Report from Valmorel (with photos)

hi there
Here is my report of my trip to Valmorel. We went for 1 week on 6th March 2010.
We went with Crystal and to be honest unless they were giving a really good deal, I would be hesitant to use them again. when we got off the plane they looked like a group of "rag bags" in their uniform compared to Inghams who looked really smart. we approached the bus and the rep says oh yes Valmorel. just get on and she disappeared. However the bus driver had different ideas. He said he wasn't going to Valmorel. So hubby had to set off in search of rep who then had to speak to the driver who still refused, and eventually had to get a boss on the phone. driver agreed to take us to moutier and we would get a taxi from there. when we got on the bus there was an Irish flight who had landed at about 4.45pm. we landed at 5.40pm and thought we were about to set off. Nope, we had to wait for a Stanstead flight which didn't land until about 6.45 and it was actually well after 7 before we set off. the rep was apologetic but it was a bit of a bummer to the start of the holiday.

bus arrived at Moutier and we were swiftly put in a taxi and sent off to Valmorel which was about a half hour drive (and about 30 euros in a taxi, just in case you wanted to know, which by the way, we didn't have to pay).

We were greeted by Mike at about 10.00pm who told us that he would take us to our room to check in but he then had to go to Val Thorens for the week. this meant there was no ski guiding as we had been hoping and he gave us the quickest welcome in history and left his mobile number if we had any problems. (but what if I hadn't had my mobile, and that also leads me to who is going to reimburse me for the calls i had to make to him to ask him questions which should have been free advice had he been in the village!)
He told us he would see us in the ski set shop in the village centre the next morning to get our skis and boots. so next morning we trundled down to the town and went to the ski set shop. the people in ski set were absolutely hopeless. the boots this girl was trying to give to my son I could actually fit my whole hand down the back of the boot! they just couldn't get rid of us quick enough. they didn't have a clue who Mike from Crystal was! the boots that they gave us were absolutely disgusting! I even offered to pay to upgrade them but was told that even if i had paid for gold i would still get the same boots, I would just get better skis! which is a bit pointless when you are only a 1 week skier! hubby said the smell off his boots were so bad that he could actually smell them on his t-shirt! anyway just as we were about to leave, I thought I wonder if there is more than 1 ski set shop in the village and was told there were actually 4!!!! I was hopping mad but so worn out by the whole debarkle that I couldn't even be bothered to argue. I rang Mike later and he apologised that maybe he should have mentioned that there was more than 1 shop! ya reckon??!!


The terrain:
mainly consisted of blues and greens but there were also quite a few reds and a handful of blacks.



As we were only skiers of 1 week we found that some of the blues could actually be marked as reds and they went from various degrees of really easy blue to really hard blues but on the piste map they were all marked as just blue.



in between one of the pistes, was a sort of race track with jumps which the kids loved.


Not much tree lined skiing to be done and nearly all of the Longchamps side was above the treeline.







this was one of the lovely green runs down to coumberlouverie

I must mention the toilets at the top of the Madelaine chairlift. It wasn't until I actually had got off the toilet and turned round to look for the flusher that I realised that there was a full open window behind me which people had a birds eye view right into the toilet as they came off the chair lift!
I just wanted to add this photo to the lot too. If there was any reason to put me off putting my kids into ski school, this would be a prime example! absolutely no adult with these ski school kids aged 6-8 and there were signs all over saying kids under a certain height were not allowed on. One of the ski school kids also got on the chair with us too. If I had found out my 6 year old got on a chair lift with no adult supervision I wouldnt have been a happy bunny! I wouldnt care, but the chairs were 6 man!

The snow: the last snowfall had been a couple of centimetres on 2nd March. It never snowed at all during our stay. We had blue sky sunny days apart from one afternoon when it was really cold. For the first few days the pistes were fine, but by the end of the week they were starting to get a bit icy in places but overall they were well groomed and kept on top of.

The off piste: never went off piste but there seemed to be loads of it

Resort: we didn't really spend much time in the resort centre. We stayed in every night apart from 1 time when we went to get a takeaway. The village seemed quite pretty with a few bars and restaurants in the main strip and a free (with your lift pass) cable car from different parts of the village so even if your apartment was higher up the resort, you could get to the bottom of the resort easily. This was open until 11.30pm.

Food: food on piste was round about the same price everywhere we tried. We paid between 10-12 euros for burger and chips and about 10 euros for spaghetti Bolognese. Soft drinks (ie cans of coke, sprite etc) were 3 euros per can and a pint of beer was about 5 euros. Puddings were approx 4 euros for something like chocolate mousse or chocolate brownie. Hot chocolate was between 3-4 euros in different places.

