A multi-family ski holiday in Les Menuires

Alison from the Peak Retreats team headed to Les Menuires for a multi-family ski holiday in April 2026. Find out why Les Clarines was a standout accommodation, what it’s like to ski in the 3 Valleys and her insider tips. 

At some point when we’re away, someone in our multi-family group will say that wherever we are skiing that year is their favourite resort. On our Easter holiday trip to Les Menuires, it felt like someone said this to me every day, with everyone citing different reasons.

Putting aside recency bias, there was definitely a lot of love for Les Menuires and the 3 Valleys. Was this the ideal destination for a multi-family adventure now that most of our children were now teens and young adults? 

As families, we’ve skied together every year since the littlest in our group were in Piou Piou (aged 3). We started in Val Cenis, fell in love with La Rosière, thrived in Montgenèvre, made the most of both sides of Paradiski staying in Les Arcs and La Plagne, and headed off the beaten track to the lesser-known and under-valued resort of La Toussuire in the Maurienne valley’s Les Sybelles ski area. As our group’s skiing developed, the world’s largest lift-linked ski area seemed like a natural next step. 

Why the 3 Valleys and why Les Menuires?

• 600km of slopes to explore
• A variety of terrain offering something for everyone
• Affordability – Les Menuires is a great value base
• Lots of blues and greens in Les Menuires at resort level
• Gondola access to mountain restaurants for non-skiers and a way down for tired legs

Getting to Les Menuires

We chose to take the Eurotunnel and drive down to Les Menuires. Eurotunnel’s FlexiPlus service means you don’t need to worry about arriving for a set departure, as long as it’s on the day you’ve booked to travel. 

With unpredictable traffic that is a godsend. We like the flexibility driving gives us to stop en route when we want to, explore another part of France on the way home and bring everything we need.

It also means we can pick up food for the week in a supermarket in the valley before heading up to resort. We stopped at Intermarché in Albertville, which had everything we needed and happened to have a Decathlon almost next door where my son picked up some bargain Salomon ski boots in their end-of-season sale too! 

Our Les Menuires accommodation 

We had picked Les Clarines for its location and facilities. The residence has an indoor pool and a wellness area with saunas and steam rooms that we make good use of. 

We liked the fact that you could walk out of the boot room along a short path and be on the slope. Turn left and you walk up a short way to get the Preyerand bubble the short 3 minute journey to La Croisette (the resort centre where ski lessons start and the shops and bars are). Turn right and you can ski a gentle blue down to the Bettex lift. It’s about a 8 minute ski but a great warm up for the legs. From the top of the Bettex lift, you can take the green Violette slope into La Croisette. Having both options was great. 

The apartments are comfortable and spacious with good storage. Our two-bedroom apartment had a wardrobe-style storage cupboard in each bedroom, coat hooks (never underestimate how handy these are!) in both bedrooms and in the hall, and a cupboard in the hall too. Plus, storage under the TV unit and in the coffee table if you needed it.

The layout of the property means that there are a few apartments on each internal corridor and then covered but not enclosed stairways, where the lifts also are, from where you can go down to reception, the car park and the boot room. We liked having just a few apartments on our little corridor (and it helped that two of them were our friends!). 

The reception team was excellent. They couldn’t do enough to help with little questions. When reception is open (so until 8pm most evenings), this is where you’ll find a pool table (2 euro a game) and a nice area with sofas to relax. They had a huge range of books you could borrow too, and games, and a nice area for children to play in the corner with a range of toys. 

The skiing in the 3 Valleys

Over the years we’ve found our ski rhythm and smaller groups naturally form within our bigger group. This year we had fewer children in ski school, as they have either finished all the levels or wanted more free skiing time. This did mean that, unlike other years, we didn’t all have a reason to gather at the end of ski school for a drink and morning debrief.

We still knew where everyone would be for a picnic lunch in the resort centre, and that allowed us to catch up mid-ski day if we wanted to.

The one downside that was cited to the ski area was that it is so large, you don’t naturally bump into others on the slopes in the same way we found ourselves doing in say La Plagne. However, that was scrapping the barrel to find a negative!  

Ski school

Although my family didn’t book a week of group lessons this year, as we have every year so far, with such a large ski area, we really wanted some pointers on the best slopes and areas we should check out during the week, and a few technique-refining tips. We booked a private 2-hour “lesson” through Peak Retreats with the ESF French Ski School and this was ideal.

As a family, we gained a little refresher, which helped our skiing, as well as advice on where to ski, our instructor’s favourite slopes and a mini-tour of the local area. This was a great introduction to the ski area and a brilliant start to the week. 

Beginners

Les Menuires’ local area is particularly good for beginners. There are a number of green slopes and a range of wide gentle blues to progress to. There was a magic carpet just up from where you joined the slopes from Les Clarines, which provided an opportunity to practice skills close to our apartments, which was handy. The local ski area has a huge number of runs in and around the resort, which tended to be clear even when visibility higher up was impacted, giving beginners plenty of options. 

Intermediates

As intermediate skiers, we loved the variety that the 3 Valleys offers. If you wanted to, you could cruise the whole area on blues. On days when there was snow falling and a serious lack of visibility on the links over the other valleys, there are lots of blues in resort just above La Croisette and down to the Bettex, meaning there is plenty to ski. 

The new Pointe de la Masse area is excellent. We headed up on the new gondola after a snowy morning and stopped at the lively bar/restaurant at the top for a coffee after the obligatory photo with the Les Menuires sign! The atmosphere was great, with friendly staff and good music, which set us up for our ski down.

