Single Dad & 3 kids - suggestions on cheap 1st time skiing holiday

[dadof3squirts]

I wanna take my three kids (11, 8 and 5 yrs old) skiing over Xmas. They've never skied and money is tight so would love some suggestions on where to take them. Thanks peeps

[kickassangel]

what do you mean by 'money is tight'?

ime, if you've never been before you need to pay for lessons. Many ski resorts have rules about no-one self teaching or instructing except the people that are licensed there. Unless you're a superb instructor yourself, it really won't work well unless you do pay for lessons.

You can prbably get the price down a little from this, but ime, by the time you've paid for flight, accomodation, lessons, lift passes, meals etc, then you should budget at least 1,000 pounds per person per week.

If you drive there, or find a good all-in deal, you could possibly get that down to 800 per person for a week. Of course, which resort you go to makes a big difference.

If you go to a cheaper resort, usually that means that the snow isn't so great, and they may not have any or enough by Christmas. Feb half term much more dependable.

The 8 and 5 year old are unlikely to ski all day - you will need to pay for childcare or only ski when they ski (then leave your lesson/ski-ing early to be at their pick up on time)

[NigellasDealer]

I took mine (single mum 2 kids) here but Feb half term better, might not be snow by xmas.
check the ski school with the little snowman logo, or you can just hire skis there, they spoke English well too. It was really quite affordable.
a few words of Polish or german would help.

[NigellasDealer]

we stayed at an 'agri tourism' guest house b and b and evening meal very good value pm it is on the list of accom on that website, v charming and arranged a pony and sledge ride for the children.

[VivaLeBeaver]

We do it as cheap as we can.

So e years we've gone last minute with Esprit and got some bargains. But you're still looking at £1300 for a family of 3, £1500 - £1600 for a family of four. This includes food and flights and transfers. Nothing else.

On top of this you'll need to buy lunches, ski passes, lessons and ski hire. Plus any child care. Kids who haven't skiied before are only likely to cope with either morning or afternoon not both. So if you want to ski all day you need childcare.

Ski hire is about £70 a week per person. Ski passes vary from resort to resort. We paid £700 last year for two adults and one child.

Food for lunch is expensive. If you eat out you're looking at a minimum of 20euros per person for lunch and that's for basic stuff. We went to Courcheval last year and couldn't afford lunch! We'd have been paying 100 euros for three of us each day easily. But we found baguettes in the bakery instead.

Cheaper resorts will be the ones which the main English tour operators don't go to. So they'll have cheaper ski passes. But lessons for kids will only be in French unless you go in school holidays. And you'd have to go self catering and hire an apartment.

Even in a bigger resort if you don't go with a tour operator you'll struggle getting English speaking kids lessons in term time. The big ski schools like ESF don't even offer it in val disere unless you're with someone like esprit or mark Warner.

[NigellasDealer]

you can get cheap flights to wroclaw... sorry am getting carried away now....

[VivaLeBeaver]

I guess there's always Bulgaria? That would be cheap. Not sure what their snow is like at Xmas.

[Llareggub]

I'm also a single parent with DCs of 7 and 5. I struggled with this because I just wouldn't be able to get them up the lifts. One solution I did think of was to combine summer and winter holiday with summer skiing. We did this as children with my parents.

We skied in the morning at the Stubai glacier and drove there from the UK. I'd get flights now. Skiing was easy but limited and we spent afternoons in the outdoor pool in the village.

I plan to do this in 2015 if I get around to teaching mine to ski at the local dry slope before then.

[MissWimpyDimple]

Try rocketski, I have found that they often have good deals. They fill spaces that school groups haven't used, so you can be sharing a hotel with a bunch of school kids, but that does mean they are cheap and the location is usually good!

[Llareggub]

Fantastic suggestion, I will definitely look into that!

[angelcake20]

Try //www.snowbizz.co.uk. They are pretty cheap as ski packages go, it is possible to drive and you can eat in the apartment lunch and dinner times if you need to save money. There would be afternoon childcare for a 5 yr old but not the older ones, which might be tricky if they didn't take to skiing immediately and you want to ski all day. Both Puy and the company are very friendly and helpful and a good small scale for beginners.

[dadof3squirts]

Wow, thanks guys and girls. I haven't posted in here before and was hoping maybe I'd get 1 or 2 replies within a week. Your feedback is fab and has given me loads to look into. I like the sound of rocketski and snowbizz. I used to ski regularly so only the kids would need lessons....I have no intention of teaching them myself. I intend being available for the kids whenever they get tired too.....this will be about them having fun and me grabbing a ski when they are in class. Will let you know how I get on

[bigTillyMint]

I don't agree that they definitely need lessons. I taught my DC (aged just 4 and 5) on my own the first year as DH had dislocated his knee. They both got to doing parallel turns on green slopes in 4 mornings. It was much faster as there was none of that waiting for the other 12 in the group.