What's your budget?
Depending on what you want to do, you could drive to the Portes du Soleil and have a flipping good week for not too much.
As a total skinflint, I always do the following
1 Drive there. This ensures that you have your own car, and with 4 of you in the car it’s cheaper than flying. You’re coming from Merseyside so it’s a longing drive to the coast, but the train is quick and, if paid for in Tesco vouchers, very cheap.
2 Drive all night. This saves hotel costs. I tend to stop for a few hours at 2am or so and doze, then press on.
3 Self-catering is the only way. Obviously I would say that (I have an apartment in Morzine) but it’s way cheaper than catered.
4 Take a portable fridge with you and fill it to the roof with things that are expensive in the resort. Meat, fresh orange juice, bacon ….cram it in.
5 Take non-perishable stuff as well. Anything like sweets/chapsticks….anything that you think there’s a good chance you’ll need will be ¼ of the price over here.
6 Buy your ski clothing cheaply over here. TK Maxx have a surprisingly good range; not in any way the coolest, but decent quality, decent brand (my local has a lot of Trespass stuff).
7 Take sandwiches out on the slope for you and your partner and let the kids eat in the mountain restaurants whilst you picnic. Never been a problem for me; restaurants are usually OK with it if you're buying food for others and a drink fro yourself.
8 Hire skis in advance from the resort – a lot cheaper (30+%) than doing it when you get there
9 Don’t eat out in the evenings more than once in the week – the food is usually not that great and it costs you an arm/leg.
10 Borrow a roofbox – there’s always someone has one you can borrow. A couple of bottles of wine as a thank you is a damn sight less expensive than renting.
11 Borrow clothing if possible – we’ve done this for our kids. Again, deeply uncool, but who cares?
