Easter Ski Holidays

Well the Easter ski holidays were once again a great success with the gods blessing most resorts with fresh snow, and cold nights with sunny days. Most resorts were therefore doing a brisk sale on rooms with the larger luxury ski resorts pretty much full as family skiers and ski weekenders headed for the high altitude resorts.

So if you didn't get away for that late ski the last Easter ski break, you might not want to miss out on the 2011 Easter ski!

Ski In Ski Out

If you are searching for a luxury ski chalet, if we really are talking luxury, should it be anything other than a ski in ski out chalet? After all, how can having to climb into a vehicle or walking down icy roads be described as luxury? Certainly the first time I experienced a ski in ski out chalet, it was an awakening tat after I never looked back or booked anything other than a ski in ski out chalet afterwards. A similar experience to about ten years ago when I was in Mammoth, an ex-pat friend kept running down a heavily snow ridden path, much to our bemusement, just to jump into hot bubbling water before ten minutes later running back again! Being American's with only ten days holiday a year, they disappeared on Monday when after they left we plucked up the courage to try this 'hot tub' thing for ourselves! Ever since, chalet with a hot tub please! Oh, and make sure it's ski in ski out too!!

Luxury Ski Resorts

In our opinion, luxury chalets go hand in hand with luxury ski resorts, as there is no point having one without the other. So what constitutes a luxury ski resort. Opinions here ill of course vary, but in my opinion the criteria needs to be something on the lines of:

1. High altitude skiing (piste skiing above 3,000m)
2. Extensive skiing throughout the ski region
3. Great areas for all abilities, and challenging to experts too
4. A great town centre and a good apres-ski too
5. A place to be seen and therefore frequented by the rich and famous for its great restaurants and boutique shopping

So on this basis, which European resorts would get my luxury ski resorts label:

1. Chamonix
2. Courchevel
3. Meribel
4. St Anton
5. Val d'Isere
6. Verbier
7. Zermatt

So there we are, seven luxury ski resorts to choose from!

Family Chalet

Many parents embarking on a family ski holiday, may feel that with the children its the end of the luxury catered chalets, and time to move down market! Well why should you? Many luxury catered chalets offer great family ski service, have outstanding facilities to keep all family ages entertained, and when you assess what is you are getting with a luxury catered chalet, and what lesser chalets offer, the the luxury catered family chalet is typically the better value for money choice (hence the richer chalet operators are operating at the lower end - 'pile them high ship them out').

So we would suggest you don't downgrade, you just show your family a better class of chalet!