Our Top 5 of Family Friendly Ski Resorts in Switzerland and France!
Skiing gives us energy! Being active, high up the mountain, watching the children progress, and spending time as a family! But where to go?
A family friendly resort, a good ski school, an apartment not too far from the cable car, or from the ski school meeting point. It can sometimes be difficult to find and, searching the internet for it can take quite some time. Reading the experience a family has already had can be helpful, and so I’m sharing our favorite ski resorts with you that we have tried out so far!
1. Grächen, Wallis, Switzerland
We thought Grächen was fantastic! Grächen is a resort that does everything to make families feel welcome. They organize a lot of activities and they have their own town mascot, a snow bird called Sisu, who often comes to visit the children in the special kids’ part of the restaurant on top of the mountain, or on the slopes. There are day care facilities (included in your ski pass!), there is a good ski school with friendly staff, and…. they have a cool cable car which tells you stories as you go up… (in German). In the evening, you can also eat cheese fondue in the cable car.
The car-free town center itself is very cute, and since it is not so big, you can never be too far from the cable car that leaves from the town center.
There is one specific family hotel in Grächen which is known to be very child friendly! You have to be fast though as they fill up quickly.
If this hotel is already booked, then you could give this hotel (with swimming pool!) a try!
2. Les Gets, Haute Savoie, France
One of our favorite French ski resorts and really family friendly!! Les Gets even has two specially designed kids slopes with fun elements. One is the Milka slope (piste Mauve), and the other one is a ski slope with Indian theme.
Watch our video to see what a day of skiing in Les Gets with kids could look like 😉.
Les Gets also offers other activities, particularly during high season. There is an ice-skating rink, and there are real nice restaurants. A restaurant we particularly like is restaurant ‘Le Grand Cry’, up with the cable car, to the left, and you will find it at the bottom of the slopes.
As we mostly go to Les Gets on a day-trip, we do not have a specific recommendation on where to stay, but you can find all the hotels here.
3. Saas-Fee, Wallis, Switzerland
We totally loved Saas-Fee! A typical Swiss mountain village with beautiful sun burnt wooden houses, which is big enough to have supermarkets and all the facilities you would need, but too big to just book an apartment and end up too far away from the ski school meeting point, especially when the kids are still small. In Saas-Fee, it is important to look where you book, but once you are well located, you will have the best skiing holiday!
We very much liked walking through the main street with all its shops and restaurants, and the ski school staff members were really kind! We were there during the Carnaval week and that was quite a happening in Saas-Fee.
We were very happy with the apartment we rented as we could just ski back to the house, and the blue slope was just behind the building.
Another hotel in Saas-Fee which is known to be family friendly, is this one. It has a pool and they organize activities for children.
To see our full article on Saas-Fee:
4. Thyon 2000
We’ve been to Thyon several times already. The slopes are fantastic, and when skiing or in a lift, you will have beautiful views on the Dixence Dam and the Matterhorn mountain top! There are beginners’ slopes, and bigger children will love the Central Park ‘snowpark’. The ski school is great, and we looooove a particular restaurant on the slopes called Restaurant de l’Alpage.
In the winter of 2018 Thyon had a very cool ice cave on its slopes, which was a real nice experience to just ski, stop and visit the beautiful ice sculptures, and continue downhill on your skis again 😊.
For apartments in Thyon 2000, best is to go through the Tourism Office website, as they have the apartments for rent right on the 2000 meters height, which means almost no walking with your kids and their equipment :-). Thyon is really a place where you come to ski, for beginners and advanced skiers. There is not a lot else to do at 2000 meters, and there are no big grocery shops, so if you rent an apartment there, best is to do some meal planning ahead!
5. Les Mosses
We love Les Mosses for several reasons… One of them is the fact that they have relaxing sun loungers everywhere around the small kids slopes, so that parents can sit and watch their little ones go up the magic carpet, and down again…
Another reason Les Mosses is great, is because of the ski card system which works with points. So you do not need to pay for a full day ski pass, if both parents want to ski for a bit separately while the other parent watches the little ones. Also, with little ones you are sometimes not sure they will ski the whole day, so this system of points can actually be a money saver, since they stay valid!
We have had our children in private lessons in Les Mosses occasionally and the ski teachers were nice and helpful.
There are small shops besides the road in Les Mosses. One of them is a ‘Bazaar’ which is really incredible, because in their small space, well, they sell everything! I guess you would have to go several times to really see all they have 😊.
If you are looking to do something else for a change during your holiday: Leysin and its big snowtubing park are close by.
This Hotel is conveniently located on the main road, right in front of the access to the slopes. The access to the slopes is flat for a couple of hundred meters.
We are looking forward to another great skiing season with our kids!
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