Skiing with a young child

The last couple of years we've been skiing with Esprit. They've been
absolutely fantastic, especially with the way they take them from the
hotel, up the mountain and to ski school (followed by dinner and play
club in the afternoon, if you wish to ski all day).

We're looking for another ski holiday this winter but don't want to go
overboard on the cost (my wife has spent the skiing money by booking a
trip for us all to go and see Santa at his house in Lapland for a couple
of days just before Christmas). I've been looking and a few of the major
tour operators run a similar escorted service to Esprit, however it's
generally not available (fully booked) on any of the holidays they have
on "offer". Esprit do have some tempting "offers", but the cheaper ones
are mainly in chalets. We've previously stayed in their hotels - for two
reasons.

1) We want a bath, not a shower
2) Kids eat separately (earlier) than adults in the chalets

The bath is not insurmountable, as some chalets have them, but my wife
remains concerned about meal times. Our daughter is an only child and is
5 years old (just too young for the bedtime kids club).

Has anyone been on a skiing holiday in a chalet with similar
arrangements? What do you do with your child whilst you have your meal -
do you feel safe having them asleep, maybe three floors above you in a
"strange" room, all alone?
--
David Mahon

Have you thought about self catering if cost is a consideration? It
would probably cost you less than a fourth of the cost of a chalet and
then there is no issue of been separated from the kids. You don't have
to eat in every day and you can sample some proper food at resort
restaurants.
Have a look at specialist operators like www.peakretreats.co.uk

David Mahon wrote:

The last couple of years we've been skiing with Esprit. They've been
absolutely fantastic, especially with the way they take them from the
hotel, up the mountain and to ski school (followed by dinner and play
club in the afternoon, if you wish to ski all day).

We're looking for another ski holiday this winter but don't want to go
overboard on the cost (my wife has spent the skiing money by booking a
trip for us all to go and see Santa at his house in Lapland for a couple
of days just before Christmas). I've been looking and a few of the major
tour operators run a similar escorted service to Esprit, however it's
generally not available (fully booked) on any of the holidays they have
on "offer". Esprit do have some tempting "offers", but the cheaper ones
are mainly in chalets. We've previously stayed in their hotels - for two
reasons.

1) We want a bath, not a shower
2) Kids eat separately (earlier) than adults in the chalets

The bath is not insurmountable, as some chalets have them, but my wife
remains concerned about meal times. Our daughter is an only child and is
5 years old (just too young for the bedtime kids club).

Has anyone been on a skiing holiday in a chalet with similar
arrangements? What do you do with your child whilst you have your meal -
do you feel safe having them asleep, maybe three floors above you in a
"strange" room, all alone?
--
David Mahon

On Wed, 6 Dec 2006 23:08:42 +0000, David Mahon
wrote:

The last couple of years we've been skiing with Esprit. They've been
absolutely fantastic, especially with the way they take them from the
hotel, up the mountain and to ski school (followed by dinner and play
club in the afternoon, if you wish to ski all day).

We're looking for another ski holiday this winter but don't want to go
overboard on the cost (my wife has spent the skiing money by booking a
trip for us all to go and see Santa at his house in Lapland for a couple
of days just before Christmas). I've been looking and a few of the major
tour operators run a similar escorted service to Esprit, however it's
generally not available (fully booked) on any of the holidays they have
on "offer". Esprit do have some tempting "offers", but the cheaper ones
are mainly in chalets. We've previously stayed in their hotels - for two
reasons.

1) We want a bath, not a shower
2) Kids eat separately (earlier) than adults in the chalets

The bath is not insurmountable, as some chalets have them, but my wife
remains concerned about meal times. Our daughter is an only child and is
5 years old (just too young for the bedtime kids club).

Has anyone been on a skiing holiday in a chalet with similar
arrangements? What do you do with your child whilst you have your meal -
do you feel safe having them asleep, maybe three floors above you in a
"strange" room, all alone?




Look at Ski Famille

www.skifamille.co.uk

I took my then 6 year old to Les Gets with them. Perfect.

Stan

French_Skier wrote:
Have you thought about self catering if cost is a consideration? It
would probably cost you less than a fourth of the cost of a chalet and
then there is no issue of been separated from the kids. You don't have
to eat in every day and you can sample some proper food at resort
restaurants.
Have a look at specialist operators like www.peakretreats.co.uk


A fourth the cost!

