christmas family ski holiday

Hi,

can anyone recommend a really nice resort to spend christmas this year (2011) not beginners but not quiet intermediate ski ability , would love a ski in ski out hotel , kids ages are 10 and 16

Well - in my view you need something pretty snow sure, irespective of how well/badly next season starts; so somewhere pretty high.
Also with your children I would look at a big British run catered chalet hotel (i.e. big - 50/60/70 guests) because they will find other kids of similar age to hang out with, rather than a hotel or self catering.

I'd have thought Obergurgl ticked all the boxes.

hi, thanks for that, obergurgl was on my list, will have a look, do you know if the village is any good on the whole Christmas atmosphere for the kids, they are not too keen on leaving home for christmas

Hi Yma,
We were there a couple of days after New Year a few years ago, and whilst there were Christmas decorations in the hotel, I don't remember anything very Christmassy in the village (although of course they may have taken all the stuff down). And to be quite truthful, I didn't think much of the village. It's basically one long road with posh hotels and restaurants lining each side of it. If you want gondola out, ski in, then the places close to the gondola would be okay as long as you are all pretty good skiers because it's a very long blue run from the top of the gondola back down to the village, and the bit at the top is quite difficult for a blue run. In any case the ski bus is pretty good, and there is a chair lift in the centre of the village.

Other than those negatives the resort is fine; we all enjoyed ourselves, it has an excellent snow record, and the children's ski lessons were very good.

I definitely wouldn't stay in one of the posh hotels, if you have 'lively' kids. We did, and my kids were aged 18 and 13. It worked out okay for us, because I saw it as practice for them to learn how to use a 'silver' dinner service and dress smartly and eat 'posh' food for a couple of hours every evening - and they were very well behaved. But I did laugh, because I overheard a man talking to his rep about how his father was desperately in need of a plate of 'real' food (not all that fancy stuff with about 5 consecutive dishes with a tablespoonful of food on each one) - like a plateful of egg and chips or something and where could he get it.

So if you do go to Obergurgl I think Old Andy's quite right and a chalet might be a very good idea! It's also quite an expensive place so I would think you'd have to budget about £850 per head for chalet, flights and transfers and some of the flights go to Geneva which would be a long transfer. Innsbruck is quite close to Obergurgl (something like an hour and a half I think) but it's a tricky airport to get into, because of the mountains, and some of the flights don't go there.

I know from experience that picking a suitable resort for the family takes a lot of thought and research. I hope this helps :D

Ally

Hi ally, thanks for very detailed post! can you suggest any other resort, doesn't have to be Austria im open to any ideas

I hesitate to say it, but Niederau is quite nice for early intermediates with families ....

How about Lapland? That way your kids couldn't complain about missing Christmas because they'd be going to see Father Christmas at home, in the forest in Finland. And I should think it would be guaranteed snow as well, because their ski season starts at the beginning of November.

RoseR has been there at least twice and she raves about how great it is - with sleigh rides etc. I almost felt like going there myself, after reading her description. Mind you, it's not cheap, but then neither is Obergurgl.

Ally