ski holidays with kids

[Vanessa3]

For the 1st winter in 5 years, I am no longer (i) pregnant; & (ii) breast-feeding. Time to book a snow boarding trip. I've done plenty of resorts over the years, but none with 3 kids in tow... Older boys will be 3 & 4 by Christmas, & was hoping to get them into a ski school. Recommendations for resorts/hotel/chalet/ski school all welcome.

[snowboarder]

We went this year with a 3 and 2 yr old, and some generous grandparents who helped with the childcare. We stayed in a catered chalet in Les Gets with a company called Reach 4 the alps which was fabulous. Short transfer from Geneva and a good little walkable resort with access to a huge ski area. Our 3 year old did morning esf ski school (which wasn't super successful but that as maybe him?!?), he also had a couple of snowboard lessons with Mint snowboard school which were great. We didn't really look into childcare for this trip, but there are a load of chalet companies that provide nannies (we have used vip chalets in the past and friends used their nannies). Also there's ski famille that specialise in that kind of thing.

We found having our own chalet brilliant with the kids...but there aren't many small chalets. We are thinking about going again next year and the only thing I would do differently is try and find an english run ski school for the children - the esf-group of 20 3 yr olds-mostly french speaking lessons weren't great!

I've come across loads of other children friendly options - esprit and Mark Warner look good. People recommended Scott Dunn but eeeeek soooo expensive! Also I know the owner of this company and it sounds good if you like austria and hotels - http://www.familyskiholidays.com/. Kinder hotels sound good too....

There were a couple of threads on this last year....

http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?29,993205,993205#msg-993205

http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?29,766998,984081#msg-984081

[snowboarder]

And 3 year olds can snowboard...:-)