When I ask people how much they spend on their family ski holidays, they reply with amounts between £3500 and £6000 – gasp!
For families who have never been skiing before, this price tag may immediately put them off. But it doesn’t have to be this expensive… you can find a cheap family ski holiday for much, much less!
I’m going to share the complete cost breakdown of our super cheap family ski holiday in 2019 to show you that taking your family skiing doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg!
Our cheap family ski holiday cost less than £1350 for our family of 4 – read the breakdown and you can easily go ahead and replicate exactly what we did!
Inspired? I’ll show you exactly how to replicate our cheap family ski holiday. Click here to find out exactly where to go, what to do and how to do it.
Why you need to go on a family ski holiday!
Skiing with your family is amazingly good fun and the incredibly beautiful snowy mountains are sceneries that you mustn’t miss out on – you have to see them in real life.
If you’ve thought about taking your family skiing but ruled it out because you think it is too expensive, then keep reading. I would hate for you and your family to miss out on such an amazing experience because you think it’s not affordable.
Read more about our recent cheap family ski holiday here.
Can you really find cheap family ski holidays?
Absolutely yes! Even during school half term!
Many people go straight to ski travel operators who deal with popular ski resorts amongst tourists, but this means they come with a pretty hefty price tag.
If you look for ski resorts that are less popular amongst tourists and book it yourself, you can often save yourself more than half the price.
We took our family of 4 to a ski resort in Poland, called Zieleniec Ski Arena during February half term, 2019. We stayed for 5 nights and skied for 4 full days. Click on this link to check out this beautiful ski resort.
The total price of our super cheap family ski holiday including flights, transport, accommodation, ski hire, ski passes and food and drink came to an exact cost of…
£1325.35!!
And that was absolutely everything we spent (apart from some Polish vodka from duty-free of course)!
So, you CAN find cheap family ski holidays – here is our complete cost breakdown:
Total costs for our family of 4
(2 adults and 2 children aged 6 and 2 years old):
Flights (including 20kg checked luggage) – £235.15
Travel (bus and train to and from ski resort) – £28.61
Accommodation (triple room, 5 nights, full board) – £676.82
Ski Hire (ski boots, skis, poles, helmets) – £99.79
Lift Passes (x 3) – £159.47
Food & Drink (après-ski and food whilst travelling) – £125.51
TOTAL COST: £1325.35
Why is Zieleniec Ski Arena in Poland so cheap?
Poland is much cheaper than other European countries and Zieleniec Ski Arena is less common amongst tourists further afield than Poland and neighbouring countries such as the Czech Republic and Germany.
The only downside to this is that English is less commonly spoken but we managed perfectly well with the help of Google Translate. That’s not to say that nobody speaks English and there are definitely English speaking ski instructors.
Booking super cheap flights to Poland
To visit Zieleniec Ski Arena in Poland, you’ll need to book flights to Wroclaw, which is the nearest international airport.
Flights from the UK to Wroclaw are usually really cheap. Our return flights from Manchester to Wroclaw for 4 people including 1 x 20kg checked luggage cost £235.15.
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If you want to know exactly what to pack for your family ski holiday, click here.
You can also download our free ‘Family Ski Trip – Packing List’ by clicking the button below.
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In order to make sure you find the very cheapest flights, try to be as flexible as possible and use Skyscanner to check different dates to fly and different airports to fly from. I have a step by step guide to booking the cheapest flights using Skyscanner here.
The cheapest method of travel to reach your accommodation
Please note: prices accurate at the time of writing and have used the exchange rate of 1 GBP (British Pound) = 4.86 zł (Polish Złoty/PLN) – March 2019
Once you’ve landed in Wroclaw, the cheapest way to get to Zieleniec Ski Arena is by bus from the airport to Wroclaw train station (approximately 40 minutes) and then by train to Duszniki-Zdrój (approximately 2 hours 15 minutes).
Actually there is another cheap method of transport – the ski bus which leaves from Wroclaw train station but it only leaves once a day at 6:30 am, which was far too early for us!
Public transport in Poland is cheap and easy.