Accommodation: we stayed in the "chalets du morel" which are actually part of the Pierre and Vacances group and you are issued your apartment on arrival. They are dotted around the village and we were lucky enough to stay in the L'ausiere Dessous apartments in the Creve Couer area which were ideally located for the lifts with either the Bois de la Croix and the Creve Couer lifts (these were either side of the apartment and you could ski to either of them (approximately 40 foot away from front door). The kitchen was a bit of a let down. In the brochure, it says fully equipped kitchenette and kettle but in reality, there was a microwave and 2 oven rings and no kettle. I did make do boiling water in a pan, but there was also no mugs, they only had these soup like bowls which I suppose is what the French use for mugs. It was very difficult to make meals with only 2 oven rings and a microwave. I wanted to get like frozen pizzas and frozen chips to do for the kids for their tea etc.

Never really had much to do with Mike (except a few phone calls asking him if there were any excursions or things to do and other things). He called me the day before we were about to come home and said that a taxi would meet us at 1.00pm to take us to moutier to meet the bus. when the day arrived, he told us the bus was already waiting for us in moutier and so off we went in the taxi. we arrived at the waiting bus (which had already been there for an hour waiting) and were told that there was no room on the bus for our luggage! people looking at us, looking at the luggage, shrugging of shoulders, I just wanted the ground to swallow us up. eventually a few people gathered and it was suggested that they put our luggage in .........go on, have a guess????.................nope you probably wont guess, but they put all our 4 cases in the toilet on the bus! my husband was absolutely furious and later on when we were talking to the rep, she said she couldn't believe her eyes!! there was not a lot we could do about it at this point and we had to get on the bus.



in the aisles right beside us there were 2 large holdalls blocking the
aisles so god knows what would have happened if there had of been an accident.


after about an hour of travel, this guy climbed over the holdalls in the aisles and was about to make his way to the on board toilet, when I told him that the toilet was blocked with luggage. I think he had held it in for as long as he possibly could so by this point was desperate. we then had to detour to some village with a big lake to find a public toilet. we did eventually get to the airport and our flight was on time but the transfers were such a huge letdown and it sort of spoilt the start of the holiday and the end of the holiday.

Costs: booking with Crystal for 2 adults and 2 children cost £1940. This included lift pass, ski and boot hire, flights from Newcastle and transfers.
The off piste: never went off piste but there seemed to be loads of it
hire, flights from Newcastle and transfers.

Here is a link to some photos we took (I took about 200 in all but have only uploaded a dozen or so and have also included a photo of the luggage in the loos as I will be writing to Crystal to complain, but dont know what good it will do me, any advice on what else to add would be great)

The rest of the photos can be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28344965@N07/


I know a couple of people have expressed an interest in going to Valmorel so if you need to know any further information, please just ask.

Karen

Enjoyed reading your report, lovely pics - you had same weather as us. Your transfers sounded like a bit of a mare. Thumbs down to Crystal :(
Did you notice any really easy cruisy green or blue runs? In Les Carroz, most of the blue runs seemed to have steeper sections, which put me off a bit as I'm still nervous. Next year I'm looking for somewhere with a long, gentle run so I can practice my turns.

Allie

Hey Karen

A great report and despite problems sounds like you enjoyed yourself.

I have to say you seem to have gotten a raw deal with Cystal. I have used them twice before once to Andorra and once to Passo Tonale. In Andorra we had no problems apart from the usual long transfer but there is nothing you can do about that unless they agree to fly you into Barcelona (which ain't gonna happen) we also had a great rep. We also had a good time in Passo Tonale although our rep was appalling and not to be recommended (in fact I complained about her on my return!)

You mention that some of the blues were more like reds and that they are often all just marked blue. Unfortunatley this is common in a lot of resorts. They effectively they often just look at the gradient from the top to the bottom and then give it the appropriate colour but it could mean that you get a steep pitch in the middle and the rest of the run could be nice and gental.

As for your photo with the kids on the chairlfit on their own. I am hoping they weren't in ski school as that is a big NO NO... however regardless of that the lifties shouldn't have allowed them on there alone even if you find an unsuspecting adult they should always be accompanied!!

So does this mean you are now looking forward to your third week of skiing now even if it isn't till next year?

A xx

Thanks for your report Karen and lovely photos.
It seems a pity a great holiday had to be spoilt at the beginning and the end by poor organization with the transfers.

I was really very surprised at the way they put your luggage in the toilet, and blocked up the aisle. We were going DIY on the Altibus from Val Thorens to Moutiers last year, and there was enough room for the passengers but not all the luggage, so they promptly organized some more transport and got everyone to Moutiers in time to catch the Eurostar. I would have thought Crystal would have got you a taxi or a minibus or something.

And re the kids on the chairlift - in Courchevel this year they had a new system using magnets to keep the kids on the chairlifts. There is one magnet per chair, and all the kids have metal plates on the back of their ski school tunics, so they can't fall off the chairlift.

