I went to Club Med without my kids – and regretted it

This is an unfamiliar feeling: I wish my kids were here.

Don’t get me wrong, my kids are lovely. They’re funny, curious, kind. They just don’t make travel easier. Going long-haul with a five- and a three-year-old? You deserve a medal.

“Akin to being on a cruise ship that doesn’t move”: Club Med Kiroro Grand, Hokkaido, Japan.

Speaking of which, there are many champions standing before me today. One is trying to peel her child off the carpet after he decided to make “snow angels” in the middle of the lunch buffet. Another is picking pieces of shattered pasta bowl off the floor in the main dining room while her toddler looks on, fascinated as to how this could have happened. Yet another I recognise from the bus ride here from Sapporo is the dad desperately trying to clean up after his young son suffered motion sickness.

Legends, one and all.

An Australian mother I chat to sighs as her kids go screaming off towards the main atrium, where there are cartoons playing on a loop. “It’s hard work making beautiful memories,” she says. “That’s what I always tell myself.”

A master family suite at Club Med Kiroro Grand.

It’s my natural tendency to look at all these people and think: ha, better you than me. When you have young children, a “holiday” is often just parenting in a nicer location. It’s not what you would describe as fun.

But right now, I’m wishing my kids were here. Because they would be living the dream. And I would be living the dream with them.

I’m staying at Club Med Kiroro Grand, the newest ski resort in Hokkaido – one of Australia’s favourite winter-sports playgrounds – its doors having opened in December 2023. There are two Club Meds at the Kiroro ski area, though the other one, Kiroro Peak, welcomes guests aged 12 and up, so if you have tiny tackers in your family, you’re going to end up at Kiroro Grand.

Food is a mix of Western family favourites and Japanese.

The Grand still has that new-car smell when I visit, and the sparkle of a spanking new property – though you get the feeling the perkiness of the staff throughout the resort in their smart blue slacks and white trainers will never fade.

Club Med is a French brand that retains its continental feel even here in Hokkaido. We are only an hour outside Sapporo, in the heart of the Hidaka mountains, but staff still greet families in English, American TV shows play on the big screen, and kids can eat pizza and nuggets from the buffet while their parents sip sauvignon blanc.

There’s a DJ spinning records at the lunch buffet. A barista slings flat whites from 8am. The comforts and pleasures of home are readily accessible.

This is my first time at a Club Med, and I’m quickly discovering it’s like a cruise ship that doesn’t go anywhere.

There are three buffet meals a day, plus snacks and drinks.

There are three buffet meals a day, plus snacks and bottomless drinks. There’s nightly live entertainment from comedians, magicians, acrobats and more. There’s a feeling of familiarity among the guests too because this isn’t a huge resort and there’s nowhere else to go, so you invariably see the same people.

In fact, that’s one of the highlights for this lone traveller, who is feeling a little awkward flying solo at a family-friendly ski resort: it’s not just the kids who get to socialise and make friends; it’s the adults too.

I meet them at my snowboarding lesson. This is Club Med, which means the holiday is all-inclusive, and that involves ski passes and daily lessons with qualified instructors that begin at first lifts and last well into the afternoon.

So you end up out on the mountain all day with other Club Med guests, who of course are staying at the same hotel, and who you will bump into at the bar or the buffet that evening. It takes just one day for me to amass a crew of snowboarding buddies as I latch onto a group from Brisbane who have left their kids in their own classes and get to spend the day roaring around the Kiroro terrain at their own pace.

There’s local culture here if you want it.

That terrain is tight by European or North American standards, though about what you would expect in Japan, with one gondola and six chairlifts servicing a mix of easy, intermediate and expert runs. There’s plenty of off-piste to explore, though enough groomed terrain to keep things interesting when the snow conditions aren’t suited to tackling the trees.

Back at Club Med, where they’re pouring a champagne tower tonight, a regular occurrence apparently: they balance a whole lot of champagne glasses on top of each other and then tip Moet & Chandon over the top. Everyone gets a glass.

Spend days skiing or snowboarding.

The pouring tonight is being done by an energetic staff member who stands on the bar, grabs a microphone and implores the crowd to stop working so hard in their real lives and spend more time with their families, get their priorities straight and do the things that matter, before she upends a bottle of Moet and starts passing glasses around.

I later discover that that staff member is Merlin Chelliah, the hotel’s general manager. The next day I spot her behind the counter at the lunch buffet, making murtabak.

Club Med is like that: it’s kind of culty. Among the dedicated staff, but also the dedicated clientele. I sit next to an American woman on the gondola one day who tells me that 24 hours into her stay here, she booked her family in for another holiday next year.

The Ogon specialty Asian restaurant.

“You get discounts if you book early,” she confides.

I don’t know how I’ve gone so long without knowing this existed. Everyone is having a ball. The kids are roaming around the place going crazy and loving every second. The adults, who can put their kids to bed and dash back to the dance floor in the knowledge that their pint-sized offspring are safe, are going crazier and also loving it.

There’s local culture here if you want it: an onsen bath with all associated traditions, Japanese guest rooms with tatami floors, a specialist sushi restaurant, and another yakiniku joint doing high-end local food.

But mostly people are just at Kiroro to play, to have fun – and I wish my kids were here to enjoy it.

The writer travelled as a guest of Club Med

The details

Stay
All-inclusive stays at Club Med Kiroro Grand include accommodation, lift passes and ski and snowboard lessons, all food and drink (with premium food and drink extra), children’s club access for kids four to 17 years old, and daily live entertainment. Childcare facilities are available at extra cost for two- to three-year-olds. Rooms start from $4928 a couple for seven nights, and $7868 for a family of four for seven nights. See clubmed.com.au

Fly
ANA has flights from Sydney to Sapporo, via Tokyo Haneda. See ana.co.jp Qantas flies from Melbourne to Sapporo, in codeshare with JAL. See qantas.com

What’s new in the Asia-Pacific ski scene

There’s plenty more happening in Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

Thredbo’s Alpine Coaster
There’s good news this winter at Thredbo if the weather isn’t playing the game: the resort is set to unveil its new Alpine Coaster, a 1.5-kilometre track that participants tackle on small luge-like sledges, which can reach speeds up to 40km/h. This is an all-weather, all-season attraction. thredbo.com.au

Ski a glacier in New Zealand
Kiwi heli-ski expert Inflite will offer the chance to ski or board the Tasman Glacier, New Zealand’s longest glacier this season, with eight to 10 kilometres of terrain per run. The six-hour experience includes a scenic flight over Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, plus two runs on the glacier. See mtcookskiplanes.com

Nekoma Mountain in Japan
At the beginning of last season, Hoshino Resorts unveiled the Nekoma Mountain, a combination of two Fukushima ski resorts – Alts Bandai and Nekoma Ski Park – now linked by a connecting lift. There’s night skiing here, a terrain park, 11 lifts, and high-quality accommodation. See hoshinoresorts.com

Mount Perisher’s six-seater
Say goodbye to Perisher’s Mt P Double, a creaky two-person chairlift built in 1961, which has been decommissioned. In its place will be a high-speed six-seater, the Mt P 6, which will whisk skiers and snowboarders to Australia’s highest lifted point (2042 metres). It’s set to open in 2025. See perisher.com.au

The Remarkables’ six-seater
Not to be outdone by their cousins across the ditch, Queenstown resort The Remarkables is opening a high-speed six-seater chairlift – though this one will be in action for the 2024 season. The Shadow Basin chairlift will open almost 50 more hectares of lift-accessible terrain. See theremarkables.co.nz