The recent heavy snowfall has made many of us think about this years ski holidays and and here at Chalet Ski Holidays we seen a significant increase in enquiries and bookings. It is just our clients that  with falling snow, the temptation becomes just too great and being a family of four and limited to term dates we realised we had to get a move on or miss out on the family ski holidays for 2016/17. Do here’s whee we are heading:

Christmas and New Year Ski Holidays 

Our children have a biase towards Chamonix having gone to school there and for Christmas and New Year it was therefore the natural choice. The skiing and snowboarding is challenging, but being high altitude it as snow sure as it gets and the town centre just oozes atmosphere around the festive season.  If you haven’t been it is must visit resort for its historical architecture and buzzing resort centre.  The vast array of boutique and mountain shops also provide great last minute opportunity for presents too.

Close to the town is the ski area of Brevent and Flegere. Beginners and intermediates however may however appreciate the delights of the satellite ski resort of Les Houches, or for real commandos and experts there is Argentire!

Half-Term Ski Holidays – 3Vallees Merribel

So, having dealt simply with Christmas and New Year on the basis of tradition,  our next dilemma was the half-term ski holidays. Despite the children’s pleas we were adamant we needed a change (sorry Chamonix) and were going to do something different.

Half-term ski holidays are invariably a busy time on the slope as it generally coincides with a other European school holidays too. We therefore wanted a large ski area and somewhere that we could enjoy a variety of skiing and if necessary go off-piste to get away from the main crowds.

The Portes du Soliel was one option and is a fabulous family ski destination, but being geared more to beginners and intermediates, and with limited off-piste too, we eventually crossed it off (but is a great half-term ski destination for many). Verbier was also mentioned but with one of Director’s owning a luxury ski chalet there it wasn’t somewhere new and different for the children (although it ticked all the boxes). St Anton the parents love, from what we remember between the hangovers, but the children are a couple of years off the party scene (phew) and so that we thought was one for another time. Zermatt is also a firm favourite of ours but along with Cervinia was always our November ski destination so it didn’t get to the short-list stage either.

Finally we were down to two ski areas, Espace Killy (Tignes and Val d’Isere) and the 3Vallees (Courchevel, Meribel, Val Thorens, La Tania and St Martin-de-Belleville). What a choice, and if you haven’t skied either ski region you really are missing out – make one a priority at the next opportunity, you won’t regret it. Both ski areas offer great skiing on and off-piste with the 3Vallees being by far the largest, although the 300kms plus of skiing for the Espace d’Killy area isn’t small either. The 3Vallees is probably more geared for mixed abilities whereas Espace Killy more towards intermediates and experts, but with some beginner skiing nevertheless.

So which did we decide – Meribel in the 3Vallees. A close call but with 600kms of piste left and right, huge amounts of off-piste it has to be one of the finest ski areas in the world and a great family ski destination. 80% of the runs are reds or blues but there are alo plenty of blacks and lots of off-piste to explore too.

Easter Ski Holidays

So, all we have left is the Easter ski holidays to address. High will probably be best but we are undecided, in fact, we’ll leave this one for you to suggest…….

If you haven’t booked your chalet ski holidays yet then why not contact the team on 0117 362 0100 today for some great ski destinations and deals.