Planning for kids

After pretty much extensive planning, which is vital when it comes to traveling with children, we decided to go again to Samoëns of the Grand Massive resort and its surrounding areas of Portes du Soleil. It’s located at a quite high altitude so most of the time offers plenty of snow and additionally is regularly assisted with artificial snowmaking. There are loads of wide and gentle slopes that are perfect for children and their worrying parents who want to ski away from experienced and equally fast skiers and snowboarders.

Samoëns as a little, adorable town doesn’t have big, fancy clothing shops but focuses on promoting its local delicacies and products, that can be bought in various gourmet shops. You won’t find expensive restaurants but you can definitely try some delicious crepes. It has got a few local bakeries where you can always see people lining up to get the most delicious French baguettes, pastries and cakes.

The entire area is very popular with the families. It’s definitely easier for your little ones to learn how to ski as they can and will copy other kids around them. It takes approximately 15 minutes to walk from the town to the Grand Massif Express telecabin and the longest you can wait to get to the top is approximately 30 minutes.

The great thing about Samoëns is that it offers you an easy ski access to four other resorts – Flaine, Morillon, Sixt and Les Carroz.

Ahead of the trip

Planning your family holiday carefully and in advance will guarantee that you won’t take any unnecessary clothes. Traveling on a budget, with only cabin luggage and two kids can be a proper task. However, many years of experience has taught me that for my family - less is always more. Additionally, you save plenty of time on arrival, not having to wait for your extra luggage to arrive.

What I take for kids: two sets of quick dry thermal base layers, one fleece, ski pants, ski jacket, eventually thin gilet bodywarmer, winter snow boots. The same for parents. The positive thing about family ski holiday is that most of the time you don’t dress up and you spend most of the day wearing your ski clothes, even when you go to the restaurant. Most ski holidaymakers are too tired at the end of the day to even think about changing into anything more sophisticated. Hence good quality, quick dry clothing will be enough to get us through the entire holiday. Skiing with kids and carrying all the equipment makes even the most self-conscious parent forget about changing outfits and all you need is comfy and warm. Good quality clothing can be purchased on sale, at the end of the season and is absolutely fine for the next year.

Flights

There are many flights from London to Geneva, which then gives further access to many ski resorts. The next best airport options are Chambery, Lyon and Grenoble. To get a good flight price and find the closest airports to where I live and will stay I used a flights search website take.world. I could select South of London area to the French Alps and managed to book my flights for 2 adults and 2 children quite cheaply - £250.

In general, Geneva airport turned out to be easily accessible with plenty of information on where to go. The only confusing thing is that Monarch flights tend to have their check-in desk at the old Terminal 2 which results in people walking between Terminal 1 and 2 and then after checking-in being transported back to Terminal 1. Nevertheless it’s not an issue and all the staff at the airport were very helpful.

Hire Car

At the airport you can easily rent a car with many companies. It is definitely better to rent it before you arrive at Geneva as then you can be sure the car will be ready for you. All the desks are open till late and you will get detailed instructions on where to collect your car from e.g renting through Thrift car company, you collect it from Hertz etc. For this trip we used autoeurope to get the cheapest car. The whole parking is clearly marked and both collecting and dropping off the car wasn’t a problem.

Having a car rented during your stay has got quite an advantage over booking a transfer. You can easily change on a daily basis your ski resorts, making sure you experience as many slopes as possible. Very close to Samoëns, offering great ski experience, are Morzine and Les Gets, both family-friendly with gentle slopes for beginners but also a few steeper routes for more advanced skiers. Both towns offer many traditional restaurants serving delicious, local food.

If you are tired of skiing and want to change something for one day, you should definitely visit Avoriaz which is only for pedestrians. The only method of transport rather than walking or skiing is by a horse drawn sleigh. The town has the best swimming pool in the region.

The only disadvantage of hiring a car in Geneva is the fact it’s quite expensive as for 7 days we paid £350.

Apartment

My advice is to choose something that suits your family. As mentioned before, skiing makes you really tired and not many people actually go out in the evening, hence renting a chalet far away from any town is absolutely OK. If you drive you can easily reach many various shops like Super U, Carrefour, Lidl, Sherpa and stock up on food. I used homeaway to book the apartment in the town center with 2 bedrooms that cost around £800 for a week.

Shops are usually open from 8-8pm with amazing choice of French cheese, meats and baked products. If you decide to rent something in Samoëns centre you will be spoilt for choice when it comes to entertainment. During the season they offer many family activities e.g discos with free hot chocolate and mulled wine, various games such as hockey, spectacular fire show etc.

Equipment

When it comes to ski equipment I couldn’t stress enough how easy it’s to rent it at a local ski rent. You can again book it in advance, I used skiset, offering many discounts for early bookings. You pick it up when convenient for you and drop it off when you are done for the season. Cost of a family ski rental is about £200 per week.

If anything happens you can always pop over to any other of their shop and adjust or change your equipment, which I did once. What is probably worth mentioning is getting insurance, not expensive but protects the equipment in case of theft or damage. You can then worry free leave it for a little while outside the restaurant when you happily sip on your well deserved hot chocolate.