Where to Ski And Snowboard -

Tour operator childcare

7th October 2009, by Chris Gill

(c) Ski Beat - chalet nursery

In our other family features we have stressed that, in the end, the details of your holiday arrangements may matter more than the choice of your resort. Even in Kitzbühel, there will be lodgings conveniently located on snow, well away from traffic. The aspect of your arrangements where this is most emphatically true is that of childcare. We take account of resort childcare facilities in arriving at our ratings, but we are well aware that the majority of British families wanting childcare prefer to rely on their British tour operator to provide it.

And it makes perfect sense – we’ve done it successfully ourselves, many times – to start by deciding which tour operators you like the look of, and then considering which resorts they go to.

Plugging in to tour operator childcare has many advantages. It isn’t only that you can be confident that your kids will be in the care of trained, English-speaking nannies. It’s also that these operators will usually relieve you of all kinds of burdens – getting kids of skiing age to and from ski school, for example.

Happily, the operators advertising with us include most of the big names in family package holidays, so you don’t need to look any further. And to save you the work, below are lists of the resorts each of them goes to. Note that some of these operators are less specialised in family holidays than others, and don’t have full childcare facilities in every resort.

Esprit Ski Austria: Kaprun, Obergurgl, St Anton; France: Alpe d’Huez, Les Arcs, Chamonix, Les Gets, Méribel, Peisey-Vallandry (Les Arcs), La Plagne, La Rosière, Tignes, Val d’Isère; Italy: Selva. Switzerland: Saas Fee

Family Ski Company France: Ardent (Avoriaz), Les Coches (La Plagne), Les Menuires; Switzerland: Saas Fee

Ski Famille France: Les Gets, Les Menuires

Ski Amis France: Les Arcs, Courchevel, Les Menuires, Méribel, Montalbert (La Plagne), La Plagne, La Rosière, La Tania, Tignes, Val d’Isère, Val Thorens

Ski 2 Italy: Champoluc (Monterosa Ski), San Cassiano (Sella Ronda)

Snowbizz France: Puy-St-Vincent

Mountain Heaven: Montalbert (La Plagne), La Plagne, La Rosière, Les Sept Laux; Switzerland: Grimentz

Premiere Neige Ste-Foy

Most of these operators are focused on catered chalet holidays. (If that doesn’t mean much to you, check out our feature on Luxury chalets, which includes an explanation of this uniquely British concept.)

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• families
• tour operators
• childcare

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