With so many ski resorts to choose from, it’s important to find the right one for your family. Luckily, this is where we can help, having visited the best resorts in Europe, I have chosen three resorts that I think are perfectly suited to a family ski holiday in the Alps.

You might want to go skiing as a family to spend time together, enjoy the mountains or sample the excellent chalet catering, however, it is also about creating the love and excitement for your children for skiing or snowboarding that we as adults feel about our next ski holiday or powder run but for your children. Especially when children are young, enjoying an outdoor snow area, having excellent nannies or other children to play with, as well as having a good first ski school experience (which unfortunately many of us don’t have) is the basis for your future ski holidays.

In general I would say there are a few important things to consider:
Travel time
Which resort best suits your needs as a family
Ski schools in resort
Which chalet or hotel to stay in
What other activities are there to enjoy in your chosen resort

Les Gets:

Having travelled on a number of holidays with small children, I would say that there are certainly some resorts that are much better equipped than others. One of my favourites for families is Les Gets, a beautiful, welcoming and relaxed resort that is only an hour and 15 minutes transfer from Geneva airport. Les Gets is a mid-size resort, some chalets offer a driver and you can also walk around with ease, whether this is to hunt down a hot chocolate, visit the ice rink or to get to the ski school meeting points in the morning, it’s easy. Set within the Portes du Soleil ski area, Les Gets is perfectly built for children and beginners, there are numerous green and blue pistes, rolling hillsides and wide runs back to the village centre, a perfect end to a good day’s skiing.

The Chalet Ferme de la Corderie is ideal for families to come home to after a day’s skiing. Your chauffeur will meet you at the bottom of the pistes to take you back to this incredible chalet, where the family can enjoy afternoon tea together by the log fireplace. Alternatively children can relax with a hot-chocolate and a film in the chalet’s cinema room whilst adults might opt for a glass of prosecco in the bubbling outdoor hot-tub taking in the outstanding views.

Within Les Gets there are a number of excellent ski schools to use and many are primarily based in the Portes du Soleil which means they are experts in the area so not only will your children be safe, if you are looking for a guide or to find the best snow at the best time of day they will know where to head to. Easy-learning Ski School Morzine offer private lessons and group lessons for up to seven people. They also offer parent and child ski lessons from the age of three years old, where parents ski free and you can join your child for their ski lesson. Other excellent ski schools based in Les Gets with British speaking instructors are British Alpine Ski School, Les Gets Snowsports, Ongosa and Ecole du Ski Français.

Aside from the excellent choice of ski schools, Les Gets has a family plus accreditation highlighting how perfectly built the resort is for children and for a fantastic family holiday. Not only can you take the children to visit Santa, or go tobogganing within a safe area. There is the Le Grand Cry, a kids only ski area on the mountain, cinema, bowling alley and a number of childcare services.

Meribél:

Onto my next choice for a family-friendly resort, Meribél, a place I love but also the perfect place for a family ski holiday. Whist a little further from an airport than Les Gets, it is just under a two hour transfer from Chambery airport. A beautiful chocolate box resort, spanning from the main resort centre, up to the Morel area with the satellite villages of Meribél Village and Mottaret. There is an incredible amount to do, but it also offers space, peace and quiet as well.

Whilst the resort can be quite spread out, many of the chalets offer driver services to take you to and from the slopes, drop the children at ski school, or in town and so enabling all areas of the resort to be easily accessible. One such chalet offering this service is the 5* Chalet Serendipity. A new and incredibly built chalet set in Meribél Village (a quieter part of Meribél), Chalet Serendipity is perfect for a family holiday. The chalet is ski-in, offering 6 en-suite bedrooms, massage rooms, sauna, heated ski and boot room, private chef, games area, swim spa and concierge service. Lift passes and transfers to and from the airport are included within the price and there is the option of booking a private nanny, giving more flexibility to a family holiday.

Within the main town there are a number of child friendly restaurants and cafés, as well as a swimming pool, an ice rink with weekly ice hockey matches, bowling, a child only ski area, adventure park, crazy golf and hot air ballooning. There are also some mountain restaurants that are accessible to pedestrians.

Oxygene is one of the best ski schools in France and is particularly family focused, offering child and adult lessons both privately and for groups from three years. This ski school also offers children‘s lunch clubs with healthy and yummy energy filling lunches. There are a plethora of nanny and childcare services to use for example Merinannies have been around for a number of years and offer first class childcare. Snowbugs, Purely Meribel and Sno to name a few childcare services, there is no shortage of choice.

Samoëns:

Finally I wanted to mention the resort of Samoëns in the Grand Massif, a less famous resort however an excellent place in its own right for a family ski holiday. Just an hour from Geneva it is popular with families and those looking for an easy transfer. You can expect more than just a standard traditional ski resort,  Samoëns is a historic and beautiful town that is part of the Grand Massif ski area with easy access to the 265 km of pistes and runs reaching up to 2,500m altitude, many of the slopes are north facing so it is an excellent place for a snow-sure Easter ski holiday.

The main drawback to Samoëns is that you are not able to ski back into the village, however Club Med Grand Massif Samoëns Morillon, a family-friendly French hotel offers the first ski-in ski-out all-inclusive hotel in Samoëns. A beautiful 4* hotel built into the mountain, it offers an all-inclusive holiday, not just with meals, snacks and drinks but also with your lift passes and ski school being included and also with childcare from four to seventeen years old. The hotel has an incredible heated indoor and outdoor swimming pool, spa, fitness school and, for those not wanting to ski all day, walking and hiking activities.

A truly family-friendly hotel, there is ‘on demand’ Baby Club Med offering childcare from four months to 23 months and Petit Club Med offering childcare for two to three year olds. Babysitting, a welcome package for babies from birth to 23 months, baby corner, a baby feeding and equipment room as well as snow garden just highlights how well designed this property is for all families.