UKC

Just looking for a family holiday in France in March for a week in self catering.

Can't find anything less than £500 each? Usually pay around the £300-£350 mark.

What's going on? Sorry if this has been posted before, I couldn't see any other threads...

In reply to Tris:
We always drive and self cater. Nowhere near £500 each! Is this plus lift passes etc too?
My budget:
Eurotunnel - free with Tesco vouchers
Tolls - £140 return
Petrol - £300 total
Rent - nothing, own apartment but the company we rent it through do them to public for about £350 a week mid-late March
So, about £800 all in.
Ski passes are about £150-170 a week for Val Cenis (and hardly ever a queue)

In reply to marmot hunter:

That's a slightly fatuous answer. Assuming a family of four at your costs:

Fuel: £75
Tolls: £35
Pass: £170
Rent: £100 (assuming slightly higher for a wider choice of dates)
Food: £40 (guessing but it will quite hard to do it for much less)
Eurotunnel: £50 (assuming £199 per car which seems to be the going rate on their website and no tesco vouchers)

Total: £470 so around the £500 mark!

To the OP - I always reckon on about £500pp for a ski holiday - hadn't noticed this years prices are particularly high but I haven't looked in earnest yet. It's a bloody expensive hobby!

In reply to marmot hunter:
I understand where you are coming from. I actually live in North Wales and own where I live. I can't understand why people say its expensive to come here on holiday.

I wish I cold bring myself to shop at Tesco so I could get free Eurotunnel whenever I wanted though.....

In reply to Andy Say:
Funny enough looking at hol accomm for Feb half term - N Wales isn't massively cheap but it is cheaper than the Lakes.
Now, if you could just sort winter weather out to be properly wintery! Even the Brenin has upped sticks for the winter season nowadays!
When I was a lad you could do a 'real' winter course in January at the Brenin!

In reply to Fickalli:
fuel £300, tolls £140. Rent £300 = £740 divide 4 = under £200.
Food - well I eat at home so don't count that in much.
Ski passes lessons, kit hire - the OP doesn't mention whether he/she includes that in £500 budget.
To expect a family of 4 to ski all in for £2k is a tall order!
Cheap Ski Holiday - it is probably an oxymoron!

In reply to marmot hunter:

No, I agree. I wish I could find the £350 deals the op has had previously!

I was just saying that the costs you put in your first post (assuming that the op doesn't have a ski apartment) were almost £500 anyway!

What's the skiing like at your place? I hadn't heard of it before so had a look on google and it looks good but a bit small. Is there plenty to go at year after year?

In reply to Tris:

I found this in about 8 seconds £289pp in March in Chamonix: http://www.directski.com/ski/france/chamonix/la_reviere?searchType=package&...

As for skiing getting more expensive, I havent noticed anything specific this year. Avoid switzerland is the only thing I would say, the exchange rate is appalling, a week to Zermatt last year cost £1700 all in, I particularly winced at the £360 lift pass. Then a month later I went to Morzine and stayed in a half board hotel and the trip cost £800 all in. Pick resorts carefully!

In reply to Richard Horn:

We use Direct-ski every year. They're cheap.

In reply to Fickalli:

I think you greatly underestimate the toll costs. I few weeks ago I drove down through France, Italy and Croatia and back again, plus side trips, and (not having done this for a few years) I was amazed at how expensive the tolls were - about twice the fuel cost. (I have a very economical Golf diesel, which averaged 58 mpg at between 120 and 130 km/h).

I paid for most of the tolls by credit card, some by cash (in France), which is NOT included in the following analysis. Checking my Barclaycard, on my return, I found that I had used it exactly 30 times to pay for road tolls alone, at a total cost (converted from Euros and Kunos into pounds) of 843.28 pounds over a 5000 mile journey (not including the cash thrown into some peage's in France).

Tolls on the outward journey cost: France 134 GBP, Italy 170 GBP, Croatia 160 GBP

On the return the tolls cost: Italy 109 GBP, France 262 GBP (the latter being the toll cost of the entire journey along the French Riviera to Nice, then almost to Marseille, and then the whole way up to Calais.)