The local city bus costs approx. 10 zł/£2 and the train cost us approx. 44 zł/£9 for 2 adults and 2 children, so super cheap. From Duszniki-Zdrój, you can then wait for the ski bus to take you the extra 12 kilometres/7.5 miles to Zieleniec Ski Arena or grab a taxi as we did for 30 zł/£6
The return journey to the airport will cost you the same as coming.
Click here for detailed information on how to do each leg of the journey including how to pay and exactly where to go.
Cheap family ski accommodation
We actually came skiing here last year and stayed in cheaper accommodation but further away from the ski resort in the nearby town of Polanica-Zdrój.
If you don’t want to ski for the whole holiday and would like to explore the nearby towns, then staying in Duszniki-Zdrój or Polanica-Zdrój maybe a good option and cheaper than staying in Zieleniec Ski Arena itself.
Check accommodation in Duszniki-Zdrój (approximately 20-minute drive) by using the Booking.com widget below. From Duszniki-Zdrój, you can catch a ski bus that runs to and from Zieleniec Ski Arena throughout the day.
Check accommodation in Polanica-Zdrój (approximately 30-minute drive) by using the Booking.com widget below:
However, if skiing is purely what you are going for, then you can’t beat staying right on the ski slopes.
We had an amazing stay in the family-friendly hotel – Absolwent Zieleniec on a full board basis for 5 nights.
A triple room with breakfast, lunch and dinner cost us 3289 zł/£676.82 and that also included free childcare – HUGE BONUS!!
This hotel is great because it is right next to the ski lifts, provides 3 hearty meals a day (exactly what you need for skiing), hot drinks throughout the day and free childcare between 3 pm and 9 pm!!
Click on the link below to check out this hotel and search availability. This hotel offers a range of room options including adjoining rooms but if you are struggling to find something to suit your needs, I would recommend emailing them directly at absolwent@zieleniec.pl
I’d also book early to avoid disappointment, hotels near the ski lifts get booked up really early.
Ski hire for the family
There’s no shortage of ski hire shops once you arrive. We hired ski boots, skis, poles and helmets for 2 adults and 1 child (our youngest didn’t ski) and the total cost was 485 zł/£99.79 for 4 days.
Ski passes for the family
There are a number of options when buying ski passes – the table below shows the different options.
Because our youngest wasn’t skiing, it worked out most cost efficient for us to buy 1 adult 4-day pass, 1 child 4-day pass and then a card with 90 points which cost a total of 775zł/£159.47
Zieleniec Ski Arena – Lift Pass Price List
(accurate as of March 2019 – more options are available on the website):
1 Day (adult) – 110zł / £22.64
1 Day (child) – 90zł / £18.52
4 Day (adult) – 330zł / £67.90
4 Day (child) – 265zł / £54.53
30 Points (ski lifts range between 1 and 9 points each) – £45zł / £9.30
200 Points (ski lifts range between 1 and 9 points each) – £250zł / £51.44
Food and drink for the family
We didn’t need much extra for food and drink because we were full board at the hotel. We bought food and drink on the days we travelled to and from Zieleniec Ski Arena and the rest was for après-ski.
Most days we bought hot chocolates for the girls and hot alcoholic drinks for us (mulled wine, hot beer, hot vodka etc) and spent a total of 610zł/£125.51.
Cheap Ski Lessons
We didn’t take any ski lessons whilst we were there but 1-hour in ski school cost 80zł/£16.46.
And that’s the complete breakdown of our super cheap family ski holiday!
Hopefully, you can see that family ski holidays don’t have to be so expensive that you have to rule it out or can’t even contemplate trying it.
Choose a resort like Zieleniec Ski Arena in a country that is cheaper than other European countries and a ski resort that is less well known to tourists.
We love Zieleniec Ski Arena and would highly recommend it for families and people who want to try skiing for the first time.
By using our cost breakdown, you can even replicate our family ski holiday for yourself and the costs shouldn’t be that dissimilar.
I hope you found this useful!
As always, I’d love to hear from you. If you have any questions or can recommend another destination for a cheap family ski holiday, then please leave a comment below.
Gemma x
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