In this special section we look at the pros and cons of travelling on your family ski holiday with a specialist tour operator or going independently, face up to the conundrum of being forced to travel during school holiday periods, suggest some of the best ski resorts for families and look at new deals, destinations and ideas from family ski travel specialists for the coming winter 2015–16.
The Independent vs. Specialist Tour Operator Family Ski Holidays
“I was always an independent traveller, until I reached a stage where I also wanted relaxation from my holiday,” says Richard Sinclair of ski-specialist travel agency Sno, highlighting a key issue for many parents who first look at the myriad of different ways to book a family ski holiday.
“It’s truly amazing how much more fun you are to be with, for your partner and your children, if you’re carrying none of the weight of organising and can simply enjoy the moment with them,” adds Richard. “True, you can probably save a bit of cash by doing it all yourself and even self-catering your ski trip … but if you truly want it to be a ‘holiday’ for the parents and not just for the children, there’s no way that comes close to a fully organised (even better, an ‘inclusive’) family ski package. Our clients who’ve done it never go back, so we took their advice and tried it ourselves this year. Now there’s simply no other way.”
So how has skiing with family changed over the years ? Well for one thing, 20 to 30 years ago, far more children started skiing on school trips. These days it’s more likely to be in an indoor snow centre.
Credit – Avoriaz and M. Vitré
For another, tour operators have done battle for the family market, endeavouring to ensure a seamless service. Having first focused on making everything run smoothly for children in resort – thus cutting out potential parental stress – they’ve then focused on making family holidays good for parents too. So the holiday with a specialist really is for the whole family and not just certain members.
“I think one of the biggest changes is that in the old days the mantra used to be ‘if children are happy, then the parents are too’, and that is no longer applicable. Parents deserve a fabulous holiday as well as their children, so much more attention now goes into ensuring the food, level of service and quality of accommodation is also top-notch and not just relying on great childcare to keep parents happy,” says Moira Clarke of family ski holiday tour operator Esprit.
Things have improved dramatically from the days when parents had little option but try to teach their children themselves – more often than not a recipe for family strife and disaster – or book them into a foreign-language crèche or ski school with the vague hope that the language immersion will be beneficial and that all would be well.
“The variety of childcare options are much greater these days with classes for all levels of children’s ski ability, so children are really learning to ski and improve and not joining a more general crèche to keep them occupied while parents ski as in the past,” confirms Moira.
Credit – Esprit
And “wrap-around care” with evening care for those families that want it is more often the norm too, particularly from the family holiday specialist tour operators. It’s less likely to be only offered for babies and toddlers too these days but may cover older children as well.
“The evening clubs and baby-listening service are more inclusive of all-age children so parents can relax over their dinner and not be constantly on alert for their children during the evenings,” Moira adds.
Independent Family Ski Holidays
Of course, the more confident family can travel independently on a ski holiday and arrange all the elements themselves.
The key issue to be aware of is that problems and costs tend to multiply according to the number of people in your party and their ages. If your travel plans are not bulletproof, things can get very bad, very quickly, if you have no tour operator support. Arriving at the airport to find the transfers you’d hoped for aren’t there and it’s an expensive taxi or you need to look for an affordable hotel with adequate space for you all, for example, or discovering that the accommodation you booked online isn’t owned by the people who “rented” it to you are family ski holiday disasters not unheard of.
But get things right and, if the kind of support, wrap-around services and care a family tour operator offers are not a priority for you, you can take advantage of one of the packages you can find by booking direct via a ski resort’s accommodation service.
Many of the best deals are offered during the Easter holidays, but there’s also some competition to win family business over Christmas week. Val d’Isère is offering a special deal for families with children aged 11 or under who stay in the famous French resort this Christmas for example.
It is offering free accommodation for children under 12 over the festive period when staying in the same room as their parents in a choice of several hotels catering, the resort says, for all budgets and can be booked through the Val Hotel Booking Office.