In reply to John Stainforth:

Yep, tolls are fairly painful, but the stress levels are so much lower than on the motorway in the UK. Last trip from Chamonix (Nov) cost approx 75 Euros to Calais each way, roughly a tank of fuel.
The only saving grace is the more favourable exchange rate at the moment.

In reply to John Stainforth:

They weren't my costs! I was pointing out to the guy who had put them up that his 'cheap' option of driving and self-catering was virtually the same as a package deal. I drove UK - Andermatt - Tignes - UK in the summer and had a similarly horrendous toll bill when I got back. Close to £230 I think.

In reply to Tris:

It may be that holiday companies are cutting back on supply in order to ensure they make a profit as they got burned a bit in the last few years. To be honest, you are leaving it a bit late to book and get a bargain.

When in March? French school holidays are spread out across the country and I think the last one finishes on 17th March, so after then you will obviously benefit from lower season prices.

Let's face it, ski holidays will never be 'cheap'.

In reply to yorkshireman:


Or, having missed the early deals, are doing it a bit soon. The year my younger child was tiny we didn't book much in advance because we weren't sure it'd be worth trying to ski with two small kids in tow. By maybe late Feb/early March, there were odd cheap deals - we picked up a package to a big resort for 2 adults, 2 children for under £1000 by flying from a particular airport (it looked like they'd booked a second plane on the route and were struggling to fill it - it'd have been £100s more from any other airport).

In reply to Fickalli:

Sounds a bit high - UK-Alps usually only about €70. Were you in a van?

Tolls aren't cheap, but they're just part of the cost of motoring. I pay about €150 a month on tolls and I'm hardly a road-warrior sales rep.

Use this site to plot your journey and it will factor in the toll cost - http://www.viamichelin.co.uk

In reply to marmot hunter:

Yeah - I have started driving now too. I am looking on behalf of my parents who don't like the long drive. We go out for longer and they meet us in the second week.

This is just the standard package deal - flights (from MCR), transfer and self catering accom.

In reply to Richard Horn:

Many thanks for the link, the prices seem to be almost half of these ones I tried:
Igluski/Neilson/Inghams/Crystal/Thomson

Bizarre!

In reply to yorkshireman:

I included the Mont Blanc tunnel.

Thanks for the useful link.

In reply to Anonymous:

I agree with all of that. Another saving grace is that fuel costs are slightly cheaper than in the UK and diesel is cheaper than petrol, unlike in the UK.

In reply to Tris: I'm off to cervinia in april ; flights £330, studio apartment £260, car hire £150. For 3 people.
Quite cheap, although no lift passes included.

I can offer you a six person appartment for €350 for the week if it'll help. Twelve minutes drive to the nearest ski resort http://www.risoul.com/

Details on http://www.alpineaccomodation.com

In reply to yorkshireman:

Touring can be cheap.

Fuel: £75
Huts: £200 (assuming hut a night at E50 and 4 nights in huts/ 5 days touring)
Eurotunnel: £50 (assuming £199 per car which seems to be the going rate on their website and no tesco vouchers)

Total £325 (though I always drink too much in the huts which sends the price up!)

Heading through Germany to Austria saves on toll roads.

In reply to Fickalli:

Depends, the skiing tends to be very quiet, so is the night life, suits us perfectly! Gentle green run from the col is 10km long - beginners get to really ski a 'route' down the mountain!
A week's worth of reds/blacks I imagine. We tend to ski a lot off piste and tour (usually day tours) so use lifts to save a lot of skinning, lazy touring!
The North of the valley is a National Park so it is totally unspoilt - perfect touring and snow shoeing. Add in the other valley resorts and there's lodas to go at, the Eski-mo pass allows a lot of skiing around the valley. Bonneval sur Arc is a good day too - up to 3000m. Half an hour down the valley 9in a car) is the Orelle lift linking to Tignes too.

In reply to Tris:

Ski holidays have been expensive for the last 4 years IMO.
I haven't been for 3 years for this reason as I couldn't justify spending so much for a week, especially when we kept getting piss poor snow conditions wherever we went, even when we went to very high resorts like val thoren.
Also, Self catering is a bit of a con unless you are travelling in by car. Food and drink prices are so inflated in the resorts that you either spend like a king or eat like a pauper, even if you are tight/frugal and take all the basics possible with you in your suitcase.