{"id":842,"date":"2015-12-22T12:44:47","date_gmt":"2015-12-22T12:44:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/?p=842"},"modified":"2015-12-22T12:48:56","modified_gmt":"2015-12-22T12:48:56","slug":"family-skiing-at-the-snow-centre-hemel-hempstead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/2015\/12\/family-skiing-at-the-snow-centre-hemel-hempstead\/","title":{"rendered":"Family Skiing at The Snow Centre, Hemel Hempstead"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With most ski resorts too far away for a day trip, it can be easy to forget that you can still have a great family ski day out in England.<\/p>\n<p>Whether you are heading to the snow for a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chaletline.co.uk\/family-skiing\">family ski holiday<\/a> and want some practice before your trip, or you are looking for an activity to tire out the kids (!) during the school holidays, a trip to one of the UK&#8217;s indoor snow centres is an excellent choice.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Snow Centre at Hemel Hempstead\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Last week we started the Christmas holidays by heading to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thesnowcentre.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Snow Centre<\/a>\u00a0in Hemel Hempstead.<\/p>\n<p>With a main slope 160m long and 30m wide, served by two button lifts, there&#8217;s a long enough run to do some &#8216;proper&#8217; skiing, even for advanced skiers.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ngCekZTSHzQ\" width=\"490\" height=\"490\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Private and group lessons available<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Like a &#8216;real&#8217; ski resort, there&#8217;s a 100m beginners&#8217; slope with group lessons running and you can also book a private instructor to bring your skiing or snowboarding on to the next level and brush the cobwebs away before your next trip.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/122621048\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Simple process to get you on the slopes<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The process is remarkably simple. \u00a0The video above gives you a great idea of what it&#8217;s like. \u00a0You simply book your lift pass (usually a 2-hour block) in advance, collect your tickets and ski and boot hire and then you&#8217;re on the slope!<\/p>\n<p>You don&#8217;t even have to worry about clothing as that&#8217;s also available to hire at reasonable prices. \u00a0Make sure you take &#8216;proper&#8217; ski gear though &#8211; it&#8217;s cold out there, with the slope kept at -2C during the day.<\/p>\n<p>There are changing rooms and lockers to leave your clothes and valuables in.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Snow Report<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The snow itself is, ironically, as good as you&#8217;ll find on most ski resorts in Europe right now. \u00a0It&#8217;s granular with a good firm base &#8211; no ice at all.<\/p>\n<p>And while we were there (a Sunday afternoon in December) there were no lift queues at all &#8211; it was simply ski down, go straight back up again.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DByQXcXt-qg\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>A great family day out<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I went to The Snow Centre with two 8-year-old children, who had a fantastic time. \u00a0Both were tired out before our two hours were up, but as we&#8217;d skied non-stop for that time &#8211; with no queuing time &#8211; that wasn&#8217;t that surprising.<\/p>\n<p>All in all a great day out and we&#8217;ll definitely be coming back before our annual family ski holiday to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chaletline.co.uk\/les-menuires\">Les Menuires<\/a> in March.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-843 \" src=\"http:\/\/www.chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/12_15-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"the snow centre selfie\" width=\"352\" height=\"264\" srcset=\"https:\/\/chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/12_15-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/12_15-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/12_15-190x143.jpg 190w, https:\/\/chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/12_15-60x45.jpg 60w, https:\/\/chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/12_15-400x300.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 352px) 100vw, 352px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Article by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/plus.google.com\/107961348339974741522\/about?rel=author\">Iain Martin<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"https:\/\/chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/2015\/12\/family-skiing-at-the-snow-centre-hemel-hempstead\/\" style=\"background-image: url(https:\/\/chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/12_15-190x143.jpg);\" class=\"thumb_crop\">https:\/\/chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/12_15-190x143.jpg<\/a><p>With most ski resorts too far away for a day trip, it can be easy to forget that you can still have a great family ski day out in England. Whether you are heading to the snow for a family &hellip;<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/2015\/12\/family-skiing-at-the-snow-centre-hemel-hempstead\/\">read more<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[295,296,294],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":847,"href":"https:\/\/chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842\/revisions\/847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chaletline.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}