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  5 of 5, "Les Arc is a great experience." 29/12/2011 @ 02:19 |
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| Price Paid |
| £210 Per Person |
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| Booked Trip Through |
| Lastminute.com |
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| Times Visited |
| Just Once |
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| Review Detail |
Myself and a few mates booked last minute. we flew into Geneva and got a coach transfer. we stayed in 3* self catered apartments about 500m from the gondola.
We were there for 7 nights and all I can say it is was a boarders dream. the piste areas are so big, you would be hard pushed to board the same run twice. pick your route carefully and you can board straight across the hill to valandry and catch some excellent offpiste / back country action on the 30 min hike back, or you can take the lift back up the hill and board back across. The cable car to la Plagne is a great bonus and your lift pass covers this also. bonus! added together with the apocolypes park with kickers and rails for all abilities, and you have a great mix for any level of ability in this resort.
Food and drinks are pricey, however there are local shops and supermarkets to stock up on "in house" entertainment for a fraction of the cost. Apres-ski was decent and we all had a great time.
All I can say is, this is a must for any boarder who wants to do a bit of everything. park, piste, jib and off piste. it has it all.
I reccommend the night at the top of the hill. 40 Euros and you take the last lift or stay on the hill, dinner, hot wine, music and a night ride down to the resort. what a laugh. awesome experience in boarding in the dark with a penny can lantern, and great food and banter.
on the down side- if you get hurt. be wise. I nailed myself on the boarder cross track and I badly hurt my sholder and near severed my pinky. I went to the local hospital and was charged not once, but twice for the same treatment. Be cautious of the nurse. she is extra. 250 euros to change a bandage. my advice. use superglue till you get home.
I am going back. watch this space. |
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| Strengths |
runs for all abilities.
Great snow park
Bars and nightclubs
every type of piste action |
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| Hot Spots |
| I was too drunk to recant any names. |
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| Weaknesses |
If you dont speak french, communication can be tricky with the locals.
Pricey food and drinks
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| Similar Resorts Visited |
Bansko
pamporovo
Arinsal
Borovets
Flaine |
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| Reviews: 1 |
| Buckinghamshire |
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| 5 of 5 14/04/2009 @ 17:36 |
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| 3 of 5 people found the following review helpful: |
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| Price Paid |
| £429 |
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| Booked Trip Through |
| Ski Alpine |
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| Times Visited |
| Just Once |
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| Review Detail |
Both trips (there and back) took 24 hours a time, with very little leg room and the seats were positioned so that I couldn't put my head that far back, so no sleep for me. But this way of travelling is the best way to go about meeting people on the trip which was awesome!
We stayed in La Thuria, a 6 person room with kitchen and a dining table which was good for drinking games, especially spoons and ring of fire ;)
The snow from the top of Transarc all the way down to Arc 1600 was fantastic from about 9am-3pm, but after 3pm it goes extremely slushy and soaked through gloves. Bare in mind it didn't snow once in the week we were there, but it was very sunny, so plenty of sun block to avoid the dreaded goggle burn!
The Apocalypse park was pretty good, obviously full of park rats in XXXXL basketball jerseys, blaring out gangster rap over the PA. It's a shame there was no drag lift because having to use the chairlift is a bore!
I would also definitely recommend the Fondue night at L'Arpette along with the late night descent! I got pumped on vin chaud (12€ for a jug) and a coupla complimentary bottles of red wine. Dancing on the tables is a must, but please keep this 'til after the meal ;)
Get over to Red Hot Saloon for the best parties including; beach night, back to school disco and other such university orientated nights. Happy hour is a must too, DESPERADOS!!!! |
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| Strengths |
Nightlife, in particular; Before Café & Altitude, Red Hot Saloon, Apocalypse (+ Le Kebab for the standard chip butty after a night out)
Football in most of the bars (Champions League & UEFA Cup anyway)
Friendly locals, most of which who I met were British seasonairres
Good snow conditions, even though it was so late in the season (April)
Live bands throughout the week
Sherpa supermarket, stock up on booze there!! |
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| Hot Spots |
| Aguille Rouge, Grand Col, Middle Station at Transarc has a nice run down too |
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| Weaknesses |
Rude French locals, but that's the French for you
Lifts are busy continuously
Beer is so expensive, but you have to expect that
Cougars that hang around in Before Café, she grab my balls far too much!!
Alot of the blue runs are flat, bring a pushing pole ;) |
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| Similar Resorts Visited |
| Tignes, Val D'Isere |
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| 5 of 5, "Les Arcs 1800 - 2006" 26/03/2006 @ 13:20 |
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| 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful: |
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| Price Paid |
| £2000 for 2 month stay |
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| Booked Trip Through |
| Booked independantly |
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| Times Visited |
| Just Once |
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| Review Detail |
I've just come back from 2 months in Les Arcs 1800 and probably had the best experience of my life! I would highly recommend to anyone who is thinking of doing a season/half season to give Les Arcs some serious consideration. Why? First off there is the actual boarding, the area is so huge there is plenty for everyone of all abilities. Having been a skier previously, I went to Les Arcs as a relative beginner having only been to the Tamworth Snowbome on my board. During my first week or so there were plenty of wide cruisy blue slopes around the 1800 sector that enabled me to improve my riding ability in relative safety...apart from my sore backside!
