Booking with a travel agent?

Fellow parent & Little Skiers customer, Geoff Caddick, has some interesting thoughts on booking your ski trip independently.....

Why not do an exercise to comapre what you can do yourself versus what the travel agents and ski comapnies offer? The hard works is up front in researching putting together a package but this can be fun.

The rationale: If you hate sitting on coaches that often linger at airports waiting for several groups to arrive on different flights and then throw your children around on mountain roads when they do set out, often with dire alimentary consequences .... and .... the flights being offered are leaving UK at ungodly hours....... and you arrive at a resort where half of France is in residence for a with with prices set to match the pockets of rich Russian oil tycoons.... then you might want to look at ski trains or even fly drive via airports with scheduled flights. You could be surprised by how good a deal you can get on car hire and airline tickets. Plus there are some real little hotel gems out there. I own up to having limied experience of catered chalets as they seem to focus primarily on afternoon cake baking versus real food provision!

Admittedly it helps if you speak a little of one or two languages but European tourist offices are very helpful and usually cater for UK mon-glots. Plus there are some great ski resorts guides available from your local book shops and the tour operators web sites are often useful if read carefully and sceptically, especially when they say that the resort caters for all abilities. Always review the piste maps carefully!

I have booked ski holidays this way for the last few years and really love working to a more relaxed and family specific agenda. This is especially useful - if like me - you have 4 children and on-line booking tools don't cater well in terms of detailing hotel family rooms.

The other big plus is you can target smaller resorts with less ski traffic and more local charm if you wish.

Again, this is something I do based on ski guides and mini "reccies" of different areas when at a neighbouring resort.

In summary, I would say that this DIY strategy is worth exploring if you have the time and drive and you are willing to go beyond the single single booking transaction that gets you into an all found package in the mainstream resorts.

Good Luck!