Report: Our first family ski holiday

Hi,

The forum gave me a lot of good advice before went away two weeks ago so I thought I'd pay back somewhat by posting what our first ski trip was like, hopefully other families thinking about it will gain some insight also.

We're both mid thirties, with two kids, 5 and 2. It was all very last minute booking so a few mistakes were made - first tip:

Tip 1: Don't hire skis in advance.

Unless it's high season, there is plenty of stock.
You may get a 'discount' online, but you get them from your accommodation anyway, and anything you might be saving is lost when you decide not to ski one, or all of you.

Travel and accommodation was very easy; we flew into Chambery from London City, no waiting at either end at the airports. Car hire was a little slow, and irritatingly you can't park in front of the terminal, like taxis do, to collect your luggage and family.

Tip 2: Figure out what code snow chains you need ahead of time!

I drove to a Feu Verte to get snow chains, and after some time deciphering the code that is industry standard for what chains suit which car with my ten years unused French - they didn't have any that fit. Tried two of the service stations on the motor way to the Alps and got lucky on the third.

Driving into and within the Alps was fantastic. I've never enjoyed driving this much, ever. I can't imagine just staying within a resort now, and with little ones it's essential in my book though I'll probably drive the whole way next time anyway. I was lucky in that we only needed snow chains really at the accommodation. Both chalets had icy uphill approaches, so in 695km of driving I needed chains for about 20 metres.

Tip 3: Get winter tyres if possible

Though snow chains are easy to put on and off, what you don't want to face in an urgent dash halfway down the mountain at night is a snapped snowchain that just won't bloody come off. Car hire on the Swiss side do this as standard, Hertz wouldn't for me (and tried to charge 200 Euros for snow chains).

Tip 4: Accommodation type - catered

This isn't really a tip, as I think this is going to be personally preference. We had five days in self catered, and five days in catered, chalets. For me, the catered chalet was a big relief. Shopping for food was mightily expensive, and restaurant eating with kids is only really viable for lunch. Where the kids struggled to sleep in the apartment style chalet, the host family of the catered chalet made them feel at home immediately, and with the cold weather they where asleep very early and silent through the night, every night!

Tip 5: Book individual private lessons ahead

We had four different instructors over the time - largely due to the late booking. The last was a single lesson my wife had with an ESF instructor that was half price of the others, but a complete waste of time. The first we did as a group, my wife, my son and I - this was a lot of fun, but we didn't make much progress. The second time we tried two at a time, but this really didn't work either with the instructor struggling to support my son and mife at the same time. The third time, we simply took it in turns to have a one to one, one hour lesson and we all made big progress and enjoyed it much more.

Tip 6: Prepare your thighs!

I got the hang of it on the second day actual skiing on a blue run in Sainte Foy, parallel skiing and turning all the way down with only two stops, jumped back on the ski lift and went higher up to another thinking I've cracked it, let's have some fun! ...But my legs had other ideas. Tiredness put me out of action and that final run was torture, simply because my legs couldn't keep up with what I now knew how to do easily.

Tip 7: Find a decent kids slope

The holiday was exhausting but a big success. Whilst my son completely ignored his instructors pleading to do the snow plow, he decided parallel skiing was faster and more fun and only nearly broke his neck half the time. We unleashed him on the kids area at Les Arc 1800 which is small but just right to let them play with attendance (it's exhausting catching them, but worth it) Watching him ski on his own made the whole cost/effort worth it :)

Hope this helps someone, and any family oriented questions are welcome.

tin pot wrote:

Tip 1: Don't hire skis in advance.

Unless it's high season, there is plenty of stock.
You may get a 'discount' online, but you get them from your accommodation anyway, and anything you might be saving is lost when you decide not to ski one, or all of you.

Hi Tinpot. Glad you got on ok. Just a query, but I don't understand this bit. I know you're trying to give advice to other newbies, but this just doesn't make sense to me. You get a discount online, but you're saying not to do this if you decide not to ski?

Also, I have never been to an accommodation where you get the skis there. I am sure there may be some that do, but it must be unusual so maybe you had a different experience from the normal? I've always found that you have to go into a shop in the resort to rent skis.

Perhaps you could clear that up for the interested newbies? Thanks, and keep at it matey!

Tony_H wrote:

tin pot wrote:

Tip 1: Don't hire skis in advance.

Unless it's high season, there is plenty of stock.
You may get a 'discount' online, but you get them from your accommodation anyway, and anything you might be saving is lost when you decide not to ski one, or all of you.

Hi Tinpot. Glad you got on ok. Just a query, but I don't understand this bit. I know you're trying to give advice to other newbies, but this just doesn't make sense to me. You get a discount online, but you're saying not to do this if you decide not to ski?

Also, I have never been to an accommodation where you get the skis there. I am sure there may be some that do, but it must be unusual so maybe you had a different experience from the normal? I've always found that you have to go into a shop in the resort to rent skis.

Perhaps you could clear that up for the interested newbies? Thanks, and keep at it matey!

Sure Tony.

We were there for ten days so I hired skis for the three of us online in advance, for nine days. We used them each only about four or five days, depending on how we felt and who was going to be using them. With small kids it's just not possible to be skiing every day, certainly not for all three of us, or even know which day you are going to get the chance.

As for getting skis there, I meant that when we arrived both places said they could get 20% off the local ski hire place. If I had hired when we needed them I would've saved a lot of money.

In the chalet I am looking after I made a deal with the local ski shop for my guests, they (the ski shop) are fully aware, of course, of 20% discount deals online and so match that... using my south london barrow boy skills the best I could do was, free helmets, 20% off,free storage, and 7 days for 6 days ...whether you use them or not.

To hire them for a few days, return them, and hire again for another few days would likely be more expensive and awkward, you would have to fit boots again and set bindings again etc.. and pay a single days hire price for all of the days you hire..

just my input..