Ally

Hi Allie, most of the runs were blue and that is one of the reasons we picked this resort. hubby and kids are first week skiers so we just wanted some confidence building runs. on the whole apart from the first day, where we were unlucky to pick the hardest blue run to start, we all managed the blues fairly easy and there were some lovely green runs, especially down to coumberlouverie, you could do that all day, it was great.

the only negative I would say about our week was that by the end of the week it started to get a bit icy in places but that was because there was no snow for 2 weeks, but on the whole the pistes were well groomed. Another negative was that the pistes were not that well marked out, but by about the third day we had it sussed. the skiing over Longchamps area is fab and really set up for easy cruising, the only thing i would say negative is that it was above the tree line but if you are not bothered about that then you will be fine. Also the only british voice we heard was the rep on the first and last day there. we did not bump into any other english person. there were hardly ever any queues, in fact the biggest queue we waited about 3 minutes for. I had pigeon holed the French (after my trip to eurodisney) to be arrogant rude people but found to my surprise that they were really very courteous, didnt try to bump the queue, said bon soir etc when passing in the corridoor, all in all it was a great place.


Brimster, the kids were definitly with the ski school, they had the vests on with the ski school name on (like the ones they use for racing)

Ally, the annoying thing was that MIKE had phoned the bus before we left to tell them we were on our way so they would have known at this point there was no room for luggage. I said to the rep "did you think we were coming with no suitcases?" and the laughable thing was, we were already in a taxi! obvisouly they just didnt want to fork out the money it would have costed to taxi us from Moutier to Geneva!

Karen

Nice photos and an interesting report. As for Crystal, I have never used them mainly because of similar reports of uninterested reps, bad organisation, and a general feeling of being abandoned - thats come from 4 different people who went with them.
I was also warned off booking a certain chalet in Italy by the agent as he said it was Crystal owned, and they dont recommend them as their cooking is terrible!

What made you choose Valmorel? I have looked at it several times in WTSS and I can see nothing that would make me want to choose it for a holiday.

At least the weather was good - skiing in the sun is great.

Would you consider not going to France next time?

Hi tony. we chose valmorel as when i originally posted asking for long cruisy blues, valmorel came up a few times (along with chamrousse, les saisies) when i looked at the piste map, valmorel definitley seemed to tick our boxes and on the whole, we had a great holiday, its just some areas could have been improved upon. it was great being able to ski nearly the whole area without worrying about avoiding red runs.

I also found that the grading of runs in france differed somewhat to those in austria. i think the austrians have a better opinion of what the standard of runs are like ie blues thtat are easy and not stumbling onto a really hard blue.

i definitly wouldnt rule france out as my next ski holiday will be based on wants and needs rather than what country the piste is in. saying that, I found france to be soo expensive compared to niederau last year so I dunno.

I have been looking at saalbach for next year, but hubby is pretty keen for a summer holiday. I will just have to get the thumb screws out.

Edit:

Just thought of another plus for Austria and that has to be the accomodation. (unless we were totally spoilt when we went to Niederau as our accomdation there was fantastic), it had 2 separate bedrooms both with ensuite and a massive living room and a kitchen that had a cooker!

Karen.
I have been to France recently more times than Austria. This is because I chose certain ski areas like yourself, including Serre Che twice (once because it was a really cheap deal and the second time because we wanted to take friends back and ski the whole fantastic area) and Alpe d'Huez becasue it appeard to offer another similarly large and varied ski area. We chose to stay in chalets for precisely the reasons you mention, pokey accommodation which is all too often associated generally with France. Austria definitely has the far better rooms generally when it comes to hotels, B&Bs, pensions, etc.

France is also notoriously more expensive on and off the slopes. There are the odd exceptions, but overall I would say Austria is on the whole better value for money.

As for piste gradings, I have to agree. A blue in Austria is generally a rolling cruisy run, a red being a steeper more aggressive run, and a black by far more difficult. In France I have skied blacks which are steep and fast but massively wide so a beginner would be able to get across them, blues which are narrow dangerous tracks (greens also of the same kind of piste), reds which are rolling and cruisy, and greens which are more akin to blues IMO. There is definitely more inconsistency in piste grading in France than in Austria, unless you throw in St Anton of course!

Judging by what you like, Saalbach could well be a really good shout for you. But dont avoid reds - they are there to be enjoyed as well, as long as you are keen to progress all the time. I tend to find these days I go looking for reds and avoid blues, unless I am tired or feeling particularly lazy and just want a gentle cruise, but each to his own of course.

Dont let hubby prevent a ski holiday. If he wants a summer hol, tell him its on condition you have the skiing holiday as well!!!!!

cya