Everything is relevant to cost and I would not have a problem with anything I'm about to mention if this was a £4,000 holiday, however it cost more than double this price so we would have expected something a lot better.
This was our 6th Club Med Ski holiday so we were aware of the standards and the quality of service which Club Med would usually provide.
Having heard excellent reviews about this ski resort we were delighted when we found Club Med had opened a brand new 4 trident hotel, we couldn't wait to book.
We arrived on New Years Eve staying until the 7th January and this experience has deterred us from staying with Club Med again.
Our disappointment began in the airport with the Club Med rep who greeted us to arrange the transfer, there seemed to be no organisation and it was utter chaos. After giving our name and the resort, she moved onto the next family and instead of putting us into relevant groups and taking note it appeared as though she was trying (and failing) to memorise everything and getting confused as to who was going where. Sheer incompetence and lack of communication led to people getting inpatient and wandering off to find refreshments, in all we were waiting over an hour whilst the rep had to go and find the passengers again. What made it more frustrating was that the driver had been there all the time and was waiting to take us.
When the rep had eventually got us all to the transfer bus, (three families in total) we were shocked to see that it was only an 8 seater minibus, it was so cramped and it was full to capacity with no where near enough luggage space, bearing in mind there were skis as well as cases, it meant that some of us had to have heavy luggage on our laps for the 1 hour transfer from the airport to the resort.
Upon arrival at Club Med the GO's were out in force to welcome us and tag our luggage. Our spirits were lifted and as we disembarked everyone was excited. We made sure all our bags were removed from the mini bus and despite the GO's telling us to go inside and leave our bags in their care, I stayed present to ensure our bags were tagged correctly. We were told that our bags would be taken directly to our room and skis to our allocated locker.
Disappointingly, at 1pm our room wasn't ready for another 4 hours, so we had lunch and then sat in the spacious reception area to kill time and wait until the ski hire centre opened, where we needed to go for our sons boots and skis.
By the time we had got our son kitted out, three hours had passed since our arrival so we had expected to find our own skis in our allocated locker. However, we discovered that our skis were not there. After enquiring with multiple members of staff in the locker room and ultimately with reception making several phone calls, it came to light that the bus driver had taken the Skis back to the airport. How on earth could this have happened when they were tagged? We then had to arrange for them to be brought back to the resort.
The hotel itself is as expected, brand new, tastefully decorated and very big, located on the hillside with numerous different floors and levels. Our room was located near the bottom on Level F, with very dark zig zag corridors from our room to get the lift upto Level H where reception is located. We then had to walk to a separate lift which takes you up to the relevant floors for Ski Lockers, Mini Club, and the restaurants. It literally is like a maze, and god help yo if you forgot something in your room, it'd take you a further 15 minutes to get there and back again, and twenty minutes if you decided to wait for a lift, they were SO slow, and always very busy, it was soul destroying, much quicker to use the stairs.
Although the reception area was light and airy with plenty of seating the rest of the hotel seemed cramped and was so busy, I would compare it to a busy railway station;people having to side step each other trying to get to their location, never making eye contact and rarely seeing the same face twice.
In comparison to other Club Med resorts this place had no soul or atmosphere and absolutely no alpine feel whatsoever.
The staff were always polite and helpful and the food was of the usual Club Med high standard, buffet style with a wide variety to suit all tastes. However, mealtimes were so busy and hectic you constantly had to side step and remember to turn round slowly with your food, in order not to bang into anyone and knock plates out of hands!
What we did find disappointing was unlike any other Club Med locations we couldn't order any soft drinks with our meal, the choice was beer, wine or water, thats all. Even the Orange Juice machine was switched off other than at breakfast time.
All of the above I could normally tolerate, however, the final straw for us and the incident which has spurred me on to write this negative review is the cigarette smoke constantly blowing through the three air-conditioning vents and into our bedroom, bathroom and toilet. We found it was worse during the evening, and after a full day skiing when all we wanted to do was come back to our room and relax, being confronted by a smoky room was horrendous, especially being non smokers.
We rang reception to complain and they sent a security guy to our room, possibly thinking it was coming from someone smoking in an adjacent room. However, he agreed it was coming from the ventilation system and alarmingly there was no way of telling where the source was.
We spoke to Benjamin on reception and asked to be moved rooms, after a hours wait and further calls to him he advised that there were no other rooms available so we then asked for tape so that we could tape over the vents ourselves, they couldn't assist with this either. We ended up sleeping with the balcony door wedged open just to get some fresh air into the room, obviously it was freezing cold so we all slept together in the same bed in order to keep warm.
At no point since we complained did the hotel manager attempt to get in touch with us.
We advised that we would be taking the matter further, having paid £8,200 for a family of three, we expected far better service, there was even no one on duty to assist with our bags upon departure, and we were told we would have to make several trips down the lengthy corridors and carry our own luggage from our room to reception.
We work hard to pay for our holidays, but this wasn't a holiday it was a nightmare where we literally couldn't wait to return home.