 Poster: A snowHead
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Christmas, 23-30. Chalet, well apartment holiday, with Ski Vertigo. 3 bedrooms out of 4 for our party, with the 4th room occupied as well. The chalet was a good size for 8 persons.
Travel
Flights from Heathrow to Lyon, with BA, which were included as part of the package. Flight was only 1 hour and 15 minutes long. Transfer from Lyon was waaaay longer than that!! Not too bad, but basically flying to Chambery or Grenoble would be a lot better, but there wasn't a choice.
Resort
val d'Isere is nice, quite upmarket, even vs. other ski resorts!! Lots of bars and English quite widely spoken which is a bit of a shame to be honest. Hibou bar, excellent - but no food served, not for another week..! Folie was good fun, entertaining. Bleu Note is a good find - almost hidden, access is along a passageway. XV bar worth going to if you like rugby. Not really ski in ski out - well our accommodation wasn't. Excellent meal out, La Corniche, worth a trip. Food can be expensive on the mountain, but then you expect that. Some quite yummy soup available.
Accommodation
Nice, a duplex apartment in a building of quite a few for Ski Vertigo. Hot tub, which we used quite a bit. Nicely appointed. Beds comfortable. Boot room a little squished, but enough space for all the kit - we had a boot cupboard and a ski cupboard. Kitchen seemed small, we were catered for, but the food which was served was amazing. The Christmas day meal was top notch, lots and lots of food!! Breakfast is usually a choice of eggs or porridge, but more than enough!
Food/Restaurants
We ate out, on the chef's night off at La Corniche. An excellent, traditional restaurant, lovely, warm and welcoming.
Conditions
Excellent, although some stones were starting to peep out on some slopes towards the end of the week. But basically it snowed before we arrived and then we had 4 days of sunshine!! So lots of skiing. Last day had bands of fog but we still got in a fair amount of skiing on that day as well.
Ski Area
A few observations about the ski area:
- Apartment is a bit of a walk to and from the slopes, but it definitely got you warmed up!!
- Skiing was generally good, the slopes seemed a bit oddly rated, well different to those in Paradiski and La Rosiere which we've been to recently. Some Reds seemed easier than the Blues and sometimes as hard as a Black!!
- Conditions were good, but it did feel like some skiers were on slopes that they shouldn't have been - i.e. there are only really Red runs and a Black run back into the main centre. Consequently there is a lot of mixed traffic on the slopes and the slopes were getting scraped a lot. This led to hard compacted sections and build ups of snow towards the end of the days. Some of the runs had been injected with water, due to the World Cup races the week or two before and therefore had sections of ice on them - not much fun!!
- Lots of skiing and we skied one side to the other on one of the mornings. It was a bit of a workout!
- Not entirely keen on T bars, but that's just me! and some fairly long and steep button lifts.
- There was a bubble not working on one of the days and this just meant everyone funnelled on to a button lift - to be fair we avoided it by skiing down and onto the bus system, although that was also quite busy.
Lovely, spectacular views and vistas - even more than Paradiski! But for me Paradiski, La Rosiere and Serre Chevalier have the edge in terms of skiing. Some may well disagree, but certainly the views were breathtaking.
Not a lot of snow park areas - it's less of a child friendly location in my mind.
Operator and ski school etc
Ski Vertigo were excellent. We really enjoyed our trip. The food was great and we had a raclette meal one evening, in the chalet which worked really well, basically an extra evening off for the chefs. The staff were very helpful in arranging our meal on their evening off. We didn't do ski school but did have a private lesson on one day, this was great, with Evolution2. There is a plethora of options in terms of ski schools in val d'Isere.
Other things
Ski Republic skis and boots were good quality. They were very friendly.
The medical centre can be a quite busy place - we had to visit there when my wife twisted her left knee badly. They were excellent, although I wish we hadn't needed to go there!!
We had a couple of swimming sessions included in our lift passes (bought directly from the val website) but never actually went. The benefit of having a hot tub at the apartment.
Overall
Good, but not great - but that's probably a personal thing. We will be going again, but only as our eldest son is working there. Will try to store our skis and boots closer to the slopes or book accommodation closer to the slopes.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Thanks for this report!
We are booked to go with Ski Vertigo in March to Val, staying in the what sounds like the same building you have! We are going to be in Chalet Columbia. I was a bit nervous going with a "new operator" and reviews were thin on the ground. But was reasonably happy knowing that they are part of the well regarded Ski Famille. And now even more happy that I've seen a first hand account of pretty much the exact trip we have booked!
When you say a bit of a walk to the lifts, are we talking about 10 mins or so? I was half tempted to book a locker at the lifts to save the walk in ski boots. Does each apartment/chalet get its own boot room/storage or is a shared room for the whole building? Good to read that you thought the food was good. I never expect high end on a catered chalet trip, but had a wide range of experiences with chalet food.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Hi
Yes, we were in Quebec.
