After a year of unexpected distress, it turns out Kate Middleton was able to quietly sneak some family fun in. Sometime between the royal family’s infamous Christmas morning walk and school resuming for the kids on Jan. 8, Middleton and Prince William reportedly took their kids Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, 9, and Prince Louis, 6 on a hush-hush family vacation.
The family of five reportedly went skiing in the Alps and was spotted enjoying hot drinks at a mountaintop restaurant with panoramic views, per Daily Mail.
“It was lovely to see Kate relaxing and enjoying herself,” a staff member told the outlet. “They looked like a normal English family, and a lot of people didn’t recognize them.”
An onlooker echoed that sentiment: “There were no airs and graces and actually they seemed like any normal family enjoying a ski break,” they said. “There were lots of laughs and the children were very polite.”
“The only reason you would have known that they were people of importance was because when Kate arrived so did a group of security guards,” the source continued.
It is believed that other members of the Middleton family were there, and James Middleton’s recent Instagram photos skiing with his wife, son, and dogs may be from the same trip.
Of course, it’s hard for us to think about the royal family taking a family ski vacation without thinking of the infamous trip in which Princess Diana went into full Mama Bear Mode when paparazzi wouldn’t stop taking photos of Prince William and Prince Harry.
In the Netflix docuseries Harry & Meghan, there is a clip where Diana pleads with the press to let the boys enjoy their time like normal kids.
“As a parent, could I ask you to respect my children’s space? … As a parent, I want to protect the children,” she said to the cameraman.
At the end of 2024, royal author Ingrid Seward told Hello! she expects the Wales kids to go on at least one big vacation this year.
“Kate will be wanting to spoil them a bit because it’s very frightening for children when their parents are that ill, so I think they will be up for a few treats this year,” she said. “I think William and Kate might take the children skiing during the Easter holidays and will probably be planning a big summer holiday, because as far as we know they didn’t go anywhere last year.”
And she’s absolutely right that having a sick parent is incredibly frightening for a child, so we hope this trend of [under-the-radar] ski trips and “treats” continues.
