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| Reviews: 14 |
| North Yorkshire |
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  5 of 5, "It's the biggest area in the world FFS - what's not to like?" 22/01/2010 @ 17:26:46 |
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| Price Paid |
| 400 |
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| Booked Trip Through |
| Mark Warner |
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| Times Visited |
| Just Once |
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| Review Detail |
Righto folks, it's time for a whistle stop review of the 3 valleys and Meribel Mottaret inparticular.
So let's kick this off with where Mrs Dants and I stuck our heads down for the night. Our place of choice (thanks to a hefty discount on the web site and an even heftier discount due to prudent use of pru health membership) was the Tarrentaise, a Mark Warner joint bang on the side of the piste. In a nutshell this is a quiet, family orientated joint with great food, great rooms, great childcare... not that 99% of GB viewers are interested in that. Point is, I thought it was excellent. If you wanna know more go to TripAdvisor - have gone in to much more detail there.
Sooooo Meribel Mottaret. OK, well you're in the heart of the 3 valleys. The 3 valleys is the biggest snow sports area in the world. Let's not muck around - if you don't like it here then that's probably going to be your problem and no one else's. There's tons of runs for all abilities, loads of parks, fantastic off piste yada yada yada. The lift system in January was swift and efficient - no queuing for us. All high speed, hardly any drags. There's nothing bad you can say about the place apart from that it's not Canada.
Anyhoo, here's my summary of the 3 valleys for those that want it:
1) Meribel. Nice big area right in the heart of things. Has something for everyone. Good for familys, good for young people, loads of lifts come in and out from there... can't say much else really. Jolly nice place.
2) Courchevel. Allegedly 1850 is where the posh people hang out. All I can say is it didn't excite me as much as the other areas, but that's kinda like saying you'd rather binge on Dairymilk than Crunchie when you're locked in the Cadbury's factory. I dunno, I just found that since I was riding with a bunch of serious piste bashers that there were too many runs to lose each other on. Yeah, I know, I'm being picky. There's nothing to really complain about.
3) Les Menuirs. You've gotta love the French and their avant garde architecture. With the Pompidou Centre in Paris they got it right. With Les Menuirs they hopefully learned a lesson to NOT STICK A PIG UGLY PILE OF MODERNIST TRIPE IN AN AREA OF OUTSTANDING NATURAL BEAUTY EVER EVER AGAIN. Still, if you don't try you never learn I suppose. And there's some amazing blacks and off piste to play on.
4) Val Thorens. Bit of a way out in the 3 Valleys but probably the area with the best slopes and the best apres. Steep, deep and party sheep. That should cover it. Overall probably the resort I'd be most likely to book first were I not getting a big fat discount from Mark Warner
5) Just so you know, Brides les Bains is a long way down the valley with it's own lift to get you to Meribel in the morning and home in the afternoon If you have a big, cost conscious group and no other option then fine, go for it. If you can then try to get somewhere closer.
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| Strengths |
| Huge area, loads of parks, runs for everyone |
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| Hot Spots |
| Not many. Still managed to get filmed dancing on a table though. Whoops. |
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| Weaknesses |
| Bit dull in the evening - apres bars in Meribel are full of 20-something Brits showing their pants. Nice. |
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| 5 of 5, "good stuff" 14/01/2008 @ 20:03:02 |
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| 1 of 5 people found the following review helpful: |
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| Price Paid |
| 550 ish i think |
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| Booked Trip Through |
| neilson |
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| Times Visited |
| Just Once |
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| Review Detail |
went april 07. was beginning to melt a little, so higher up was where the nice snow was, there was still snow everywhere mind.
didnt explore much nightlife, just did boarding, which was really good. |
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| Strengths |
massive
nice looking
interesting
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| Weaknesses |
| i wouldnt like to fault it |
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| Similar Resorts Visited |
| la plagne, tignes |
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| 5 of 5, "Great place to board for all levels" 15/02/2007 @ 14:47:40 |
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| 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful: |
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| Price Paid |
| I only paid for my flight (300), but those booking it paid just over 1200 quid for 4 people |
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| Booked Trip Through |
| Expedia.com |
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| Times Visited |
| Just Once |
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| Review Detail |
We stayed at Les Fermes de Meribel, and MGM owned set of chalets in Meribel Village. Four Star.