The visibility at the top was variable, but as soon as we got a little lower, the views were incredible. There's a choice of a blue, red or black from the top, and a fun natural snow park (the ‘Friendly Natural Park’) half-way down. There’s almost 1000m vertical before you need to take another lift and it was lovely to be able to ski down together with my friends and our 16-year-old daughters.

With clear skies for the second half of our week, we loved skiing over to the different valleys. We headed to Méribel, via the St Martin express, enjoying the views from the start of the blue Jerusalem run before taking Choucas and Gelinotte down into Meribel Centre. Choucas was a blue you could have done over and over and found a different route down each time, it was wide with undulating sections where you could add as much challenge as you wanted.

From Méribel, we skied over to Courchevel. Blues like Creux were stunning. After a wallet-defying, but very chic and obviously essential, stop for a drink and a crêpe, we skied back via Méribel and our favourite easy run back to Les Menuires, Gros Tougne. We loved the wide Pluviometre blue from the top of the Mont de la Chambre lift down into Val Thorens, with some slightly steeper sections, it offered a bit more of a challenge. 

On our final day, we headed over to Val Thorens to check out the new Cime Caron area at 3200m. The new gondola to the summit is impressive and the views from the top are extraordinary, no matter which way you look. There’s a café with a terrace at the top and some ingenious ski lockers which lock using your lift pass, as well as a shop, wine bar and restaurant. We stopped on the terrace and enjoyed a drink and frites in the sunshine. You can come up as a pedestrian and get the gondola back down again, which makes this experience really accessible. 

Expert

My son is a great skier and he and the other more experienced skiers in our group definitely made the most of the 3 Valleys. There are superb challenging blacks and just such a lot of kilometres to explore. He highlighted the Chanrossa black above Courchevel and some fun terrain around Meribel Mottaret, including the aptly named Bumpy Fun Speedy Run. 

On our final day, whilst we made our way to the top of Cime Caron, he headed in the opposite direction to Signal all the way at the other end of the ski area above Courchevel Moriond. His aim was to ski to Cime Caron, meet us there, then over to Orelle, so he could have done the whole width of the ski area in one day. He loved the freedom that he had to ski across different valleys, terrain and resorts, all in one day. 

The food in Les Menuires

Self-catering

As we were self-catering and driving, we were able to pick up most of our shopping for the week in Albertville in a large supermarket. For fresh produce, we found a good choice of mini-markets in Les Menuires. Easily accessible from our apartments were two Sherpas (one about a 3 minute walk) and a well-stocked Carrefour Market (in La Croisette), which even had good vegan options. 

For breakfast, we took advantage of the bread delivery service available through reception. You just have to order by 7pm each day and your bread/croissants/pastries are delivered by 8am the following morning to your apartment door! We had called before we arrived as we weren’t sure if we’d be arriving after reception closed; when we did so the receptionist asked us if we wanted to order bread for Sunday, so we didn’t miss out! The reception team really were great; thoughtful and helpful. 

Lunch on the slopes

We love picnics on the slopes; it means you don’t miss out on too much skiing time, it’s really cost effective and gives you an excuse to stop for a coffee and snack mid-morning/mid-afternoon (or both!). We thought the picnic areas across the 3 Valleys were excellent. Indoor facilities for when the weather wasn’t so good, were excellent with clean toilets, vending machines, plenty of space to sit and even a microwave and glove warmers in some. 

Round of applause to Méribel for their excellent outdoor picnic areas with wooden benches, soft play style blocks to sit on, and practical racks for skis, just behind each bench. 

In Courchevel, we stopped at the Tremplin for crepes. We found the drinks and frites at Cime Caron were good value considering the location. Le Comptoir and Le Stihl were popular stops at the end of skiing in La Croisette in Les Menuires. 

Dinner in Les Menuires

We always try to organise one group dinner during the week. This year, there were 29 of us for dinner and we were recommended to try Le Bistrot des Cimes. This is the restaurant within the Coeur des Loges property in Les Menuires, that Peak Retreats also features. It was ideal, just 300m from Les Clarines. As we were a big group, we arranged a set menu with a choice of main courses, desserts and a drink, and pre-ordered, which meant service was seamless. It was great value too and the team was brilliant.  

Exploring further afield

On the way home, we always try to visit somewhere different (we’ve explored Lyon, Grenoble, Paris, Reims, Troyes). This year, with less time as GCSE revision loomed, we stopped in Lens, south of Lille and a little bit further to drive to than Reims. It’s off the main motorway route so doesn’t feel like a detour. I’d highly recommend it if you want to break up your journey further north. We ate at a brilliant authentic Mexican restaurant in town, and visited the Louvre Lens, the Paris art museum’s only outpost. 

Final thoughts

Les Menuires was our Goldilocks option in the 3 Valleys, it was just right! It had access to the huge ski area but the resort was a manageable size. Its architecture may not be everyone’s cup of tea but it felt friendly and had a definite charm. Immediately accessible from resort were challenging reds as well a huge range of blues and some comfortable green slopes. There were bars and a lively snow front, but our accommodation was in a peaceful area.

At the end of the week it left us wanting more, as there isn’t time in just one week to explore every part of this vast area. My son skied 274km over the week, that’s not even half of the potential 600km of pistes! We have unfinished business with the 3 Valleys, we’ll be back!