Oh font of all knowledge – I’m looking to book a ski holiday for the family over Christmas. Any advice on a location and (maybe more important) the company to go with would be much appreciated.

There’s so much choice and I’m not sure where to start.

Looking for somewhere good for the kids (age 6 and 8, almost complete beginners other than a few days in the Scottish hills) and me and the wife (intermediate to advanced, I guess).

Not too fussed about night life (2 young kids!) but a few restaurants and somewhere for post-ski beer are always good. More important are a decent ski school for the kids and (maybe) childcare so that we get a few hours to go and play and fun slopes for us to play on. And, of course, a good company to organise all these things.

Short transfer.
Short transfer.
Short transfer.
Serre Chevalier.
Short transfer.
Short transfer.

Did I mention the short transfer?

We took our kids a few years older than yours to the White Room. Stevo and Iona were ace, Sainte Foy was perfect for us as a family as its small enough for us to all do our own thing and meet up quickly. It also felt great to give money to “one of our own” which both of them are. Cannot recommend them highly enough.

Depends on budget. If budget is good (£1k pp +) then most resorts in the Alps will be good. The big ski holiday companies will offer family packages. If budget is not so flush you’re into the likes of Bulgaria, which caters well for families but is very rough and ready. My brother has always gone on about Norway for a family do. Up front costs are not cheap, but they’re properly geared up for families apparently. Christmas period commands a premium (school holidays), and the weather may not be great (v.cold, cloudy, snowy, low visibility).

While I agree with CF about the short transfers and I do like Serre Chev, if you fly to Grenoble, Alpe d’Huez is much nearer.
Geneva to Les Gets/Morzine is quicker still.

Done this a few times now. Started many years ago as a get together with uni friends and has kind of morphed into just a general mates trip now. This means my wife and I share some child care between us and other parents on the trip. Don’t get a full week of skiing but do get to watch the kids playing and having fun. Major highlight this year was the horse drawn ski bus.

We haven’t booked with any of the big companies preferring to sort it ourselves. This year was a lovely chalet in Megeve. It is important to have a semi private space for the kids to run around in, watch DVD and relax other than the bedroom.

At that age they won’t ski all day yet and so other entertainment is also needed. Mark Warner gets highly rated but at those prices it bloody well ought to. Esprit also had good ratings when we looked and may suit you if looking for child are built in. Would look at Austria too as previous trip there before we had kids they were very child friendly.

Looking forward to when mine can both get on skis. Eldest was 3 last year and had fun walking around on skis and doing a bit of sliding. Not looking forward to not being able to keep up with them.

Ahh, my specialist subject.

What you want are (in order)

Good childcare
Short transfers
Some snow

You will have a better holiday with good childcare and mediocre snow that the other way round. Some people even take a trusted non-skier along to ensure this.

For what it’s worth we’ve done 5 holidays with Ski Famille at Les Gets, but their offering will be slightly different next year (we’ll let you know if it’s still good on the CFH S&S thread in due course)

over Christmas

So 2016 then?

We went with Club Med in Val d’Isere a few years ago and whilst it was expensive it was all inclusive including ski lessons, ski hire/servicing and all meals drinks etc

We priced up a hotel, lift pass, meals out separately and it worked out more expensive (but then it IS Val D..)

France is rip off central! Go to Austria….so much cheaper, some great resorts, friendly people etc. Look at Westerndorf for your needs.

I have just booked flights to Geneva for first week of Christmas . 5 of us with luggage for £741 .
Now need to find some accomodation , but looking at Pierre et vacances , I can get a flat for around 1000 euros in la plagne or Alpe D Huez .

I am hoping to spend £3500 max .

Christmas timing is key here. That’s quite early in the season and snow can be variable so try and pick a resort with decent altitude, i would say 1800m for resort and higher. less than that and you are taking a risk. Note that most beginner slopes are in the resorts, ie low down.

Over many years we did lots of different ski holidays, with young kids a company which has dedicated kids staff and an early dinner time are key and worth paying for (beware they are expensive and Christmas is peak, as per joke above they may be sold out already).

My favourite resorts with the family where Les Arcs area inc La Plagne, St Anton, Val d’Isere. We went with Club Med, Mark Warner, Neilson.

Morzine and Les Gets are nice family orientated resorts but at 1000m if the snow is poor/late you are in trouble and nursery slopes are in the village.

We also did a few self organised trips. Having been to Ste Foy with White Room I can confirm that’s a great setup/resort for families. The village is very quiet but resort is perfect for kids and everything is easy. I also like Arosa in Switzerland (you can arrive by mountian railway which is very cool but does involve a couple of train changes so beware if yo have tons of luggage), the nursery slopes are in the village at 1900m, easy to do morning/afternoon skiing and split the time with the kids, horse drawn sleighs etc

Good luck, family skiing can feel like a real war of attrition but it’s worth it !

At 6 and 8 childcare isn’t important. What you need is a good Ski school and lots of other activities outside of skiing too keep everyone amused. At 6 & 8 I’d also predict that towards the end of the week you will be able to go off and do some family skiing all togther.

Based on this I’d suggest Les Gets.

Very family friendly resort with loads of appropriate terain, fun parks with kiddy themes etc.
Lots of good Ski Schools.
A proper town with things to do like ice skating etc.
The worlds best hot chocolate at the Grand Ours on Mont Cherry.
Very short transfer from Geneva.
Accessible mountain cafes you can go to with the kids

And most importantly there is some great skiing within easy reach so you can get some fun in while the kids are in Ski School!