Althugh the chalets can sleep 6, there are only two bedrooms and 3 beds, the third with a slide out bed of sorts. The Sofa in the lounge has a similar slide-out bed under it, but I slept on the sofa.
While the Complex had no restaurant, there is a small supermarket and a couple of restaurants nearby. For the most part we simply bought food in Meribel Centre and cooked for ourselves, a much cheaper, tastier and filling option! The kitchen was easily enough to cook for all 5 of us.
En-suite shower room with sink for the twin room, and a separate bathroom with a tiny toilet (sitting down on the throne and your knees almost touching the wall in front of you!) all of a nice standard.
The best part about this place is that not only did it have it's own lockers for ski stuff, but our balcony went straight out onto the slope, about 20 yards from the "Golf" Chairlift. You could ride all the way home.
As for the slopes, like I say, they were great. Some really nice wide open greens that can be enjoyed by intermediates, as there are plenty of jumps at the edges to hit (I'm talking about the descent from altiport 2 to altiport 1 as an example), and the handsfree lift pass system is spot on.
All the pistes were really well looked after too.
Lots of places to stop and eat/drink on the mountain if you're feeling rich. I splashed out on a hot chocolate in one of them, and for 3.5 euros it wasn't too bad, but not good enough to be something I'd do every day.
I booked a freestyle level 3 course with New Gen, and our instructor was Lee, top bloke and to boot a "real" boarder instructor, rather than a ski instructor who's learnt to board, meaning he could actually show us what he was teaching us. Learnt a load of stuff, tightened up my technique a bit, and grew my confidence no end. Can't recommend these people highly enough!
I rented my board equipment from Board Brains, as recommended by New Gen, and Jonno and his mate (sorry, I never caught his name!) sorted me out with a sweet board. I also bought a jacket, helmet and gloves from them, on the whole not much more than UK prices. Again, highly recommended, as they were both extremely knowledgable and helpful.
All in all, for my first real ski holiday in 12 years or so, it was all very easy to get on with and enjoy it all. 5 for the terrain, 4 for the accomodation (only really because I didn't get a real bed and there was no satellite tv for Extreme Sports Channel!).
Would go back again, and would recommend it to anyone. |
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| Strengths |
Superb Amount of runs covering all levels.
Ability to visit neighbouring valleys with ease (red/blue runs mainly)
2 Snowboard parks with plenty of rails, jumps, a boarder cross track, and a wallride!
Great on slope attitude, helpful staff everywhere.
Chalet Facilities (Pool, Turkish Sauna, Steam Room, Gym) |
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| Hot Spots |
Not too sure really, we didn't really explore the nightlife too much, aside from the bar in Meribel Village, full of friendly people, and with lots going on in the way of live music and giveaways.
Don't touch my moustache! (private joke) |
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| Weaknesses |
Eating and drinking out is really pricey, think central london and you're still not quite there.
6 euros a pint, for example, outside of happy hours. Stick to the happy hour times, and you'll be all good. |
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 4 of 5, "A great resort - a week is too short to do it justice." 28/03/2006 @ 10:10:43 |
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| 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful: |
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| Price Paid |
| £550'ish |
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| Booked Trip Through |
| Chalet World / Intereactive Resorts |
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| Times Visited |
| Just Once |
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| Review Detail |
We stayed in a catered Chalet called Chalet Le Rocher. Although it was booked through ChaletWorld it was managed by Ski France/ NBV. The Chalet was well situated, about 15/20 minutes walk from the town centre and the slopes, and was a perfect size for our group of 9. All of the rooms had en suite showers or baths meaning no waiting for a shower after a hard day boarding. The rooms weren't exactly spacious but they were perfectly fine for getting your head down at the end of the day.
Our chalet host was great guy called Dave who cooked brilliant food all week, had decent advice on the nightlife and made great cakes for tea time. If you've not been on a chalet holiday before I would have to recommend them for larger groups as I personally never have enough energy after a day on the slopes to even think about organising food. It slightly depends on the quality of your host but the two I have now done have been great.
Anyway, so to the slopes. The week we were in Meribel they had as much snow as they had had for the rest of the season. We arrived to find a foot or so of powder and throughout the week it just kept snowing. Although this meant the snow was brilliant all week it also meant that at times we couldn't see very much at all. The vast skiing area certainly lived up to it's reputation and after a week I think we all felt we'd only just touched the surface.
