I want to take family skiing for a week or 2 in Xmas school hols from Brisbane.
Heard USA is cheaper than Canada & Japan.
Don’t want to spend a lot of money.
2 adults & 3 kids all under 12
Anybody been? Know of good deals?
Skiing in the USA at Xmas
LLXE3 on 10/02/2015 - 11:47
closed Comments
Thanks so much Travelwizz. Sounds perfect, probably cheaper than skiing at Perisher! When does the season start?
season starts late November, but often open in October. Season runs til late April.
The above deal is for January 2016 (after 2 January)
Accommodation prices go up around 13 February to late March. Not as cold & Americans often take holidays then.
this is right up our alley.
We get this all the time from people who have skied Australia & NZ & want to go to next step.
There's so much competition in USA that prices are quite inexpensive.
Niseko Japan has been flavour of the month. Myth out there that it's 8 hours to get there.
The fastest way to get from Brisbane to Chitose(CTS) is over 14 hours with a really tight connection in Seoul South Korea, which has you arriving in CTS at 9.30pm, not a good time to arrive.
Canada unfortunately lost it's price advantage over USA, plus now harder, which means costs more to get to Canada.
The fastest way from Brisbane to Colorado is 17 hours (flying to any of 3 airports in Colorado).
For flights Brisbane to Los Angeles nonstop on Qantas departing after Xmas Day eg. 28-31 Dec 2015 or 3-5 January, coming home say 18-23 January, fares start at $1699/adult inc all taxes. Kids under 12 years on day of departure around $1349. You can each earn around 15,000 Qantas ff points + checked baggage allowance is a massive 46kgs each (2 x 23kgs)
Then it's very easy to get a good connection to various Colorado airports using Qantas ff pts (12,000 + $2).
Many people borrow points if they don't have enough, from relatives & pay them back on their return.
If spend less than 24 hours at LAX, then international baggage rules apply.
If stopover in LA for more than 24 hours, you can still get same Qantas ff tickets to Colorado, but you will then have to pay USD$25/checked bag.
Once in Colorado, the choices are endless, BUT the best deals by far, especially for family are at Copper Mt.
Copper Mt is consistently voted THE BEST FAMILY RESORT IN NORTH AMERICA for some very good reasons:-
1) village is compact & very close to lifts. Even the worst location is around 300 metres flat walk to lifts
2) KIDS NIGHT OUT - FREE evening child care to 12 years, when spend $30 in resort that day(per child).
eg. parents could go out to dinner without kids !!!
3) kids under 13 year get FREE lift tickets with adult purchase. Eg. based on 2014-15 standard international prices, a 7 out of 10 day lift pass is USD$336 ($48/day). Goes down to $40/day when you get a 13 out of 17 day lift pass.
With any of these passes 7 day or more, up to 4 kids 13 & under are TOTALLY FREE
get to use a priority lift line, just like a ski school line
get access to main village quad chairlifts, 15 mins before the public in the am (great for those free snow days-get 1st tracks !!!)
FREE cat skiing over on Tucker Mt
large tubing hill at bottom of Super Bee 6 person chairlift
4) FREE buses to other famous resorts like Breckenridge, Keystone & Arapahoe Basin(AP). AP usually opens in October every year.
http://www.outletsatsilverthorne.com/
One of the biggest outlets in USA.
The buses run from very early am to very late pm, every 15 mins at peak times. Check out
www.summitstage.com
Many resorts in Colorado get busy, VERY busy on weekends, but with these lift passes, there are NO Q's ever !!!
How do you get these lift passes ?
You must buy accommodation at Copper at same time as lift passes. This doesn't have to be expensive.
From 3 January 2016 on, a spacious 3 star, 1 bedroom on snow condo sleeping 4 people is from around USD$50/person/night.
Or for around 10% more, you can upgrade to 4 star, or another 10% to 5 star or many other apartment sizes from studios to 6 bedroom monsters.
Of course if you only have 2 people & want a bedroom each & want 5 star, if will cost more.
How do you get from airport to resort ?
We send so many families to Copper Mt we look like chartering coaches every Thu & Sat from 7 to 23 Jan 2016 from Denver Airport to Copper express & back.
These coach charters haven't been finalised yet, but they will be free to those booking with us (minimum spend will apply). Hope to have these transfers finalised in next 3 or 4 weeks.
We will use various coach companies & coaches from 30 to 56 seats.
Or other options are to hire a 4wd from any airport & drop off near Copper Mt.
For more info on Copper go to:-
www.CopperColorado.com but this site is designed for Americans staying for 2 or 3 days, whereas more Australians stay for 2 to 3 weeks, so deals above are better than anything on Copper website.
Copper Mt is only 20 mins drive east on Vail on interstate hwy 70. Drive to Breckenridge is around 25 mins. Cars are cheap to hire if you want to drive.
Of course we book all other USA & Canada resorts, BUT above is best value by far.
Copper also has skiing & boarding for all standards from beginner to advanced.
Check out the trail map
http://www.coppercolorado.com/winter/the_mountain/trail_map
Why is Copper so cheap ? Many people might think it's basic.
On the contrary …
Some resorts spend millions on advertising & sales staff. Copper doesn't & so can have have better prices. Only catch is, some of January gets booked out early.
Also, the lift company at Copper manages most of the apartments, so it's the old keep it simple stupid philosophy. We only have to deal with one entity, not lift company & property owner or manager, which keeps cost down.
It's also very easy to get Qantas frequent flyer tickets from Colorado nonstop to NYC, Miami, Chicago, Dallas & v.v. & not necessarily out of very busy Denver airport.
Also American Airlines has a mega hub at Dallas Fort Worth, so you can go almost anywhere in USA with 1 stop via Dallas, using Qantas ff points. As always, these need to be booked early & it's usually tricky rom just before Xmas until just after New Years Day.