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  4 of 5, "Pretty good, but not for total beginners" 15/01/2012 @ 09:10 |
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| Price Paid |
| £358 (flights, apartment and lift pass, transfer not included) |
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| Booked Trip Through |
| Snowtrex |
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| Times Visited |
| Just Once |
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| Review Detail |
Just got back from Valmeinier, so thought I'd stick another review on.
As said in other reviews, Valmeinier is split into 1500 and 1800, with the majority of the apartments at 1800. We stayed in the Grand Panorama II apartments, which was about a 5-10 minute walk from the shops and bars, depending on how icy it was. We had a green slope which ran past our complex, this meant we could get straight down to 1500 and catch the lift back up to the slopes above 1800.
Valmeinier 1800 has a good range of slopes, greens, blues and reds. Granted, we went in what would probably be one of the quietest weeks of the year (7-14th January), but compared to other resorts Valmeinier is very quiet. We barely queued for a lift once, and if we did it was only for about a minute. Again, as has previously been said, Valmeinier's lift pass allows you across the valley to the connected resort of Valloire, but we didn't get there as we found plenty of fun at 1800. The piste map does show a few long drag lifts in Valloire, so beware if you head over that side.
As for the slopes themselves, some of the gradings seemed a bit wonky. There were reds that were easier than blues, and blues that had some steep bits that certainly made you concentrate! The greens are good in places, but generally pretty flat and narrow, so not good for boarders. It is for this reason I don't think Valmeinier would be best for your first ever boarding holiday. The drop offs at the side of the greens would have scared me rigid on my first holiday. Groups of French skiers had the incredibly irritating habit of stopping to chat across the narrowest flattest bits which formed the transitions between slopes, so unless you wanted to play skittles with skiers it meant stopping. Getting going again was then super difficult. The vast majority of visitors to Valmeinier are skiers, which can make conditions a bit choppy on some of the runs. There are only two main routes back to the lifts at the base area at 1800, a green which practically everyone goes down, and a nice straight red called 'stade'. Sadly, they close 'stade' often to set up slalom runs for ski racers, which was gutting as it was a lovely run and not that well used. This meant fighting with the snowplough turners and snakes of 20 French kids falling like dominoes down the green.
If you are looking for mad après, Valmeinier is not the place for you. If you want a nice chilled holiday, then it is a great place to go. There are a few restaurants and bars, we particularly liked Les Trois Diables, pool, good music, and a lovely lemony beer called Amadeus. Prices for beer ranged between 4 - 6.50 euros. Pizza places dominate the restaurants, they ranged from about 10 - 16 euros. For lunch we found the Snow Duck the best value, good paninis, hot sandwiches, burgers etc.
I would definitely go back to Valmeinier. It ticks a lot of boxes, it is the most beautiful place I have been. It is pretty much what you expect an Alpine resort to look like, with wooden chalets set in the side of the mountain etc. We were very very lucky with the conditions, there had been about 30cm of snow over the two days before we arrived, and then we had bluebird conditions all week. It is not full of beered up idiots, which I really liked. The mates we went with have been to Chamonix and other bigger European resorts and said they loved Valmeinier, and would go back there. I think it is a bit of an undiscovered gem at the moment, most of the main UK tour operators don't go there. We used Snowtrex, and I think Snowcoach go there too. If you want any more detailed info, please feel free to PM me! |
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| Strengths |
For Europe, quiet
Stunning scenery
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| Hot Spots |
Les Trois Diables
Le Lebowski - bowling and pool |
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| Weaknesses |
Flat skinny greens
Quiet après scene
French skiers and ski school! Please please get out of the way! |
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| Similar Resorts Visited |
Soldeu - Andorra
Jasper - Canada
Kimberley - Canada
Crested Butte - USA |
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 5 of 5, "Valmeinier 1800 - a real gem" 01/02/2009 @ 18:40 |
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| 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful: |
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| Price Paid |
| About £340 flights/accom/transfers |
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| Booked Trip Through |
| Self - Jet2 |
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| Times Visited |
| Just Once |
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| Review Detail |
A fabulous Boarding resort. Stayed in Valmeinier 1800 - there's a Valmeinier 1500 too, but although that's well connected with chairlifts it doesn't have the resort infrastructure that 1800 has.