Our best day of the week was Tuesday when the sun came out and we were able to hop across to Courcheval. We had some good blasts down the pisted reds and spent a fun afternoon in the small park there. Although there weren't many kickers we found a decent blue and a red that suited our group perfectly. The day was only spoiled when one member of our party had their board knicked so do remember to use / buy snowboard locks!
We managed to get over to Les Menuires and Val Thorens as well but were not impressed with the moguled pistes and flat light we found over at VT but did enjoy some great powder riding at Les Menuires. As the avalanche risk was either 5/5 or 4/5 all week we tried to keep to the off piste that had been tracked, was close to the piste and was not too steep but we still found some great runs in Merribel and Les Menuires that had not been tracked out.
As a group we loved Merribel and Courcheval though and would certainly come back to try and explore the area further - maybe when we can see it.
As for nightlife, we enjoyed a surreal evening at the Tavern on Mexican open mic night (two guys with Mexican facial hair and sombreros doing cover versions on acoustic guitars), watched football at Barometer (slightly more trying to be trendy bar), did the pub quiz at Jacks and tried to avoid Le Pub. A visit to Dicks Tea Bar at the end of the week was very funny as it was having a rock night and we ended up leaping about to Smells Like Teen Spirit at 4 o'clock in the morning.
Overall a really good resort with some great riding available and a decent enough nightlife.
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| Strengths |
- huge area
- variety of runs
- good, fast lifts most of the time
- busy town
- decent nightlife |
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| Hot Spots |
- heading over to Courchavel was great
- The Tavern
- Dicks Tea Bar |
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| Weaknesses |
| - Very English - rare to hear a French accent |
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| Similar Resorts Visited |
| Les Deux Alpes, Alp d'heux, Flaigne, La Plagne, Whistler, Kitszbuhel.... |
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| 4 of 5, "France - Mottaret" 17/03/2006 @ 13:30:38 |
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| 2 of 3 people found the following review helpful: |
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| Price Paid |
| £486 |
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| Booked Trip Through |
| Crystal - Friend booked for 32 of us! |
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| Times Visited |
| Just Once |
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| Review Detail |
What an Awesome Place!!!!!
We stayed at eh Odaly's Le Hameau apartments they wern't all that for the money we paid ( but this is the 3 valley's we are talking about), very basic but all you need is a bed to get your head down on, if you are after a little more luxury then this isn't the place for you. The apartment did have a good bar to meet up with an awesome vibe it had an awesome fire in the middle of the room to warm up by!
The groomers are awesome the off piste is awesome what could more could you ask for!
We paid 270 euro for a 3 valley's lift pass which let us go anywhere and everywhere but to be honest you don't really need the whole 3 valleys as Mottaret/Meribel has enough terrain to keep you going for a good 3 weeks!
There is a wicked snow park called the Moon park which is definately worth a visit whilst roming around! I personally opted for the off pisting, as we had a a humongus dump every single day we were there, this made for some AWESOME riding, quite alot of trees about but if that is not your thing then there is absoloutley tons of powder fields around to rip up!
The lifts were fine hardly any qeue's which was a bonus, i think the worst qeue we hit was in Courcheval, No we didn't see the Beckhams (thank god) although they were meant to be there that week!
A m8 had boarding lessons all week with the local board school in Mottaret and had no complaints at all always on time and had tons of patience! Which is a bonus if your on your butt all the time!
Price of:
Beer Euro 5,20
Cocktail: Euro 4,20
Pizza: Euro 8,00
Average meal Euro: 16,00
The only thing with Mottaret the night life is not all that great (until we (32 of us) arrived and caused havoc) good for families but not for us young hooligans who want to P A R T Y!!! On the upside there is a FREE ( which is always good) bus service down into Meribel where the nightlife is awesome! The free bus runs until 12:00 which is a bit ealry but then you can always buy some Beers and head to someones apartment and party until the ealry hours there! |
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| Strengths |
AWESOME groomers and off piste riding terrain
Price of lift pass for what you get in return |
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| Hot Spots |
| Mmmmmm None in Mottaret but nightlife in Meribel is good |
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| Weaknesses |
| Nighlife in Mottaret is poor |
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| Similar Resorts Visited |
| Les Arcs! |
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