I guess the length of time depends on how quickly you walk!!  It's not that bad, it's just we've had 50m / ski in + out before.. So have been a bit spoilt. If I were going again I'd look at getting a locker, if free, or hire from one of the companies that permit you to store your skis there. To be honest, if I may be slightly sexist, the women in our party weren't happy about the walk. It's okay and is probably more indicative of our poor level of fitness! It's at least 10 minutes walk, but if you can have a chat along the way it's fine. We didn't have lessons in the mornings so didn't have to be anywhere at a certain time.
Food was really good, wine is okay - we went through the red - a bit heavy in my opinion, rose which was okay and white which was okay. The Prosecco is drinkable as well! If anything the wines needed to be chilled, otherwise they did tend to be a bit rough. But that's a minor niggle. There is an honesty bar, so a bottle of Heineken was 2 EUR and soft drinks 1.5 EUR. Usually we buy a case of beer, but at that price it didn't feel necessary. I wouldn't say the food was high, high end, but it was very filling and fresh. The raclette night was good fun. The curry night was good. The pork was excellent! Actually to be fair I think there were a lot of appreciative 'mmmmms' to most of the food, so it must have been tasty!! Most of the time the canapés were more-ish!! Cakes, in the afternoon were a little hit and miss, but don't think you'll have the stollen, which was a christmas 'thing'.
Each apartment gets 2 lockers/cupboards. A Boot one and a ski one. So we had a locker just for our apartment.
We'll hopefully be going out again, to see our son, but of course once back there's work and dull stuff to contend with!!
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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I can guarantee that you would not have wanted to be flying back from Chambery on the 30th.
We got food in Hibou, after 4pm.
The bus service is superb, luckily we were within 80m years of the stops.
I have never skied such busy slopes on some days. Our apartment, booked on the official VDI website was awful. Every piece  f furniture wanted skipping
Last edited by You need to Login to know who's really who. on Tue 9-01-24 9:09; edited 1 time in total
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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@Kenzie, ? Lancastrian?
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@eps, having flown into Lyon, Grenoble and Chambery in the past to get to the Tarentaise resorts, Lyon is by far the best option. It's roughly the same transfer time as Grenoble but has the benefits of having facilities. If Chambery works, it's closer, but when things go wrong (as they did on 30th December) it's dreadful.
I'm intrigued by the comments about button lifts and T-bars. Which bit of the resort was that? I've skied all over Tignes and Val d'Isere several times and the only T-bar I can think of is on the glacier above Val and I can think of very few button tows that aren't avoidable (even if a main lift is closed).
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T bar is the one in Val - I just have flashbacks of a T bar in Pamporovo... but that was 25 years ago now!!
Buttons are around there - the dual ones, they're okay, but I think I've managed to avoid them for about 4 or 5 years now. They're okay, it was just that the bubble - I forget which one, wasn't going so it funnelled everyone through the twin buttons.. We tend to avoid them, but these were unavoidable.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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It's just that we drove past Grenoble and Chambery on the way to resort from Lyon and possibly due to issues on the road there it was an even slower transfer. We'd had it in our mind that we would be skiing in the afternoon, but that soon became not possible. We managed it last year, when going to Les Arcs, but that was April time. I'd need to double check the flight details for that trip.
One other thing about val d'isere is that the lifts seem to close earlier than in other resorts, but then the light did disappear quite rapidly - so maybe it's more of a mountain 'facing' thing.. i.e. the sun disappears earlier behind other mountains. Of course it helps send people towards aprés ski!
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Nice to read about chalets, I thought they had all closed after Covid and Brexit!
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Orange200 wrote: |
| Nice to read about chalets, I thought they had all closed after Covid and Brexit! |
Nope, not at all! 
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| eps wrote: |
| It's just that we drove past Grenoble and Chambery on the way to resort from Lyon |
You really shouldn't have driven past Grenoble. The signs for Grenoble, yes
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| eps wrote: |
One other thing about val d'isere is that the lifts seem to close earlier than in other resorts, but then the light did disappear quite rapidly - so maybe it's more of a mountain 'facing' thing.. i.e. the sun disappears earlier behind other mountains. Of course it helps send people towards aprés ski! |
Yes that’s what I said last New Year when we missed the last lift back from Fornet and the previous valley (La Laisinant?) on successive days. We did at least learn how good the bus system is from Fornet and find the breaking point for the kids (and adults to be fair) for skiing on ice down the red run.
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You know it makes sense.
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^^^^ picking up on some points. The only T Bar in Val is the glacier one. The only pomas button lifts (bar nursery / lower slope ones x 3) are avoidable and when the new Vallon gondola goes in next year the Col gondola is going too!
I 100% believe the best airport (excluding transfer / flight choice etc side of things) for Val is Lyon for 99% of cases personally.
The reason lifts (apparently) close 'early' in Val is the 'draining effect'... furthest away lifts have to shut the first as getting people down (MANY having to download as the runs are too challenging like the Face for many so the Olympic is the only option down!) takes time. So By draining people from the tops of the mountain and slowly but surely getting people off the mountains often by lifts like the Olympic takes some time. The lifts like Olympic / Funi etc close as late as any other resorts big lifts i think you'll find!
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FAQ