Stayed in Apartments that were literally a 3 minute walk from the 2 chairlifts that go directly from the resort - most of the accommodation was within walking distance. Couple of small, fairly priced supermarkets, good range of Boarding shops (inc hire), plenty of places to eat and 3 or 4 decent bars, though the 'Apres' was fairly quiet until late on.
Val 1800 is on the South Eastern side of a valley and conditions are great for Boarding for most of the day. Plenty of nice wide blues, though the few reds are a bit slalomed-out by skiers, and some fabulous open off-piste - you can get up to about 2500m on the lifts and that's well above the tree-line. There's also a good Snowpark within a couple of rides and chairlifts in the adjacent valley.
Val 1800 has good access to a big area (local blurb claims it's the 5th biggest connected area in France) with 150 km of pistes - all accessible on the local lift pass - which averaged out at about €20 a day - and hardly a drag lift in site There's a lovely morning run straight down out of the resort which takes you to L'Armera, from which you're just a couple of lifts and runs away from the Valloire slopes (inc that Snowpark). There's a 3rd set of slopes further to the east towards Les Verneys but I didn't bother getting over that far - plenty to do nearer to home.
Boarders made up about 20-25%, but no hassles. Very few Brits - mainly French with quite a lot of Germans.
Important travel tip - cheap flights into Chambery, and the transfer/connection time is about 1.5 hours - but the commercial transfer companies can be very expensive so go onto the Valmeinier.com website and book your transfer through the tourist office - €35 each way per person, which was about half the commercial rate - and because not many appear to know about it, it's not busy - in late Jan we were given a personal taxi service door to door!
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| Strengths |
Everything is really accessible from the heart of the resort so you don't spend any time at all queueing or getting transport.
Great for Intermediates and Experts, fantastic for off-piste.
Couple of great mountain cafe/restaurants.
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| Hot Spots |
| The views from the top of Le Gros Crey (2594m) and Le Crey du Quart (2534m). The long blue runs through the forest down to L'Armera (3 in total). |
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| Weaknesses |
A bit too challenging for complete beginners.
Limited amount of 'straight off the piste' Apres-ski - everything is so handy most people go home to change and eat and go out later. |
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| Similar Resorts Visited |
| Avoriaz/Morzine (imagine the best bits of both of these put together, and you've got Valmeinier). |
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| 4 of 5 16/01/2005 @ 14:25 |
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| Price Paid |
| £450 |
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| Booked Trip Through |
| snowcoach |
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| Times Visited |
| Just Once |
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| Review Detail |
| Very nice resort (1800) but quite small, has a bigger brother over the next valley (Valloire) which seemed a little more 'happening'. One bar that was a good crack was 'No Comment' - great atmosphere and nice decor tho mind the low beams in parts, more injured from that than boarding!! VERY VERY VERY quiet the week we went (8thJan'05) had most of the slopes to ourselves, runs were all nice apart from a few annoying flat ski-bits, snow was a little dodgy as it is lots of places in the alps at the mo. One annoying thing was the rubish link from one valley to the other, Pah. |
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| Strengths |
Cheap a Frites when we went
Good choice of runs, enough for a week for an intermediate
Off piste bliss (if there was more snow)
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| Hot Spots |
The blue run from the top of the midle mountain - heaven!
'No Comment' bar @1800 - nice!
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| Weaknesses |
Bit too quiet
links from one valley to the next not too hot
lack of snow (my deck is fcuked!!) - they could have used the snow cannons more i'm sure?!!?
TOO many button lifts |
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| Similar Resorts Visited |
| Livigno |
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| 5 of 5 04/01/2005 @ 08:59 |
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| Price Paid |
| 560 euros |
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| Booked Trip Through |
| www.sudsnowsports.com |
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| Times Visited |
| Just Once |
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| Review Detail |
Nice ski in / out hotel
Lots of different sorts of runs, we went in a group and even the better riders could go on some good off piste without loosing some of the less able of us
apres ski was a great laugh on in the hotels terrace lots of Genepi!!! |
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| Strengths |
great value for money
ski in / out hotel
small company so very personnal sevice, we were the only ones in the resort that week
guiding included in the holiday
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| Hot Spots |
| the views were amazing and one of our party took a ride in a micro light |
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| Similar Resorts Visited |
pas de la cassa - Andorra
Chamonix - France |
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