Seconded Megeve; it’s a beautiful village, absolutely stunning in winter with fantastic facilities and plenty of easy skiing for kids. It’s about an hour from Geneva and not high up the mountain so has pretty scenery. The entire village and mountain are owned by the Rothschild family so it is carefully managed and they don’t allow budget package holidays with lager louts. The swimming pool is fantastic if the weather is too bad to ski and there’s a skating rink. I would recommend Chalet D’Antoine with Simon Butler Skiing; Simon is the British ski instructor who has taken on the French ski schools in the French court and won although the last I heard, the French weren’t quite following the spirit of the judgement.

For an experienced skier there’s plenty of challenging stuff further up the valley. The restaurants are good and easy to access via the lifts.

We took our kids a few years older than yours to the White Room. Stevo and Iona were ace, Sainte Foy was perfect for us as a family as its small enough for us to all do our own thing and meet up quickly.

Funnily enough I did that last year as well (not the WhiteRoom but it was across the road) and it was brilliant. The groomed slopes are excellent for beginners and there is plenty of stuff to play on for better folks. I think if you are intermediate and stay on piste you may find it dull though.

However for Ski School it was a revelation. ESF was booked up so we went for an independent called SnoCool that was way way way better than any ESF that we have used

Apologies, for some reason I’d read the younger child’s age as 3. Probably as ours are 8 and 3.

Jfletch’s answer is about right. At 6 our older one was just venturing on to reds in Les Gets.

And contrary to Jambalaya’s post, Les Gets has nursery slopes at the top of the red egg, which is a good distance above the village – but to be fair the entire (local) resort is fairly low.

And having used both ESF and 360 in Les Gets, we prefer 360. There are other schools there but we haven’t used them.

Used Esprit in Chourchevel once and that was not as good as Ski Famille in Les Gets. Which was a pity as I like the 3 valleys.

I would suggest Pension Enzian in Saalbach. The resort is great for beginners, and the mountain huts are great for a mid day break.

The hotel is great, and whilst I don’t have kids myself whenever I go there are always a couple of families with kids and they have a great time. Kevin and Sarah are great hosts and have their own 2yo son so know all the bits of the resort that are kid friendly.

Loads of reviews from family’s
here:

And contrary to Jambalaya’s post, Les Gets has nursery slopes at the top of the red egg, which is a good distance above the village – but to be fair the entire (local) resort is fairly low.

I stand most correctly corrected ! We went to Les Gets/Morzine for about 5 seasons as our annual trip but stopped after two years of very little snow in the resort, so I guess I am a bit biased. When the snow is good the skiing above/around Les Gets is very nice.

OP if you can get the kids a few sessions in a snow dome or similar it will help a lot and they will probably not start in the absolute beginner group.

Some of my happiest memories are skiing with my kids, hot chocolate on the mountain and now they are are older beers and shots apres ski !

Thanks for all the replies so far. A lot to digest but I think I’m getting some good pointers. Time to get the research finished and the credit card out.

SkiTrackWorld comes good.

Another vote for Montgenevre (Slightly tempered with the observation that the skiing is mostly above the tree line, so a bit bleak. Town is relatively undeveloped & is authentically French (More Rabbit stew than Burger)

Avoriaz? Has short transfer, is high and car-free.

Avoriaz?… is high

Is it really of any benefit though?

The resort accomodation is high but that is because it’s pretty close to the top of the mountain. The actual skiing isn’t that high as a decent proportion is lower than the resort and the peaks aren’t massive either.

If you want high skiing you need to look at the height of the slopes rather than the height of the resort. And generally in France shot transfers aren’t compatible with high skiiing since the mountains get higher the deeper into the range you go.

A high resort is only a benefit if you are obsessed with skiing back to resort (or if there are no nursery slopes up higher).

Jambalaya

We went to Les Gets/Morzine for about 5 seasons as our annual trip but stopped after two years of very little snow in the resort, so I guess I am a bit biased. When the snow is good the skiing above/around Les Gets is very nice.

Sorry but this is going to make you sick then.

The low season week immediately before Easter 2013 gave us a 12″ dump on the evening of the first day, followed by small (4-6″) falls each of the next 3 nights.

Couple that with seesaw temperatures that froze over night for the snow falls but gave us sunny 20C afternoons and empty lifts because it was low season near the end of the season and it was fantastic.

Tulipe had been pisted before the bulk of the big fall so on the second morning we were riding 8″ of powder over a perfectly pisted base. Incredible. It softened up a lot by the end of the week but that’s to be expected.

That said, the locals told us that about 4 -5 years ago the snow was terrible.

True that Avoriaz isn’t that high, but I’d have thought ski in/out would be good for families as it makes it easier to pop back for lunch/rest/ski-school pickup. And Avoriaz does have a good record for having at least some snow when conditions are bad elsewhere: I wouldn’t want to have to go across Les Gets/Morzine to get to the lifts up to Avoriaz with kids in tow if there was no snow elsewhere. Agree that height is over-rated though, I think a lot of the lower Austrian resorts have equally good snow records and are probably a lot cheaper.

Avoriaz isn’t that high, but I’d have thought ski in/out would be good for families as it makes it easier to pop back for lunch/rest/ski-school pickup

That’s fair.

But I’d want to avoid Avoriaz during Christmas as it has some horendous bottle necks which could make getting back for meetings difficult and kids don’t tollerate queuing well! They’d love the horses though.

But I don’t really see Avoriaz as a familiy friendly resort. It seems to be aiming towards the more extreme, the unpisted sectios were excelent as you could just explore the mountain but in safety and they have multiple terain parks for example.

Les Gets is infinitely more child friendly in my experience with Morzine somewhere in between. I’d doubt Les Gets had that much issue with lack of snow at Christmas for a while. Last year was an exceptionally hot and late start and I think it was OK by Christmas.

Pension Enzian was on my list for this Christmas but it’s already booked up!

Cervinia is pretty good. Lots of big wide runs, quiet night life, good restaurants, short transfer time..