all meals except lunch. Right in a main French resort, ski from the door. Self catering would end up costing more and you’d spend your evenings shopping. Parking and lift pass still to add but you get a really nice holiday for under £800.

My rule of thumb is £100 a day on snow, seems doable either for a long weekend or package deal.

£550 is really slumming it and unless you are a student then skiing really isn’t about slumming it.

Not true. We went to Mayrhofen last year for around that – stayed in a nice B&B place and ate out every night. If you just pick a week then look out for last minute deals it’s definitely possible without slumming it.

France is generally much more expensive though IME.

Massive #FirstWorldProblems thread BTW.

Got switzerland booked for later this season.
2 adults 2 children
We have flights and self-catering booked so far for about £800 for all of us.
Obviously theres eating, lift passes and transfers to factor in but I would have said £15-£1600 would be more realistic for a family of 4.

Mine will probably be in the region of 4k. That’s for three weeks in Canada, lessons, passes, flights, accommodation and a lot but not all the food. It’s actually a pretty good deal when you add everything up.

My trip to to France for a week last year was probably over a grand and that was self catering.

All these costs are per person by the way.

Not true. We went to Mayrhofen last year for around that – stayed in a nice B&B and ate out every night

I find that hard to believe. The ski pass alone is nearly £200. Then you’ve got to get there, pay for the accommodation, a weeks worth of eating out is at least £100pp, add in some enjoyment to that with beer or wine and you are well over that. Equipment costs as well.

Maybe headline items were that but all in without slumming it. No chance.

We got a last minute deal flight plus allocated on arrival B&B for around £180, and we have our own equipment. Eating out was around £150 for the week plus a bit for beers etc.

The B&B was a lovely traditional place with balcony with views etc.

Year before we went to St Johann half board in a 4 star hotel for under £300.

We don’t have to go in school holidays though.

Hard to believe Flatfish too! Have you included lessons and equipment hire? Airport parking?
I think you’ll be eating snow 🙂

We went to Les Arcs last year for £730 all in, self catering with one meal out. I wouldn’t call it slumming but it was nearer student than posh. We go for the skiing and don’t often have the energy left for going out in the evening; happy to stay in the apartment, cook food and drink beer from the supermarket.

We live close to the airport so a quick taxi ride.
Lessons for the kids and ski hire for the kids I’d forgotten about. We’ve got our own skis/snowboards.
Add another £500 notes then and it’s 2k ish

£1k a week is about right for a mid range trip including ski pass, it’s not hard to spend double that for a decent catered chalet in a top resort. You can save money self catering but you need a car to visit the supermarkets in the valleys as resort ones will always be pricey.

A catered and guided bike holiday isn’t far off £1k all in and that’s for a mid range company.

I went skiing a couple of times years and years ago and then I bought something called a mountain bike and discovered that the way it made me feel was just the same as when I’d been skiing. Only now I could go straight out of the door and be experiencing that feeling within 5 minutes. And it’s even possible I’ve heard just to buy one bike for less than a grand and barely spend anything else. I’m not actually sure I believe that though.
Unfortunately I don’t think my wallet or knees would stand skiing again.

£550 is really slumming it

What a bizarre thing to say. I think you’d be hard pushed to get a decent ski holiday for that price, but it is possible. There are loads of factors to take into account as well as cost.

The main one is luck.

This year our family completely lucked out and the four of us did a week for £600 each all in. all in.

To be honest I didn’t think it was possible, and used to reckon on about a grand for everything per person (and even more if you want the kids happily looked after). But this year we go the basic package for around £273 per person or thereabouts.
At half term.
In one of the best resorts in Europe (Arabba)
Including ski hire, ski carriage.
Lessons for the kids.
A day guided off piste for me.
Full Dolomiti ski pass for all four of us.
Swimming pool in the appartment building.
All food
All beer
taxi to and from the airport.

I was gobsmacked. Doubt we’ll be so lucky this year.

Got switzerland booked for later this season.
2 adults 2 children
We have flights and self-catering booked so far for about £800 for all of us.
Obviously theres eating, lift passes and transfers to factor in but I would have said £15-£1600 would be more realistic for a family of 4.

No chance, absolutely no chance for £1600. Just the oxygen you breathe in Switz will cost you the best part of £200 for the full week (each).

Well my wife is obviously lying to me then. 🙄

£330 plus food for a week in Tignes :p Not sure about the rest of my skiing this year but I’m sure it’ll be cheap! Isn’t it great being a student.

