Are ski/snowboard family vacations crazy expensive?
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Anonymous
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My kids love to ski out west and so we try to go a couple times a year. To keep the costs down it helps me to mentally think of these as ski trips and not vacations. We are paying to do a sport - same way other families pay for travel soccer clinics. Here are a few specific tips I use:
1) take advantage of credit card miles. We have a southwest card and a companion pass and are also willing to deal with connections for longer trips to keep the price down. Delta has great DCA-SLC flights but we never take them because they are too expensive. 2) get a cheaper pass. Epic can be a good deal if you like the Vail resorts. I don't so we get the Mountain Collective pass, which is about $750 for adults. Ikon is a good deal if your kids are under 12. Or some mountains have good ideas if you buy ahead - Winter Park for example has a deal with 4 days of lift tickets for $400 - you could combine that with a day at Granby Ranch, which is also about $100/day. 3) Don't stay ski in/ski out - we stay in the Salt Lake City exurbs and drive to the mountain each day - it is less relaxing but much cheaper. If the road to Alta/Snowbird is closed, we ski at Snowbasin that day. if you stay at Winter Park, stay on the access road and park at Mary Jane. 4) We buy and resell used equipment for the kids. Even when we had the Ikon pass we never skied at Snowshoe because the lodging there is pretty expensive and the drive is long so it never seemed worth it, but YMMV. |
Anonymous
It’s going to be more than this. There is no way with lessons for 3 kids. Airfare for 5, big enough place for 5, lift tickets for 5 for 5 days, ski rentals for 5, rental car or shuttle RT for 5. Food for 5. There is just no way. |
Anonymous
| Tip the ski instructors. |
Anonymous
| Yes! |
Anonymous
| Lessons for 3 kids are going to be $600/day, maybe more depending on lesson chosen. If you are military you can get an epic pass for $200/pp for season. That gives you 20% off food on mountain, rentals and lessons. DH is retired military and that is how we can make skiing “affordable”. We get a condo and only eat for a couple of meals. Rest is heat and eat at condo. Car rental through Costco. We have our own gear and until last year flew SW for the free bags. |
Anonymous
| There is a reason that ski vacations are a rich person thing. They are super expensive. |
Anonymous
| We just go to upstate New York or Maine or Canaan valley instead since our kids are little and learning. Way cheaper. When they get older we will do our west for skiing. |
Anonymous
| Yes. |
Anonymous
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Yes most people would spend at least 20k for this type of vacation
This is why I dislike skiing as a hobby |
Anonymous
Cost is one of the main reasons that people ski in the east. Time being the other (if you live in NYC or Boston). If you're willing to go to a less expensive mountain that has little or no lodging onsite, you can save a lot of money. One problem is the amount of research one would have to do. It's a lot easier to just book a package on the Killington or Stowe website and these places are not cheap. The other problem is the conditions. Any week in the east can be a crapshoot, no matter how good the season has been up to that point. Rain or bitter cold can happen any time. |
Anonymous
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Ha. There is literally no way to do that trip for less than 10K. If you need lessons, that blows the budget. For our 3 kids, we waited to go out west until they could ski. Didn't make sense to go before.
I'd start local - Timberline/Canaan Valley is great. Get them skiing and then do the west thing when all can enjoy it. |
Anonymous
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Also you need to buy ski passes in April when they are at the lowest rates. Don't wait until the Fall.
Copper has a great 4 pack with no black outs that you might still be able to get. |
Anonymous
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PP here. I missed the part about “younger kids.” If they’re younger than, say, tweens, and are truly beginner skiers, I wouldn’t spend your money on a ski vacation out west. Lessons out there are astronomically expensive, and the kids likely won’t have the stamina to ski all day, especially given the altitude change at some of the resorts out west.
A better bet would be to go someplace closer and enroll the kids in a few days of ski school so they can learn the basics. My son, now 12, has been on skis since he was 4 years old, but we didn’t take a vacation out west until he was 7 and could pretty confidently ski on intermediate East Coast terrain. Even now when we ski out west, I still enroll him in one day of ski school so he can get his confidence and “ski legs” back, then he skis with the adults for the rest of the trip. I love skiing and am so glad I introduced my kid to it because he loves it too, but it’s definitely not a cheap pastime! Good luck. |
Anonymous
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To echo everyone else, there's no way that's $7500, all in. We used to spend 5 days skiing at Solitude in Utah, which is great for beginners and cheaper than PC, DV, etc. (The one downside is that there are limited restaurants, so you may want to buy groceries for breakfast and some dinners.)
Flights for 5 - $2500 at least. Lift tickets for 5 - ~$2500, probably more. Lodging - 2 BR condo will be ~$3000, at least. You are already at $8k, and that's before transportation,m ski9o school, ski rentals, and food. And this is at the less expensive place. If you go to Park City, these amounts will increase significantly. You shouldn't even bother looking at Deer Valley. My experience is only with the Utah resorts, but I'm sure Colorado, Wyoming, etc. are comparable prices and the snow isn't as good as it is in Utah (ducks). |
Anonymous
| That sounds inexpensive. Last year we spent $6000 for 4 nights in Snowshoe for a family of 4, Dec. 26-30, and we all have our own skis. |