However, once I improved considerably so did the variety of terrain at my disposal. For great piste runs you need to head over to the vallandry sector where you have great wide cruisy tree lined blue and red runs which have loads of lips and rollers where some cat tracks cross the piste...great for practicing my ollies and improving my confidence at getting air! I guess Les Arcs main strength is the easily accessible off piste from many of the lifts, lift 69 (Plan Bois) had the easiest off piste, just get off the lift, turn right and dive off the piste at any point and there is loads of the white fluffy stuff! The grand col area also has loads of off piste at your disposal, although requires a little more of a hike. My favourite off piste was just after it had been dumping for 10 days, we got the transarc lift to the top, walked right past the mountain restaurant and had a 25 minute pow ride down, before another short hike followed by a 40 minute pow run through trees all the way down to Nancroix.....make sure you are wearing a tranceiver if you do this though as there was an alvalanche the day after I did this run where a female skier was killed :-(
Everyone needs to head up the Aguille Rouge, awesome views on a bluebird and the 8km run down to villaroger is a real thigh burner!
The nightlife, although not an amazing selection of bars....i never got bored of going out..even after 2 months, the staff in Before Cafe, Chez Bou Bou's, Ambiente, Red Hot Saloon were awesome....really made us feel like part of the family even though we only arrived halfway through the season!
The only downsides that I can mention are that it can be a little pricey and the food in general was not as good as I expected from a country who's president has gone on record criticising British Cuisine! Oh.....and avoid the french half term like the plague, for two weeks lift queues from 3pm onwards were horrendous!
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| Strengths |
| Awesome Terrain, Easily Accessible Off Piste, Boarder Freindly Atmosphere, Before Cafe, Chez Bou Bou's |
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| Hot Spots |
| Plan Bois Lift Area, Aguille Rouge, Grand Col, Amazing Atmosphere |
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| Weaknesses |
| A Bit Ugly, Food in general was not the best, Some cat tracks needed to explore the whole mountain |
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| Similar Resorts Visited |
| Val D'isere, Pas de la Casa, Banff |
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 3 of 5 11/05/2005 @ 14:47 |
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| 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful: |
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| Revision #1 (Last edited: 27/07/2005 @ 22:57) |
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| Price Paid |
| £499 |
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| Booked Trip Through |
| Outgoing ski |
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| Times Visited |
| Just Once |
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| Review Detail |
I arrived in Les Arcs very early in the morning after catching a coach there! This i would not recommend, its the first time I have gone by coach and the last. The coach seats had minimal leg room; it was supposed to be luxury, if it was I would love to have seen standard. I stayed in a place called the UCPA, its a French youth hostel type accomodation, the staff were freindly laid back and quite helpful. The price included all meals, breakfast was understandibly limited but dinners were varied and excellent. The accomadation was tiny, 4 people in a room sized approx 1.5mX4m. Nightlife was very very limited and being based just outside the 1600 village there was no incentive or point to head out in the evening.
We were lucky with snow, the week before I went out nothing had opened, luckily it snowed a lot in the days leading up to arriving there and for the whole of the first day. This did not give a good snow base and unfortunately, my board has the scars to show for it. There seemed like a lot of skiers were there and moguls soon appeared, over the week I stayed the pistes rapidly deterorated, especially the pistes heading back down to 1600 and 1800. The skier orientated atmosphere was further compounded when exploring the area around 2000. The runs down to 2000 from L'Arpette I found hell, I must half walked a mile on the flat. Once there the best area I found was the trip down the Villaroger, nice terrain, nice views especially on sunny day. The cable car to La Plagne is a good addition in principle but just to far away from a 1600 base, especially as it wasn't covered by the pass I had. There did find some nice quiet runs, one run close to where I stayed was the from the Mont Blanc lift, its only a blue but its a wide fast tree lined run straight back to the UCPA or down to 1600. The runs down to 1800 are also good, fast and wide when empty. Queues were large for lifts at all times, again especially around the villages.
I know this resort would have been better with more snow, (the off piste possibilities looked good) and worth visiting later in the season not during holiday time (I went over new year) but still, comparing it to other resorts I have been to around the same time of year, I found it to be lacking in all departments. |
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| Strengths |
| probably a lot to offer off piste with good snow |
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| Hot Spots |
| area down to villaroger |
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| Weaknesses |
lifts
nightlife
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| Similar Resorts Visited |
deux alpes
la plagne
morzine/avoriaz
mayrhofen
pas de la casa
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| 5 of 5 07/05/2005 @ 14:18 |
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| Price Paid |
| 400 |
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| Booked Trip Through |
| Sorted ourselves |
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| Times Visited |
| Just Once |
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| Review Detail |
Stayed in Nancroix for a couple of weeks. Not much to do there but it means you don't spend as much money, and everyone in the chalet was well sound (Chaletarc).
Snow was a bit crap while we there there - it snowed over a metre the day we got there (which was good!!), but then there was no more for the rest of the 14days. There wasn't much of a base to the off-piste so I ended up with a new rock board after taking out some hefty gouges from it. Even though it hadn't snowed for about 13days we could still find freshies around arc 2000 with a short hike in or out, but the pistes were horrific!!
The variety of terrain is great - tree ski-ing, long powder runs, chutes, motorway pistes etc. etc. If it's snowing, the Plan Bois chair is good in bad weather - lots of opportunities for going thru trees and in between pistes - and you can plan routes from the chair. |
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| Strengths |
Somewhere to go no matter what the weather
Large varierty of runs and easily accessible off-piste
Good snow up top even when it hasn't snowed in a week or so
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| Weaknesses |
Busy pistes can get really icy if there isn't much snow
Quesues at the bottom can be pretty bad
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| Similar Resorts Visited |
| Val'd, Fernie, Silver Star, Les Menuires |
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| Read more reviews for resorts in FRANCE. |
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