Family Holidays: Saas Fee family skiing holidays

Take the Family holiday rating 4 stars out of 5

Why

Saas Fee is a pretty mountain resort in Switzerland. It’s a characterful car free resort, so incredibly child friendly. Its also a good option throughout the whole ski season, up to and including the Easter break, so you don’t need to worry about all the snow disappearing before you arrive. Generally kids start to enjoy skiing from about 5 onwards, but some children start as young as two. Crèches are available if the ages of your kids differ too sharply.

Top left: Eispavilion
Top middle: Snowboarder
Top right: Snowy Peak

Bottom left: Mountain Top
Bottom right: Village at Sunset

When

The ski season typically starts around 15 December, and runs until around 24 April. The dates at the beginning and end of this period are rather less reliable in terms of snow cover. The most popular time to travel with children is the February half term week, so it is always necessary to book very early for these dates.

How

take the plane

There are direct flights from Heathrow to Sion every Saturday, and it is just a one hour transfer on to Saas Fee from there. If you are not in London, there are regular flights to Geneva from many airports, and a three hour transfer on arrival.

Do

Ski – you go on this kind of holiday to learn to ski. The instructors are English speaking, so no problems there.

Winter hiking – there are over 20km of prepared routes that are easy to do with children.

Other sports – Saas Fee has an icerink and swimming pool, as well as all the other things you can do in the snow. There’s lots of scope for sledging as well.

The revolving restaurant at Mitelallalin is well worth a visit, although it does get very busy as you would expect.

Eat

Most hotels offer half board. It is great not to have to worry about cooking after a tiring day on the piste. Alternatively, there are lots of other restaurants if you fancy a change.