An Insiders Guide to a Ski Season + Top 12 tips for new seasonnaires.

Robyn Weightman
Aug 19, 2020
5 min read

Updated: Nov 11, 2020

A Ski Season lasts from Late November/December through to Mid April. You arrive before the lifts have opened and you leave after they have ceased. Myself and Matt completed our Ski Season with Savoie Holidays, a small family run business with a chalet in each major French Alp. We were sent to work in Meribel, part of the Three Valleys, after completing two weeks of training with the other seasonnaires who would also be working for the company.

Our Chalet would house up to 14 guests. That meant 7 rooms, 3 bathrooms, one sitting room, dining room, kitchen, hallway and one terrace to clean and 14 mouths to feed twice a day. A daunting task, but one we loved and took head on.

Sitting Room

Kitchen

Our Kitchen was small but homely and our room similar.

Our Room.

When guest aren't at the chalet, you can enjoy the variety of choice in bathrooms and having the large communal areas to yourself. But you must make sure everything is spotless before your guests return.

A general day working in a chalet begins early. You must wake up around 6-6:30 to prepare breakfast for all the guests and make sure the table is laid. Your guests will all come down at separate times, so have a list ready the night before of who wants what, and when they come down prepare their eggs as requested.

By around 8- 9:00 the guests will have left to go skiing for the day. This is your chance to clean everything up from the morning, prepare the afternoon cake and make a start on the evenings meal, such as peeling the enormous quantity of potatoes.

The day is then yours until around 4:00 which is when you must return to the chalet to prepare the evening's meal and clean up anything left from midday.

A Wednesday is delivery day, where you must remain in the chalet for the day waiting for your food order. On this day you need to make sure all bedsheets are ironed ready to change the beds on Sunday.

Sunday is changeover day, where you must say goodbye to one set of guests, blitz the chalet, and say hello to the next. During this day you normally make Beef Bourguignon, which takes all day to cook and need to greet your guests and make sure they have everything prepared for their week ahead.

It sounds like a lot.

In saying this, here are a few tricks which we worked out during our season which makes your work a lot easier.

1. Blitz the Kitchen every delivery day.

This avoids any dirt build ups and makes the end-of-year blitz so easy. It also means any nosey guests will not be shocked by any unwanted discoveries.

2. Batch make yoghurt cakes.

I would make a batch of cakes every delivery day and then freeze them. They defrosted really well the night before each day and I heard nothing bad said about my cake.

3. Clean the chalet on delivery day and change over day.

Similarly to the kitchen, this stops any unwanted discoveries by nosey guests.

4. Give your delivery drivers cake.

Good Karma always comes around. If you make sure your drivers have a hot drink and cake ready for them when they deliver your food, they won't hesitate to pick up that nutella you've been desperate for when they next do the shop ;)

5. Wash all door handles and toilets frequently.

This really prevents the spread of colds and viruses. We never had an ill chalet with this technique.

6. Batch make and freeze kids' meals.

Like the cakes, they freeze really well and make a kids' meal along with the rest of the food is very overwhelming. If like us you have a small hob it's impossible to cook both together.

7. Split the work evenly between you.

For example, whilst I blitzed the kitchen on delivery day, Matt would iron all the sheets. Whoever finished first would start the clean and we would meet in the middle.

8. One start from the top and one from the bottom.

9. Split the meal prep.

I am a vegetarian, so Matt would make all the main meals whilst I made starters, desserts and set the table. On change over day, I would get the guests prepared, show them the town and take them to pick up their ski hire, whilst he stayed in the kitchen stirring the Bourguignon. This would also mean that when we had a major snow dump, guess who had to clear the drive...

10. Make friends with local restaurants.

Being a seasonnaire means a six-day work week and cooking huge meals twice a day. On your one day off you don't really feel like cooking. Make friends with the local restaurant staff and take aways. This means you can skip the cues at normally hectic hours, and you may even swap cake for food ;)

11. Live on your tips.

A seasonnaire's wage is not an extravagant one. You're being paid mainly in room, and board, with your ski pass included. So you're probably only getting around £100 a week/month. This isn't a lot of money, especially when everything around you is holiday priced. But, do not fear, you will get seasonnaire discount at certain places, and you can rely on some good tips if you take your job seriously. Budget and try to live on these tips, saving you a bit of money for when you get thrown back home for the summer months.

12. Pack lightly.

Meaning clothes. You will live in your uniform and your ski clothes, you maybe need two pairs of jeans and a few t-shirts max. Unless you plan to party hard, and even if you do, I didn't see anyone in heels, you will not be wearing many outfits. Pack light and enjoy the ride.

Now time for a hard truth. There are two things you want to do on a Ski Season and one thing you must do.

Ski/Snowboard, Party, and you must work.

Sadly, you can only achieve two of these things (unless you have an insane amount of energy, in which case, I salute you.) You have to work, so you must choose between the other two.

We worked and Snowboarded, as we could party back home.

As the winter turns to Spring, the boarding and skiing will get dull and icy. As a seasonnaire you're lucky in that you don't have to force yourself out every day no matter what the conditions, you have the time to wait for that powder. You also get privileges that in bad conditions such as a blizzard, the lift operators will sometimes trust you and allow you to still do certain runs if you can prove you know where you're going ;)

Which, by this point, I'd say you will. Blizzard season is around February.

But back to Spring, you've got a lot of boarding and skiing out of your system. I'd recommend walking your mountain and taking in its beauty before you're sent away. It's a feeling worth savouring.