Noemys L'Ecrin des Neiges

We booked through Sunweb, and wouldn’t stay here again. The apartment was warm and clean, and being by a green run was convenient, but that’s the resort’s only green run. It was packed with beginners, the lift kept stopping when kids fell, and the queue ended up 15-30 minutes. There isn’t much nearby either: the closest restaurant, takeaway, and mini-market were a 15-20 minute walk away, and none was very good. The free resort buses also ignored the stop outside unless you stood in the road to make them stop, and I don’t know why. Inside, it was loud. I swear the kids upstairs were tap dancing in ski boots from 6am to 10pm every day. The furniture was just a hard table and chairs, with no sofa. The shower got hot, but only trickled, and there was nowhere to rest the shower head, so you had to hold it. The TV wasn’t smart, so no Netflix or similar, only French free-to-air channels, mostly adverts, which were all rubbish. The pool is in a separate building, and people stomp through in muddy boots, so it wasn’t pleasant. We tried it once and didn’t go back. I paid 50€ for Wi-Fi that didn’t work, and 55€ for parking that was free. If they try to send you to the underground car park, say no. It’s down a steep slope, and after it iced over, every car trying to drive back up got stuck except proper 4x4s with chains.

We’d come back for the value. The apartment is right by the piste and has a great big balcony with a nice view, plus a good ski locker. The beds could use better mattresses, though. All in all, really good for the money.

There was no Wi-Fi in the apartment, and the pool was so cold we couldn’t use it. The place was clean and basic, with room for three or four of us even though it slept six. A radiator was hanging off the wall when we arrived, but they fixed it within the week. Great skiing location and excellent value.

The reception wasn’t even open every day, and the pool only opened one day a week. We also got a flat with a lot of maintenance problems: the dishwasher was broken, wall sockets had come loose, the bath tap was loose and had hot and cold connected the wrong way, the sink drain leaked, and the heating was off. The whole apartment was 12 degrees. It was the cheapest place we stayed on our holiday, so I suppose you get what you pay for. It gave us an immediate feeling of being behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.