2 Adults + 3 kids

Hi I’m a newbie to this site and this is my 1st post.

Does anyone have any advice, tips, hints etc on sorting a skiing holiday for 2 adults + 3 kids?

My experience so far is that their is not a lot of accommodation to find which accommodates a family with 3 kids, especially hotels.

I’m sure anyone on here with 3 kids will be able to sympathies with this.

With the rapid expansion of easy jet Geneva is very accessible to me, but finding the right accommodation in a kid friendly resort is proving to be a problem.

Hopefully now that I have discovered this site my problems will be over.

Look forward to hearing from anyone who can offer advice.

Cheers

Simon.

Hi Simon, ok so you don't have a 2+2 family. Fortunately I reckon that only excludes you from the main Tour Operators and the Chain Hotels (purpose built with 48 identical rooms). By far your best bet is the independent sector who are generally more flexible and often have odd-sized apartments and rooms in chalets.

If you can travel outside school hols it will help massively; otherwise you will have to book early.

But there are small family-run hotels in many resorts if you go looking - a good start is always the Tourist Office; drop them an e-mail and they can usually give you an idea of where might be suitable.

We've stayed in Les Carroz a couple of times, including short breaks at the Hotels Bois de la Char (family-run, flexible and friendly - and right on the piste!) and Les Belles Piste (Brit-run and friendly). Pretty sure both these had family rooms available. Also recommend Les Carroz for families as we found everyone very friendly - nice selection of pistes that kids can find their way round on easily without falling over cliffs, etc.

Another family-friendly resort near Geneva is La Clusaz.

So... be prepared for a few e-mails but it's all out there somewhere. Once you break away from the package operators you'll be amazed how much variety there is available.

As above, start with the Tourist Office and go from there - they almost always have lists of private rentals too (though speaking French will be useful for those!).

Hope that helps...

Brilliant, i knew when i found this site i was going to be able to get some top advice.

Powderhound do you think this approach is also the way to go and most effective when arranging childrens ski school and ski hire?

Thanks again for the top advice.

suts89 wrote:do you think this approach is also the way to go and most effective when arranging childrens ski school and ski hire?

Yes, although it's always worth searching for personal recommendations for ski schools...

As for Ski Hire; within the next week or two you're going to be able to pre-book your hire gear right here on j2ski - at a good discount too!
8)

So watch this space...

Hi Simon
I think we have the answer to your dilemma. We specialise in independent family ski and activity holidays in Les Houches. We have 2 children ourselves and love to travel so we know how much hassel it can be and how much hassle it neednt be. We organise ski lessons, ski passes, babysitters, nursery places. We provide cots, high-chairs, sledges, baby alarms etc. Check out our website www.chaletinthemountains.com or call Helen on 0033 619124584. We still have a 6 person chalet free for half-term if you're quick. It is not featured on the sight but is in the same location. The garden is excellent for sledging and snowman building. The best news is we are also very reasonably priced and don t charge extra for any of the kid stuff!! We like to encourage families to travel.

Hi Simon,

the answer, of course, is, it depends!

No really, it does rather depend on how much you are willing to splurge, and also how much you'd like to see the little darlings instead of tearing down the steeps 10 hours a day.

So, if you want to get absolutely the cheapest deals on everything, and go self-catered, then follow the other posts, but if you can afford a bit extra, keep reading...

I can thoroughly recommend ski-esprit (www.skiesprit.com). My 2+2 family paid around £1800 (plus lift passes!) last year, but here's what we got:
Flights from Stansted;
Half board for the week in a chalet of about 12 people, including beer and wine, including cake on arriving back after a hard day's blast;
3 hours of ski lessons for the kids, plus around 3 hours of alternative activities per day, you could leave the kids all day if you want to, for older kids there's also a couple of hours of activities in the evenings;

Sounds too good to be true? OK some caveats:
It was the first week in January, i.e. just about the cheapest week of the year.
We got all the early bird discounts, which means you need to book by about May!

Yes we missed that last one this year too, in fact we only just got around to checking out prices last week. We just came up with a price of about £2600 for all of the above, and also including ski hire and lift passes.

Well, if that hasn't scared you off (and I reckon you'll be approaching £2K anyway, but of course it depends which week you can go), I can give lots more advice, we've been with them three times now, which I guess says enough about how happy we are with the results. Our six year old was skiing blue runs last year!

It's not a one price includes all, you can build up everything you need, e.g. you can sort ski hire out yourselves, and you can save some money say by just having the lessons for the kids, but then taking them out yourselves the rest of the day. If you're feeling really flush then you could book the whole lot and see what the kids want to do, ours did actually want to spend more or less the entire day taking part in the various kids activities, and we took them out for just a couple of afternoons towards the end of the week, which seemed to work out satisfactorily all round.

The chalets are generally superb, Mont Blanc in Montchavin is our favourite so far, but I think it's fully booked now, in fact probably most of this advice may be of more use when booking your next season's holiday!

The only exception to that 'superb' qualification is whatever you do don't go in anything that calls itself a 'chalet-apartment'! The difference is that a chalet is a chalet, and a chalet-apartment is an apartment, quite possibly in the middle of some huge beehive monstrosity, as we discovered last year. However, steer clear of those and you'll be OK.

I could go on but that's probably enough for now, if I've whet your appetite or you need any more tips I'll be happy to carry on.

In summary, it can be expensive, but you get a lot, and if you book early and at off peak times, then it's not that much more than you'd pay anyway.

Cheers,

Robin

HI Simon

Have you thought about a chalet rather than a hotel? Then you aren't so physically split from the kids, as although they are in the room next door they are still closer than in a hotel.
We run a small chalet and have double, triple and quad rooms. Unfortunately we don't have one which sleeps five! So it would have to be two rooms!

Have you also thought about doing a shorter break than a week to keep th costs down. We do a Monday to Thursday which means you get to ski for three full days and get cheap flights on the Monday or Thursday. It would work out at £1350 for the whole family, and we still have spaces for the easter hols. It also means cheaper ski rental and lift passes.

We also do a long weekend Thurs to Monday on the same cheap flight principle, which works out at £1600 for the whole family.

I hope this helps. If you are still interested check us out on www.gravite.co.uk[/url]