Help us find somewhere for Christmas!

osaddict

Guys, I'm wondering if anyone can help, we're trying to get away over Christmas, however, we've set ourselves a bit of a task to say the least...

1. We want to depart on Friday 28th, so a Friday to Friday week would be ideal, 27th even better but Thur-Thur just isn't going to happen.

2. There's going to be 14 of us - 4 children the rest adults

3. We want somewhere either all of us can stay together or somewhere with perhaps two large places - we're thinking cabins, chalets etc

4. Location - we want snow! - This is a must, the whole 'Christmas' scene if you get what I mean. Ski resorts aren't a necessity by any means, in fact as we'd not be skiing we're looking to avoid the expensive and popular ones, a lesser one would be a strong contender

5. We don't want to travel for ages - i.e. US is out but most of Europe and Scandinavia is cool.

I appreciate this is quite a last min thing we're trying to arrange, and that it's likely to be expensive (however, 1.5k per person is far too much!), it seems the dates are a major sticking point.

Why so late? Well, it's just a last min decision to be honest! - Firstly for my 30th, the day before we'd like to go, and because as a family we've had a difficult year so all being together like this, especially for NYE will be nice and something different.

Suggestions greatly appreciated - I've spent so long scouring the Internet for places I'm going crazy, as I say, the dates, Fri-Fri seem to be the largest bone of contention.

Shimrod

What is the overall budget? Have you considered looking for a large house in Scotland or the north of England as an alternative, or are you set on going abroad? What do you want to do during the day? I ask because you mention Scandinavia but over the new year the actual hours of daylight are going to be quite short - as little as 4 hours depending on location.

richardw

Where are you in the UK?

Can you do thur-wed?

Or Sat-Fri, 6 nights?

osaddict

What's the overall budget? Well we've resided ourself to the fact it's going to be more expensive than a week in St. Ives, Cornwall or a cheap package to a hot place, as we've not even found anywhere we hadn't really considered budget.

The sat-sat weeks in the Neilson books we have are about 1k per person, which I admit we gasped at so we'd certainly be looking for less than that.

The only reason we opted for non-UK is guaranteed snow that would have the full Christmas feel, the only places in the UK with guaranteed snow (is that even possible) would be very remote in Scotland, with nothing going on as far as I can tell.

I'd not thought about such short daylight times in those locations, I guess that's certainly something to consider!

UK - we're in London/Essex/Sussex so we'd be best using Gatwick or Stanstead airport.

Could we do Thursday to Wednesday? Certainly, this is actually BETTER but I gave up on such an odd week!

Sat-Fri would be okay for me but no good for some others - someone has to return to work New Years day I believe!

Thanks for the responses guys, I'm seriously starting to doubt we're going to be able to sort this!

uk_american

How about the Harwich overnight ferry to Esbjerg, Denmark, and then exploring Denmark?

Ice-skating on Denmark's largest outdoor skating rink. Skating there is free, so very MSE if you bring your own skates. :money:

Denmark is flat though, so more for cross-country skiing perhaps, or if you have beginner skiers in your group.

madvixen

How about Switzerland? Easy Jet fly from Gatwick to Basel daily and if you went Thursday to Wednesday then the flights would be around £200 each. From Basel you have lots of ski resorts within a 2hr drive. It might be worth looking at

osaddict

I think the problem with Switzerland would be twofold - firstly finding a chalet type place that's not Saturday-Saturday and secondly that it's very expensive generally - on TripAdvisor someone said that even Lidl in Switzerland is about 80-100% more expensive than in say Austria or something!

Denmark, not somewhere we'd considered to be honest, I'm guessing you can't get the whole chalet in the snow type deal on the go here though?

richardw

I doubt you'll find a tour operator that'll suit your requirements, so you could consider a DIY trip, something like http://www.snow-forecast.com/maps and local websites like http://www.ledevoluy.com/hiver/en/accomodation.html may help

osaddict

I think I've resided myself to that fact, which isn't a massive issue, just requires more research - we do the same every year for Cornwall or last year for Biarritz in SW France... still not found anywhere either available OR not Sat-Sat in the places I've looked, which was fairly quick at lunch to be fair - France and Austria mainly.

Thanks for the links, I'll check those out

Shimrod

osaddict wrote: »

I think the problem with Switzerland would be twofold - firstly finding a chalet type place that's not Saturday-Saturday and secondly that it's very expensive generally - on TripAdvisor someone said that even Lidl in Switzerland is about 80-100% more expensive than in say Austria or something!

Denmark, not somewhere we'd considered to be honest, I'm guessing you can't get the whole chalet in the snow type deal on the go here though?

Cost seems to be coming up as a major consideration, so I'll suggest Scotland again! While you might not be guaranteed snow, there is likely a good chance you will get it. Here's an example of what you can get http://www.lhhscotland.com/property?id=2357L and it will work out a lot cheaper than going abroad. Flights Gatwick to Aberdeen would be around £130

richardw

Somewhere snowy without ski slopes may be cheaper, not sure where that is though.