About £800 for half board in Val d’Isere next March includes everything apart from lunch and ski / boot hire. Food is outstanding as the hotel is run by Swedes.

Food is outstanding as the hotel is run by Swedes

Is it one of the Langley group hotels? Staff are always very easy on the eye 😀
my mates and I stayed at the Gustavia in Cham & started to believe that our plane had crashed and this was the afterlife.

I did 3 ski holidays last season . Average cost £600 each ,all h/b. Have my own kit so no hire costs . no lessons coz i iz awsum. Take loads of munchies and rarely stop for lunch . 1 beer at the end of each day then back to chalet for beer + wine with meal. 2 booked last minute , 1 self organised and did use alot of air miles plus cash for the flights.

I always reckon on a week’s holiday, outside of school holidays, with flights, baggage, transfers, Half board accomodation and the lift pass coming in at around £750. If you get free wine in that you’re doing pretty well.
I have maanaged it slightly cheaper by booking last minute packages and I’ve also payed a bit over that for something a bit more special.

The big squeeze in recent years is the lack of packages departing form regional airports. Having to be at MAN for a 6:00 flight easily adds £150 to our budget.

Taking a shorter break can be surprisingly good value if you find the right accomodation provider. 5 Days is enough to see all but the biggest of resorts and you’ll forget the notion of rest days and try to reign in the hangovers. (You will be back at the pub at home buying cheaper beer and telling your tales of gnar soon enough) again this is dependent on if you local airport has more than 1 flight a week (or come home via a different airport 😉 )

Les Arcs for us. It’s not a cheap place, but we have organised it ourselves rather than used a TO in order to get the flights and location we want.

Per person:

Independent catered chalet – £450
Flight from BRS – GVA £130
Hire car – £100 (including premium for snow chains)
lift pass – early booking discount 10% – £200

That’s before lunch!

Managed to do morzine/les get for £600 last feb. Hired a gorgeous chalet for £100 each (8 of us ), 120 for flights, 180 for lift pass, 70 for hire of merc vito and fuel which was about 15 each, then food and beers etc from supermarket was about 120 for week. Had awesome conditions. . 🙂

flights to Tromso: £100, 11 days full board bunk: £500. + public bus return ticket + booze (won’t be much). Bit of sunk cost already on kit, though!

£550 is really slumming it and unless you are a student then skiing really isn’t about slumming it.

Really? How decadent.

We have managed €3500 in LDA for a family of six for the last few years and thats everything budgeted: Food, drink, hire, school for the kids, ski-passes at €200 a pop.
That’s in a spacious appartment with none of that sofa-bed in the living room business and give or take 100m walk to the main lift and ski school meeting point.
We are, of course, talking about providing for oneself, which I see no problem in. Other opinions may vary, but we don’t slum it by any means.

Try ski world,they Do good deals,

I went to Bulgaria last year and paid £600 for everything. Food was incredible, ski area is not massive but easily enough, if you think you need 300km of piste you are lying to yourself.

Is it one of the Langley group hotels? Staff are always very easy on the eye

Yes – been to their hotel in Tignes a couple of times in the last 3 years, although the first time we had the only male in the staff team allocated to our group 🙁

£600 all in????

My last lift pass cost £600.

Two families could go to the same resort and one could pay £2k all in and the other £20k. It’s a bit like asking “how much did your dinner cost on Saturday night”. You’re never going to be comparing apples with apples.

I spent a wee bit of time living in northern Italy and for extra cash I would do airport runs for a tour operator (cash in hand and I could sleep on the bus on the way out to the airport normally). Every week towards the latter part of the winter season there would be one or two people on the coach who had booked a brilliant deal last minute. Trouble is, they spent most of their time asking everyone how much they had paid or telling them what a great deal they had picked up 🙂

Interestingly enough, they were also often quite high maintenance guests…apart from one bloke who left the bar staff a 400 euro tip at the end of his trip after they helped him back into the hotel and out of sight of the carabiniere when he crashed a local residents car into a tree outside the hotel (on his first night!). That guy was pretty nuts come to think of it. He didn’t go skiing once, and tried to start an impromptu toga party in the hotel bar at 5pm by wandering around in his bed sheet and trying to get all the older ladies to dance. He kept in touch with one of the bar staff after he left, apparently his wife/kids had left him which prompted the holiday and certainly would explain some of the erratic behaviour 🙁

Off to French Alps with Action Outdoors in January, cost is £680 almost all-in – only thing not covered is booze. That’s flights, accom, lift pass, 5 days half-day instruction, kit hire, all meals (buffet, eat-as-much-as-you-can), flights and transfer. Add in to that beers/wine from supermarkets, should be under £750 total for the week. Eight year i’ve been with them, hassle-free and far better than self catering!

