Hoping to take a family ski holiday? We discuss our latest visit to Mayrhofen in Austria with our 4 kids
**We were extremely lucky to have been gifted free ski hire and ski lessons from Snowsports Ski School in Mayrhofen, in exchange for promotion via this website and our social media channels. All opinions expressed below remain our own.
Introduction
We love a family ski holiday. As we currently live in the south of Spain, a trip away to the snow always comes as a real treat. For us, this contrast in weather is extra special.
Skiing is also a great activity for kids. It’s good exercise and means being outside in nature all day and away from staring at screens. Starting young is also the best time to learn.
Obviously you can’t escape the fact that skiing is not a cheap holiday but, if you’re ready to splurge a little, it’s definitely worth it!
Here we are reviewing our most recent family ski trip with our 4 children to the Austrian resort of Mayrhofen. Read on to find out how we got on.
Where is Mayrhofen located?
Mayrhofen is a town in the Zillertal valley, in the picturesque Tyrol region of the Alps mountains in Austria.
The town oozes traditional charm, alongside a buzzing nightlife and state-of-the-art ski infrastructure. We’ve visited several times over the years for ski holidays and always had a great time.
How to get to Mayrhofen
Mayrhofen has its own railway station, meaning the resort can be reached by train on the scenic Zillertal Bahn.
If flying, the closest airport is at Innsbruck. Other airports in Austria include Vienna, Salzburg and Klagenfurt. Munich in Germany is also an easy train ride away.
If you find yourself travelling via Vienna with kids and need to stay overnight, you should definitely consider spending the night in a family room at a&o hostel.
When is the best time of year to visit Mayrhofen?
Mayrhofen and the whole Zillertal valley is a beautiful destination any time of the year. The mountain scenery is spectacular.
Obviously for skiing, you’ll need to visit during the winter months. While the best snow tends to be between late December and early March, we often visit at Easter time at the end of the season. The snow can get a bit slushy but you are often treated to warm and sunny weather to make up for this. It’s lovely to be able to sit outside and enjoy the views without kids moaning about being cold!
What is the ski area like at Mayrhofen?
The ski area at Mayrhofen, recently re-branded with the name ‘Mountopolis‘, is accessed via 2 primary lifts from the town – the smaller Ahornbahn cable car and the main Penkenbahn lift. These modern lifts have incredible uplift capacities, meaning there are rarely any queues.
The ski area boasts over 140km of ski pistes in total, with a range of options for beginners, intermediates and experts (including the famous and terrifying 78° Harakiri piste, the steepest in all of Austria). These slopes are serviced by 26 different ski lifts, many of which are modern chairlifts. The top point of the resort is over 2,500m high.
Snowsports Ski School
When children are starting out, ski lessons are essential. You want to make sure that they’re not only learning correctly, but also having fun while doing it.
To simplify things, finding one company that can arrange both ski lessons and ski hire is a real bonus. It is brilliant to be able to get everything sorted in one go (especially when you’re dragging around tired kids after a long journey!).
Snowsports, located conveniently in the centre of Mayrhofen, offers just this. We were able to collect ski hire for our children from their shop, while also arranging ski lessons at the same time.
Ski hire
Snowsports offer a good range of modern ski and snowboard equipment in all sizes for hire. They even had tiny ski boots to fit my 4 year old! My kids were all super excited to be assigned with their ski equipment, ready to hit the mountains the following day.
We visited at pretty much peak time on a late Saturday afternoon. As such, the shop was very busy and a little chaotic. If you can, I’d advise trying to go at a less busy time. Having said that, the staff were all friendly, helpful and clearly working hard to get people through as efficiently as they could. They were all particularly nice and patient with our kids, even when they kept wanting to try different boot sizes!
In general, the ski hire process went smoothly and care was taken to ensure that all of our gear was properly adjusted for each child. We never had to return with any complaints. The skis were also well serviced and continued to glide well throughout the week we had them.
Ski School
Besides offering ski hire from their shop in the village, Snowsports also run a full ski school up on the mountain that has operated for over 30 years. Their mountaintop meeting location is next to the beginner slope around the back of the top of the Penkenbahn lift.
A full team of experienced instructors is on hand for group lessons for both adults and children, with groups split by ability. For those wanting a little more personal attention, private lessons are also available.
Group lessons for kids
Always greeted by friendly faces, the Snowsports ski instructors for the kid’s group lessons were all outstanding. They went to great efforts to ensure that the children felt comfortable and safe in their company (even the inevitable screaming, clingy kids!).
Ski lessons are always made fun, with periods of learning mixed with time for play and plenty of snowball fights! Each day the groups took on a different theme as well, such as explorer day when the kids decorated themselves and headed off to find clues from around the mountain. This extra effort was a really nice touch and something that I’ve never seen done at any other ski schools before.
The week of ski lessons ended with the Austrian tradition of the kid’s ski slalom race. This is always fun to watch, with even my 4 year old competing the course (eventually!).
Private lessons
Despite being pretty good skiers now, my 2 older girls are forever bugging us to try snowboarding. This is probably because this is what they see their parents doing (and nothing is cooler than parents after all!).
So that they could give it a go, sharing a private lesson was a great way to go. This way they didn’t have to commit to doing it all week if they decided they’d rather go back to skiing instead.
So, with great excitement they grabbed their snowboards and headed off for their lesson. They actually made really encouraging progress with their instructor. He had them doing a range of useful exercises and they were coming down the slope independently by the end of the lesson. They definitely want to try it again, but are not quite ready to completely give up on skiing just yet!
In Summary
A family ski holiday always makes for a great trip away. While they can be expensive, as a treat it’s definitely worth it. For kids, the mix of outdoor living, exercise and the thrill of descending at speed is the perfect combination.
If looking for a family-friendly ski resort, Mayrhofen is a nice option. The mountain scenery is really beautiful and the town has a good range of amenities and services, as well as first class ski infrastructure. When compared to resorts in other countries elsewhere in the Alps, Mayrhofen is also actually very affordable.
If you’re visiting with kids like we were, we had only positive experiences of using Snowsports for ski hire and lessons, so can happily recommend them to others. Our 4 children not only either learned or improved their skiing or snowboarding, but also had a lot of fun while doing it. They can’t wait to go back!
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