To sweeten the deal even further, for every adult hiring ski equipment and buying a lift pass, one child aged under 12 receives both hire and their lift pass free.
Another example is Austria’s Alpbachtal ski region, which will offer free skiing to children aged up to 15 during special “Family weeks” next spring.
The offer from the resort, which shares the Ski Jewel region, one of the ten largest in the Tirol, is available to families skiing in the area between 19 March and 10 April 2016 next season.
The free ski pass offer, for any child born on 1 January 2000 or later, is available when an accompanying parent purchases a lift pass valid for 3, 4, 5 or 6 days.
Special family packages including accommodation and lift passes are also available at low price during the “Family weeks” period. Many other resorts have Easter family specialist packages over the Easter period, although be careful as some exclude Easter week – when the school holidays are !
Credit – Crystal
School Holiday Planning
One of the biggest issues of a family ski holiday is controlling costs, and with ski holiday options concentrated into just a few weeks, rather than the 6 weeks of summer, it’s particularly tough on parents trying to introduce their children to the healthy, educational and life-affirming experience of a ski holiday.
In fact a new study by travel deals company Travelzoo has revealed the lengths UK parents are now prepared to go to in order to avoid the government’s controversial fines for term-time holidays.
Travelzoo’s “Parent Trap 2015 Study” polled over 2000 parents of state-school children and found that one in five parents had already lied to their children’s school in order to avoid fines for taking them out of school for a cheaper holiday. Over half of UK parents said they were prepared to lie in the coming months.
Two-thirds of parents are also willing to ask their children to continue the deceit and pretend to their teacher that the reason for absence was not a family holiday. Just 13% of parents polled believe families should not go on holiday if they cannot afford it during school holiday dates.
According to the survey, three-quarters of the teachers who were questioned said they’d experienced parents lying to them since the penalties came into force; 49% said they felt the fines were affecting their relationship with pupils’ families.
“With more than half of UK parents prepared to lie in order to avoid the fines and over 64,000 fines issued from September 2013 to 2014, it’s clear that the current system isn’t working,” said Louise Hodges of Travelzoo, who added, “The fining system is messy, confusing and makes law-abiding families feel like criminals.”
School Holidays 2015-16
What are the school holiday dates to be aware of for winter 2015–16, we asked expert Xavier Schouller, who runs travel company Peak Retreats (peakretreats.co.uk).
“Christmas and New Year are the same school holiday dates across Europe, which means they’ll be busy,” says Xavier. “February half-term for French schools runs from 6 February to 5 March with most areas (the whole of France except Paris) from 13 February (the main UK holiday week). A few other smaller European countries like the Danes will be off then too, so it will be a mega-busy week.
“At Easter, Belgium (and despite being a small country they usually send more people than the UK at that time of year) join Germany and the UK for holidays from 26 March. This will be the best week for anyone in the UK with children: about 50% of the price of half-term, still-decent snow conditions in most resorts, normally sunny and longer days, and it won’t be busy on the slopes or in the resort. For departures on 2 April (UK second week), only one area of France (Marseille and the north) and Belgium will be on holiday, so it shouldn’t be mega busy either.”
Credit – Avoriaz and M.Vitré
New Season Offers and Ideas
Britain’s skiing families have been blessed for more than two decades now by a number of specialist tour operators who make an extra effort to offer family-friendly ski holidays. Here are some of the special deals and new ideas for winter 2015–16 offered by some of them:
Free Lift Pass For Christmas From The Family Skiing Company
The Family Skiing Company, which has been an expert in providing fun and stress-free family ski holidays for more than 20 years, is offering a free lift pass on bookings made by 1 October 2015 for Christmas week (departures on Sunday 20 December) in one of its three destinations in the French Alps – which are each located in smaller resorts but within some of the world’s biggest ski regions, namely Portes du Soleil (Ardent), Paradiski (Les Coches) or Les 3 Vallées (Reberty).
Low Prices For Grandparents And The Arrival Of Monty The Marmot With Ski Famille
Next winter is family skiing specialist Ski Famille’s 25th season in the French Alps, but they’re still coming up with new ideas.
