Slightly different question from my “Family half-term holiday ideas” thread.

Someone mentioned Snowbizz. Anyone else that we should look at for a stress free ski holiday?

I’ve been on a few holidays with SkiBeat, in groups of ‘all young professionals’ and families and extended families, and they’ve been great.

https://www.skibeat.co.uk/

I would suggest its perhaps resort and hotel facilities, rather than ‘company’ which may have more influence. I’ve found small resorts in Austria, short transfer distance and hotel with pool / other activities helps.

Age of kids?

If ankle biters and in need of top notch child care the esprit were amazing when we used to go with them 15 odd years ago

One 7 year old and we don’t want to abandon her all day, just maybe ski school in the morning and play/ski with us in the afternoons.

We’ve gone with Neilson the last few years. You can book as much or as little childcare as you want. It is limited to only a few over their resorts though.

For a 7 year old you don’t really need a family ski company. We used some before ski school but when they are up and about there is no need. Avoriaz and Tignes are good for beginners.

Avoid ESf for lessons. Big groups and very mixed teaching. absolutely fine for private. Evolution ski are much better. Groups max out at 6/7 even in half term.

Quick edit, evolution ski is France only.

Might I be permitted to rave about Snowbizz. I realise that some of what I say won’t be seen as a positive for your situation but I’ll say regardless.

Me and the missus took the kids to Saalbach. We stayed in this hotel
https://www.ellmauhof.at/winterurlaub/kinderhotel-saalbach-hinterglemm.html

which currently costs around 6,000 Euros for a week for a family of four ( we paid a shitload less, £1,250 including flights and transfers, but I digress )
The elder kid skied with the recommended school. It was a disaster. The instructors were shit. He hated it and cried. We took him away, scarred.

Next year we took him skiing ourselves for a few hours. He disliked it.
And we got him private lessons in la plagne. He disliked it.
The following year they both did lessons in la plagne with the same woman. They disliked it. They knew they hated skiing.

Following recommendations from someone we tried Snowbizz the following year.
The resort is pretty small.
The accommodation was very basic ( though they have since added nicer options)
The apres ski is non existent
The resort is standard butt ugly french.
There’s very little advanced skiing.
BUT people go back because of 1 thing only. They encourage your kids to love skiing.
I still remember approaching our two kids ( who had almost point blank refused to get on the plane) after their first day… were they sad, we’re they tired…
Biggest, happiest smiles on the planet. They loved it. Completely transformed their view on skiing.

I can’t overstate how good they were. Our kids were pretty much bilingual when we tried in Austria, and subsequently did dozens of full day ski classes in Italy and Austria, but only because the awesome people at Snowbizz had set them up to love it.

(Esprit are the only other comparable company, but were way out of our price range)

Some of the kinderhotels are OK for later stages, but no comparison with Snowbizz

We did Esprit with ours when they were little. Managed to get a week just before Feb HT at a fraction of the cost of the HT week. One family in our chalet paid even less with a very late booking.
Our did ski school AM and had lunch with the Nannyies and skied / played with us PM.
The kids team were great, took the kids from the chalet after breakfast so we could finish our coffee and get out ourselves without any stress.
It wasn’t cheap.
It did what it needed to at the time and the age of the kids/level of enthusiasm/ability.
Being the week before HT was good and bad.
The staff were flat out all week deep cleaning and preparing for the “Important guests next week who have paid loads to be here”. That made me feel special! But it ws about half the cost.

Book very early or very late?