Having done both chalet holidays and self catering (never done hotels -
hotels are for work, not holidays) chalet holidays work out about 25%
more expensive, depending on the operator. I suppose it depends on what
you are costing in the holiday; if you take all the costs from lunch to
lessons then there really isn't much in it, perhaps less than £100 per
person.

Self catering does, however, give you tons of flexibility, but arranging
child care may be more difficult.

Back to the original post. Most chalets we have stayed in have baths as
well as showers. We actually prefered having our son eat early and go to
bed so that the adults could eat later and used baby alarms initially,
but then, by the time he was 5 he would come and find us if there was a
problem. That is, until he disovered how to use a mobile phone! The
chalet host usually asked what time he wanted his dinner, or if he was
eating with us (they did like an hour or two between having meals on the
table). And there was always another guest who would volunteer to stay
in if we wanted to go out for a drink.

Most chalets are too small to have 3 floors between the dining room and
the bedrooms. Many only have half a dozen rooms in total.

Ski Olympic and Ski Beat offered good service getting him to and from
lessons etc. as (not unsurprsingly) did the ESF. The service does,
however, depend upon the resort staff at the time. I would suggest
phoning up a specialist travel operator such as Snow Line and speaking
to them.

John



David Mahon wrote:


The last couple of years we've been skiing with Esprit. They've been
absolutely fantastic, especially with the way they take them from the
hotel, up the mountain and to ski school (followed by dinner and play
club in the afternoon, if you wish to ski all day).

We're looking for another ski holiday this winter but don't want to go
overboard on the cost (my wife has spent the skiing money by booking a
trip for us all to go and see Santa at his house in Lapland for a couple
of days just before Christmas). I've been looking and a few of the major
tour operators run a similar escorted service to Esprit, however it's
generally not available (fully booked) on any of the holidays they have
on "offer". Esprit do have some tempting "offers", but the cheaper ones
are mainly in chalets. We've previously stayed in their hotels - for two
reasons.

1) We want a bath, not a shower
2) Kids eat separately (earlier) than adults in the chalets

The bath is not insurmountable, as some chalets have them, but my wife
remains concerned about meal times. Our daughter is an only child and is
5 years old (just too young for the bedtime kids club).

Has anyone been on a skiing holiday in a chalet with similar
arrangements? What do you do with your child whilst you have your meal -
do you feel safe having them asleep, maybe three floors above you in a
"strange" room, all alone?
--
David Mahon

David Mahon wrote:
The last couple of years we've been skiing with Esprit. They've been
absolutely fantastic, especially with the way they take them from the
hotel, up the mountain and to ski school (followed by dinner and play
club in the afternoon, if you wish to ski all day).

We're looking for another ski holiday this winter but don't want to go
overboard on the cost (my wife has spent the skiing money by booking a
trip for us all to go and see Santa at his house in Lapland for a couple
of days just before Christmas). I've been looking and a few of the major
tour operators run a similar escorted service to Esprit, however it's
generally not available (fully booked) on any of the holidays they have
on "offer". Esprit do have some tempting "offers", but the cheaper ones
are mainly in chalets. We've previously stayed in their hotels - for two
reasons.

1) We want a bath, not a shower
2) Kids eat separately (earlier) than adults in the chalets

The bath is not insurmountable, as some chalets have them, but my wife
remains concerned about meal times. Our daughter is an only child and is
5 years old (just too young for the bedtime kids club).

Has anyone been on a skiing holiday in a chalet with similar
arrangements? What do you do with your child whilst you have your meal -
do you feel safe having them asleep, maybe three floors above you in a
"strange" room, all alone?
--
David Mahon

Children are so inconvenient aren't they? Just imagine having to spend
time with your own children whilst you are on holiday. So much easier
to send them off with someone else all day.

French_Skier wrote:

Have you thought about self catering if cost is a consideration? It
would probably cost you less than a fourth of the cost of a chalet and
then there is no issue of been separated from the kids. You don't have
to eat in every day and you can sample some proper food at resort
restaurants.
Have a look at specialist operators like www.peakretreats.co.uk

One of the blessings of Esprit (I used them when our kids were smaller)
and, indeed, chalets and hotels in general, is that you don't *have* to
bloody self-cater.

Someone else does the washing, cleaning, cooking etc. Oh, and looking
after the kids.

