 Poster: A snowHead
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Booked with Thompson/Crystal, flying from Manchester to Toulouse.
Pre travel information was very good. They sent through a few texts with rep contact details (came in handy later) and a resort info pack. The departure flight all went without incident, straight through check-in and flight flew off on time and was shorter than expected. Arrival in Toulouse was also without incident and we were ushered by our rep to the coach within about 40 minutes of landing. The transfer was around 3 hours including a stop off at some 'services' selling chips, chips and chips. Boy did they sell some chips! Arrived in resort where you're dropped off at the bottom of the town and walked up to your hotel by the rep (bags are put into a van and dropped off at your hotel. This is where we found the first problem. The welcome meeting was at four, and we only got to the hotel at 3:50 so the bags still hadn't arrived come meeting time. We decided to head off to the meeting to get our lift passes etc and just chance that our luggage would be looked after. On return to the hotel we found two of our bags had just been left outside and one left in reception, so we were less than impressed.
We were staying at the Snowlake Hotel, and I'll start off by saying we would never stay there again. On check-in we were treated like cattle (even though there were only two other parties checking in), and the hotel manager had one of the worst attitudes I've ever come across. She 'jokingly' threatened us with a shotgun if we were noisy and told us this is a "quiet hotel". The room itself was nice, though the bedroom doesn't have a door on it. The beds were comfortable and made daily. The bathroom was very nice with constant hot water and a powerful shower. Heating in the room was always on and we were never cold. The walls in the hotel are paper thin so you can hear everything in both the hallway and adjacent rooms, which is quite a problem when people are returning at 3 in the morning and decide to play classical music. We were told that breakfast was 8-10 but were usually down before 8 and it was always ready. The breakfast itself was very nice with croissants, pain au chocolat, bread, meats, cheese, cereal, fruit, jams, juices, yoghurt, buns and probably a few things I've forgotten. There are ski lockers in the basement (free) which are probably big enough for 4 skis and boots with sufficient organisation. Since the lockers were in the basement it was quite cold so boots were never really dry, but this wasn't a major issue. The hotel is about 3 minutes walk (with tired legs in boots) from the lifts so it is in a good location.
We did have a number of issues with the hotel, the first of which was our room door being left open on numerous occasions by the cleaner. After the first time we gave them the benefit of the doubt as the door does stick, but on the second occasion we complained to the manager. She was very dismissive and told us "this could not be possible" she eventually conceded and told us this wouldn't happen again. It did happen again, this time on the last day. We decided to just forget about it as we couldn't be arsed with the attitude of the manager. However, after returning from dropping off our skis the manger confronted us over an incident the previous night where the fire extinguisher had been tampered with and night porter given a hard time. Given that we were in the room before 10 and in bed not soon after we were extremely angry to be accused of this, especially when threatened with our deposit (provided by my credit card). We tried to explain that we had absolutely nothing to do with the incident but she kept on walking off and displaying her usual bad attitude. It eventually got quite heated and we told her that we would be contacting our rep and making a complaint. Rep contacted and he arrived about 30 mins later, where we explained our position and he went off to talk to her. He assured us that nothing would be taken from our deposit and that the issue was done. We wanted an apology for the way we were treated but he explained that he couldn't ask this of her as it could damage their 'working relationship'. We didn't see her again after this, but after returning from a beer we were given my passport and credit card details earlier than expected so my mind was put at rest. There were a couple of other small instances of the manager's unprofessionalism such as asking us (paying customers) to return a dog to a bar on the other side of town, but the previous issue is what could have potentially ruined our holiday had it happened earlier in the week. It's really unfortunate that one person ruined an otherwise nice hotel but I would certainly not recommend anyone to stay at the Snowlake unless a change of management is implemented.
More to follow...
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