All-Inclusive Family Ski Holidays: Club Med vs Crystal vs DIY (And What Happened to Esprit)

Hotelplan UK retired the Esprit brand after the 2023/24 winter, ending a 41-year run, and moved its resources into sister brand Inghams. If you remember Esprit for one thing, it was in-house childcare: nurseries and clubs Esprit staffed and ran itself. That is the part that did not survive the move.

Inghams does not operate its own childcare. Per Inghams' own notice, it works with "family friendly partners" in resort who offer childcare, and points families to ski school children's classes as the fallback. Third-party, not in-house. If childcare you could trust by name was the reason you booked Esprit, Inghams is not a like-for-like replacement, and you deserve to know that before you reach the payment page. If in-house care is your deciding factor, our guide to the best ski resorts with childcare maps where it still exists.

For the record, Esprit's chalet hotels used to sit in Belle Plagne, Courchevel, Val d'Isère, Alpe d'Huez and Méribel in France, plus Saas-Fee in Switzerland (per Family Traveller's historical listing). All discontinued. Do not build a trip around any of them expecting the old Esprit setup.

All-inclusive is doing heavy lifting in ski marketing, so define it before you compare prices. Club Med is true all-inclusive: one number, almost everything inside it. Crystal Ski is flight-plus-bed with the mountain costs sold as add-ons, so the headline looks low and the real total lands higher. DIY bundles nothing: you buy every piece and keep every saving.

The mistake families make is comparing a Club Med headline to a Crystal headline as if they cover the same things. They do not. One includes lift passes, lessons and childcare; the other includes a bed and a flight. Compare full trip totals, not sticker prices, or you will pick the wrong one for the wrong reason.

Club Med is the one model where the price on the page is close to the price you pay. One number covers flights, transfers, all meals and drinks, a 6-day lift pass, 5 days of group lessons and the kids clubs, per Club Med's UK deals page for winter 2026/27. That is rare in ski travel.

The childcare is the draw. Supervised clubs run from 4 months to 17 years: Baby Club (4 to 23 months), Petit Club Med (2 to 3), Mini Club Med (4 to 10) and a teens program split across 11 to 13 and 14 to 17. Included group ski and snowboard lessons start at age 4, five full days, capped at 12 kids per group. Snowboarding opens up at 8.

Now the fine print that the word all-inclusive hides. Included lessons start at 4. Under-4s can join Petit Club Med for supervised snow play only, and at select resorts that costs extra, on top of the holiday price. Baby Club care for the littlest ones is also an add-on. So a family with a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old is not getting two included ski experiences. One kid skis on the house; the toddler's care is a line item. Price it that way.

Child discounts soften the total. On the US site, under-4s stay free sharing your room, ages 4 to 11 get 50 percent off the adult price and ages 12 to 15 get 20 percent off. Those tiers come from Club Med's US pages. The UK site does not restate the exact percentages, so confirm them at booking if you are paying in pounds.

Crystal Ski (a TUI UK trading name, ABTA and ATOL protected) sells a different shape of holiday. The core package is flights, transfers and accommodation. Lift passes, lessons and equipment hire are add-ons you choose at booking, not costs already inside the price. Read that as the mirror image of Club Med: you build the total yourself, the headline looks lower, and the real number climbs once the mountain costs go in.

Crystal runs its own childcare, but only in five resorts, all in France and Italy. Pepi Penguin Nursery takes little ones from 6 months, and the Beanie Bear Club covers the 3-to-8 range. Both are tied to specific hotels with fixed operating dates, so the childcare decides the resort, not the other way round. Some other Crystal hotels have independent kids clubs run by the hotel rather than Crystal, bookable only on arrival and not guaranteed. If in-house, book-ahead childcare is your non-negotiable, those five resorts are the entire list.

One more lever: Crystal offers one free child place per two full-paying adults on selected holidays across Andorra, Austria, Finland, France, Italy and Norway. The official page does not state an age cutoff, so pin that down at booking rather than assuming one.

The honest gap: Crystal does not publish static prices. Every quote is generated live from your dates and party size, and there is no rate card to cite, not even for the childcare itself. We are not going to invent a number here. Run a real quote with your exact dates before you set it against a Club Med total.

The do-it-yourself route is exactly what it sounds like. You book flights, lodging, lift passes, lessons and food separately, each from the best source you can find. No operator margin sits on top, which is why DIY can beat both package models on raw cost, especially in value-driven Austria and Italy where a self-catered apartment plus a local ski school undercuts anything with flights baked in. Our Europe versus USA cost breakdown shows just how wide that gap runs.

The trade is time and risk. You are the tour operator now: you carry the transfer that does not show, the ski school that is full, the apartment that turns out to be a 15-minute uphill trudge in ski boots. No ABTA or ATOL safety net unless you build one. For a confident second-time family it is often the best value on this page. For a first-timer juggling a 3-year-old and a nervous 6-year-old, the package premium buys sanity, and that is a fair trade.

We are comparing models here, not quoting a DIY figure, because the real number depends entirely on your resort, your dates and how hard you hunt. Our resort pages carry the specific lift, lodging and lesson costs to build that math, and our 2026/27 planning guide walks the whole trip end to end.

Answer a few questions about your kids' ages, your budget and how much logistics you can stomach, and we will point you to the resorts and package style that suit your family. Two minutes, no spreadsheet required.