My sister and brother in law have just arrived in PC for a 4 week ski holiday, their first with kids (ages 6, 8 and 11). She is absolutely gutted at the full day prices. They have season passes but are still up for $630/day to put all three kids in ski school. That's over $4000 a week, OUCH!

So my question (on behalf of sis)is....are there any other choices, third party operators, ski bums looking for quick cash etc etc etc??

Any thought appreciated!
Cheers
Stumpy

Is the 11 year old up to skiing with them?

Yes, they pretty much all are, but sure the 11 year old (girl) is!

Well, that should cut down the costs by 1/3. Isn't that why you teach kids to ski, so that you can enjoy the day when they become your skiing companions?

They are there for 4 weeks Teckel. My post is sincere!!

I'd find a Nanny that will take the kids skiing.

http://www.care.com/park-city

Depending on how well the 6yr old skis you might want to put them in a few lessons.

There are not any 3rd party ski school operators in Park City. You may be able to find some local/ski bum to look after them for most of the time on the slopes, maybe post on craigslist and do some skype calls to arrange it?

You're probably not going to get an off-duty instructor to do it as any of the three resorts would fire an instructor found to be doing such a on the side deal. Many have been fired there over the years for doing such a thing.

I've got to be honest - I can't believe they booked such an extensive trip and didn't do the research on kid's lesson prices, knowing they would like to put them in !

We spent the last two Christmas' in PC with our two younger kids in tow - they were 7 & 11 the first year we went ( we were there 5 weeks) We loved skiing with our kids and on the odd occasion where I wanted to go hike / ski something a bit more extreme my +1 was happy to ski with the kids.

The only option I can think of is to look for carer in town, but I'm not sure I'd be leaving my 3 young kids on the slopes in the care of someone I didn't know well and who was not a qualified ski instructor. There is a section on the PC website called Snowmamas who are all mums in PC that you can use to help plan a vacation. You could try there? Ask a Snowmama

sums up my thoughts pretty well. plus using ski school in bursts to help improvement, not as every day child care

At first I thought you were joking, but I looked it up and that's about the going rate. So my advice would be the same as luvthabumps - do research first, let your $ make the decision next time and don't go to an overpriced resort. That's about six times the rate of the place I'm going to.

Sorry for the late response - I just got back from park City with some friends who had kids. They hired a private instructor (i.e. not through the ski school) who came to their condo each morning, picked the kids up, and took them out skiing for the day. I'm not sure exactly on the rate but I think it was around $250 per day. I'd do some searching and see whether you can find something similar.

The guy's name was John, he seemed quite nice, apparently he used to be a professional skiier.

I'm glad it worked out for your friends but I'm going to post this just so people know the risks of that arrangement:

- The instructor will have no insurance at all. If they hurt themselves it's possible they could sue, and if they hurt your kids you have no recourse.

- The resorts take a very dim view of this - they call it theft of services and can have the instructor arrested.

- Lift lines - one of the big reasons to get an instructor is to get through the lines, obviously this arrangement does not allow it.

Not saying it's overall a bad thing - one of the resorts I worked at opened late and closed early, so I taught 'privately' on a few occasions with my regular clients at other resorts pre and post season.