This season will see the launch of new flexible travel options allowing families to combine nationwide scheduled flights or the direct Eurostar from London St Pancras to the Alps with inclusive transfers to the company’s properties in La Plagne, Les Gets and Reberty 2000 in the French Alps. In addition, Christmas and New Year packages offer savings of up to £200 for grandparents joining their families in a chalet.
Fun and friendly Monty the Marmot will also be joining the Ski Famille childcare team, tasked with ensuring children of all ages enjoy the mountain environment and take part in lots of fun-packed activities.
Q&A Sessions on Facebook with Espirit Ski
Family holiday specialists Esprit Ski holidays have stepped up their customer (and non-customer) service by offering a series of Q&A sessions on Facebook so that anyone with any queries or concerns about any aspects of a family ski holiday can get free advice from an expert.
#AskEsprit involves key members of company staff, such as Emma Kay, Head of Child Care, providing answers on anything, in real time, from childcare to what to bring with you on a family holiday.
Credit – Esprit
Online Guide to Family Ski Holidays from the UK’s Biggest Operator
Crystal are not a family ski holiday specialist per se, but as the biggest ski holiday company in Britain they do take more skiing families to the slopes than any other.
The company have created a new online guide for families taking ski holidays, particularly aimed at first timers – the Family Guide to the Mountain – which seeks to answer many of the questions and unknowns for parents taking their children to the slopes for the first time. The easiest way to find it is probably to Google “Crystal Family Guide to the Mountain”.
There’s a lot of practical advice in the new guide, including exactly what happens on a typical day for children in nursery and ski school. There are also reassuring first-hand comments from people working as ski teachers and nursery staff, as well as from happy customers.
Family-Friendliest Ski Destinations
Almost all ski resorts say they’re family-friendly, but some are family-friendlier than others.
Our shortlist below is certainly not an exclusive selection – there are plenty of other good resorts – but we’ve chosen resorts we’ve tried with our own families and enjoyed happy holidays.
Of course, even at family-friendly destinations, you need to be careful about your accommodation choices and about other aspects of your ski holiday that can scupper well-made plans.
Mont-Tremblant, Quebec, Canada
Why ? Transatlantic flight but one of the shorter hops, and once you arrive at Montreal airport, it’s a quick hop to the resort. Mont-Tremblant is perfectly purpose-built with panache – spacious accommodation is located steps away from all facilities and the ski slopes in its car-free village, and there are excellent off-slope attractions including an indoor water park.
Levi, Finland
Stay in the compact centre of Levi and you’ll find everything your family needs close to your accommodation. The huge slopeside Spa Hotel Levitunturi has a remarkable complex of more than a dozen themed swimming pools, and there are some great play areas for children on the slopes and, of course, Santa to visit. It can be VERY cold though, so if that’s an issue, best avoid.
Arinsal, Andorra
As well as being one of the more affordable ski regions, Andorra also has great family-friendly ski areas, good accommodation and dining options, and excellent on-slope childcare and ski school facilities, often staffed by Brits, Aussies and Kiwis who make your children feel right at home.
Avoriaz, France
One of the most family-friendly of the big resorts in the Alps, there’s a huge choice of accommodation in this car-free, all-slopeside, purpose-built resort. It’s part of the same group that owns Center Parcs, and the recently added Aquariaz is a remarkable tropical swimming dome complex 1800m up a mountain.
Klosters, Switzerland
If you’re looking for a traditional resort, you can’t go far wrong if you follow in the ski tracks of the British Royal family. What’s more, a unique adventure park has been created at the top station of the Madrisa aerial cableway in Klosters, Madrisa Land.
Aimed at families, it is also the first adventure park in the Alps to be accessible to physically and visually handicapped people.
“The park presents physical and mental challenges at experience-oriented task points. Mystery or reality ? Fairy tale or fact ?” said a resort spokesperson.
By Sally Brookes