Otherwise it tends not to be much of a holiday - not for the mums,
anyway.


--
BMW K1100LT 750SS CB400F CD250 Z650
GAGARPHOF#30 GHPOTHUF#1 BOTAFOT#60 ANORAK#06 YTC#3
BOF#30 WUSS#5 The bells, the bells.....

In article . com,
writes

Children are so inconvenient aren't they? Just imagine having to spend
time with your own children whilst you are on holiday. So much easier
to send them off with someone else all day.

The alternative is for her not to come at all, which is something I have
looked at but I would prefer her to come (and she says that she would
like to come too). If I have to personally take her to ski school,
collect her two hours later and then either take her back down the
mountain to snow club or look after her myself all afternoon (her skiing
ability is blue runs only and she would be far too tired, age 5, to ski
all day every day), there's little point me paying £2000 for the
privilege of four hours limited area skiing a day - I could just have a
few trips to the Milton Keynes Snow Dome instead. I'm not planning on
packing her off all day every day, but will do on some days. Some days
we'll all have lunch together and a couple of days she'll come on the
slopes with us in the afternoon or we'll go sledding (although if you
ask her, she'll probably say that she prefers snow club).

I do want the flexibility that packages with full child care allow. When
she's a bit older and can ski a little better, it won't be required -
besides, she'll probably want to go on the school ski trip then anyway.

--
David Mahon

@elgy(nati-spam).org.uk wrote:

Ski Olympic and Ski Beat offered good service getting him to and from
lessons etc. as (not unsurprsingly) did the ESF. The service does,
however, depend upon the resort staff at the time. I would suggest
phoning up a specialist travel operator such as Snow Line and speaking
to them.

John

Absolutely - varies from resort to resort, chalet to chalet and week to
week. If I remember correctly, Ski Total and Ski Olympic will only
allow children under 14 if you book the whole chalet. Even then it can
go either way - I've seen chalet staff who were less than happy about
having children there, but I've seen them totally cool with the
situation. I do think that Ski Olympic, and probably Total (who are,
after all, the other half of Esprit) sell beds on the fact that they
*aren't* child-oriented.

I stayed with Ski Beat in La Plagne before and was impressed - from
what I recall they looked pretty good for families as well, but it was
a few years ago now.

Matt

On Thu, 7 Dec 2006 20:57:19 +0000, David Mahon
wrote:

In article . com,
writes

Children are so inconvenient aren't they? Just imagine having to spend
time with your own children whilst you are on holiday. So much easier
to send them off with someone else all day.

The alternative is for her not to come at all, which is something I have
looked at but I would prefer her to come (and she says that she would
like to come too). If I have to personally take her to ski school,
collect her two hours later and then either take her back down the
mountain to snow club or look after her myself all afternoon (her skiing
ability is blue runs only and she would be far too tired, age 5, to ski
all day every day), there's little point me paying £2000 for the
privilege of four hours limited area skiing a day - I could just have a
few trips to the Milton Keynes Snow Dome instead. I'm not planning on
packing her off all day every day, but will do on some days. Some days
we'll all have lunch together and a couple of days she'll come on the
slopes with us in the afternoon or we'll go sledding (although if you
ask her, she'll probably say that she prefers snow club).

I do want the flexibility that packages with full child care allow. When
she's a bit older and can ski a little better, it won't be required -
besides, she'll probably want to go on the school ski trip then anyway.


I took my 6 year old lad to Les Gets with Ski Famille and stayed in
one of the chalets up at Les Contamines. There was another familly
with a five year old and a couple with a baby.

BASS ski school a short stroll away. Lessons in the morning. First
three days they were picked up by the Nannys and entertained for the
afternoon. Come day four they were both capable of skiing all the
reds and spent the rest of the afternoons with the grown ups.

Care ratio is 1:3. More of an insurance policy in my lads case. If
he didn't take to skiing then he would still be happy. Kids like
other kids and kids & snow

My view was that the first time for them is a bit of an unknown.
Better to cover every option and then you can handle it all yourself
the next time.

Stan

My view was that the first time for them is a bit of an unknown.
Better to cover every option and then you can handle it all yourself
the next time.

Stan

I once read somewhere that when you've got small ones, don't call it a
skiing holiday, call it a "family holiday in the snow" and regard any
skiing anyone does as a bonus. I thought this was a pretty good way of
setting expectations.

Matt