I go with a group of mates and we take the usual half board chalet style package deals to decent premium resorts. Typcially the cost of the holiday is around £750 – £800, which includes ski carrage, suppliments as we all fly from different airports. Ski passes are over and above and are usually around £200 each, then lunch money and beer money on top of that (about £250 for beer and lunches) – and equipment hire if you’re not taking your own gear. I’m lazy and don’t make a packed lunch to take with me up the mountain so get fleeced on the mountain side for lunch, so around £15 a day for lunch. So all in all i’m looking at about £1300 all in. But that is at decent, high resorts, with decent well located accommodation, so either ski in/ski out or only a few minutes walk to the gondola.

I’m going to have to review things in a few years when the kids get older if they decide they want to take it up as at those costs I couldn’t afford to take them too – not without going without a summer holiday whcih the wife wouldn’t like!

I go with a group of mates and we take the usual half board chalet style package deals to decent premium resorts. Typcially the cost of the holiday is around £750 – £800, which includes ski carrage, suppliments as we all fly from different airports. Ski passes are over and above and are usually around £200 each, then lunch money and beer money on top of that (about £250 for beer and lunches) – and equipment hire if you’re not taking your own gear. I’m lazy and don’t make a packed lunch to take with me up the mountain so get fleeced on the mountain side for lunch, so around £15 a day for lunch. So all in all i’m looking at about £1300 all in. But that is at decent, high resorts, with decent well located accommodation, so either ski in/ski out or only a few minutes walk to the gondola.

I’m going to have to review things in a few years when the kids get older if they decide they want to take it up as at those costs I couldn’t afford to take them too – not without going without a summer holiday whcih the wife wouldn’t like!

But that is at decent, high resorts, with decent well located accommodation, so either ski in/ski out or only a few minutes walk to the gondola.

This is the key for me. If i get one week a year skiing, I want good snow and I want to be able to make the most of it, and not spend time driving/on buses. At the moment, I’m happy to pay a premium for it – but then I don’t have kids.

Some good advice here from Ed Leigh of Extreme sports and Ski Show fame.

how to ride powder every time you go away

I’ve booked up months on advance many times before thinking it was the best way to do it and mostly have regretted it from a snow point of view and I think this approach, while often more expensive, will do wonders for the quality of riding available and being as I’ve now got a family and my riding time each day will be somewhat restricted, it’s what I’m doing from now on.

Gaz

Looking to be about a grand all in. £730 for flights, transfers, fully catered chalet. Add on a lift pass at £200 and ski hire for the week. at another £100 or so. And thats not including any lessons that folk may want to take. Not cheap by any means, but it will be a great place to be for the week with great food and wine thrown in, so worth it for the quality of accommodation, food etc.

I daren’t even look at ski holidays now. Since being a nipper they were my main holiday, but since my kids came along they’ve taken a back seat. The prices seem more expensive with every passing season.

nedrapier – Member
flights to Tromso: £100, 11 days full board bunk: £500. + public bus return ticket + booze (won’t be much). Bit of sunk cost already on kit, though!

Hey nedrapier, where are you staying then? Have only stayed with friends of friends up there (or camped) but that definitely sounds worth checking out.

As for my costs, how long is a piece of string?
Local season pass = £30
XC (free but donation for the lights and/or cutting the tracks) = £20
Touring further afield… A bit of gear repair + sleeping in the back of the car/ on the hill = £50
Add in a couple of hundred quid for diesel to get around and the odd emergency cost and I’m looking at £300-£400 if it’s a good season. Then maybe the odd days at Glencoe, Nevis, Cairngorm, Åre or similar… (lift pass + fuel averages) = £60 a day. And (in my dreams) a week or so touring in the north of Norway/Sweden, but I won’t have the time this year I doubt.

Some good advice here from Ed Leigh of Extreme sports and Ski Show fame.
how to ride powder every time you go away

I’ve done this 3 years in a row and had powder every time (and it’s been cheap too).