Skiing over Christmas or New Year

Hi,

Wondered if anyone had any experience of this.

Was thinking about taking a Skitrain package to Trois Vallees in December - either for the week over Xmas or the week over New Years. Never done this before - the Xmas week seems about half the price.

Is there any other reason to pick between the two? For example - does it get really busy during the new year period and quite quiet around Xmas? As far as I know all the lifts should be open.

Cheers!

Never skied in Trois Vallées but I don't think it's very different. I always ski over Christmas and New Year and generally it's very busy but still better then say half-terms as there are less children. Christmas day is actually a good day to ski. Day before Christmas is more busy. New Year's week is busier than a Christmas week and families with kids in tow start pulling in. December 31st I don't bother to go up - tried once and it was manic. January 1st is probably the best day to ski. Be prepared to queue up and if you want a dinner out - reserve a table. Atmosphere is good though and I wouldn't want to spend this period anywhere but in the mountains. My office closes for 10 days so it's like a free holiday - I only use couple days of annual leave and get two weeks of skiing in a row.

Ive skied Verbier too(funnily enough) over New Year and would second all of the above. New Year's Day is a very quiet time so if you don't go too large the night before you'll have v quiet slopes

Generally in holiday weeks then the lifts are busier - the advantage of 3V over Verbier is that each and every one of the villages (VT, Les Men, Meribel, Mottaret, Courchevel (with odd exceptions)) has multiple lift points out of the base whilst Verbier basically has only two so a large strain on those at 9am

Has anyone skied Saalbach december time over Christmas?

We've done both weeks in Val d'Isere and also Norway (Hemsedal).

For VDI, I can't really recall a great deal of difference between the two weeks. Both were busy but not too busy. Lots of festive things going on including fireworks and torch lit evening descents. Definitely have to book for meals out although that wasn't too much of an issue for us as we were in catered chalets.

Money no object, I'd much rather be in the mountains than at home over the festive period! We're off to Zermatt this coming winter.

We skied Christmas week in 3V a couple of years ago (Courchevel based).
Just about everything was open and that was a late snowfall season.
Wasn't busy at all (compared with Easter for example).
I used the overnight sleeper to Bourg St Maurice a couple of years ago.
Eurostar to Paris, swap stations, sleeper down to the Alps.
It worked well - but the six berth cabins were very cramped - if I did this again I would splash out on a four berth cabin.
This gave me nearly two full days more skiing. Out and up about 10.30 in the morning after arriving and finished 3.00pm on the final day before getting the overnight back to Paris and home.

We have skied ADH at xmas but wouldn't go again at that time of year. We felt that we missed out on xmas as it just seemed like a normal day there.

Snapzzz is right.....
Not a lot to show it is Xmas, maybe a santa arriving on skis, maybe a few fireworks. On Boxing day it seems to be traditional to ski in fancy dress.