Valle Nevado — Attraction in Lo Barnechea

Arrived at hotel and one attendant was working behind the desk (we will call her C). We had done the check in via the app but still had to wait in line behind two people. The app is only partially effective as it wants you to upload a picture of your passport or other identification. All files exceeded 2MB limit and were rejected. Finally I tried to use the camera feature offered and take a picture of our passports, also rejected for file size. Unfortunately the lady in front of us was checking in for 9 people and had not done the check in via the app. We waited in line in the lobby for more than 30 minutes waiting for poor C (still no help for her) to get people checked in. ||||Our turn for check in then went relatively fast since we had used the app. No apology for the long wait we had endured. C only needed to take a photo of the identifications. Then we wanted to change into ski wear, the only place to do this is in a small Women’s restroom of stated capacity of 1 or a Men’s restroom of stated capacity 1. After waiting for a while outside the locked restroom, so I could change, a man came out of the Women’s room. ||||We were told at check in the room would be ready at 4pm, slight miss as we had to wait until 4:35pm. They did send a bottle of wine the next day which was thoughtful and appreciated.||||Also during check in we were told we should make a reservation for dinner, so we tried to do this while still at reception desk. While the terms of our contract indicated we can only dine at the restaurant corresponding to our hotel, we asked for La Fouchette as this is the Valle Nevado Hotel restaurant. We were told it was not available 2 of the nights and one night we could eat at 10pm? What???? She suggested dining at the two lower end hotel restaurants, which according to our contract is not even allowed. How about during my multiple communications with the reservations boss (we will call her M) she tells us we need a reservation? Never. We even asked re: lunch reservations and dinner reservations were never brought up. After insisting on 6:30pm for 3 nights at La Fouchette the reservation attendant we were speaking to at the desk agreed to two nights, but would not confirm back to me 6:30, and would try for the third. So we go to dinner at La Fouchette at 6:30pm and the restaurant is 30% full, when we finished at 7:40pm it was similarly 30% full. Waitstaff literally standing around looking for someone to help. What? Something very strange is going on here.||Food was very mediocre at best. Service was friendly and attentive.||||On the bright side, our hotel room has a beautiful view of the mountains, the snow was fine and the slopes were not crowded at all for some skiing the first day. No lift lines which was nice.||||They seemed to have lots of nice looking and new snow making equipment but I’m not sure it was fully utilized as there were pebble and dirt patches on some key slopes most days. There was a smell of sewage consistently at one point on route down to gondola and strong diesel fumes daily on route to Tres puntas lift.||||People were friendly. Overall quite disappointing though and not the level of service, food, upkeep that one would expect for the price point. For context we have skiied Zermatt, all over Utah and Colorado so that is our comparison point. We tried Valle nevado because it was on IKON.

Arrived at hotel and one attendant was working behind the desk (we will call her C). We had done the check in via the app but still had to wait in line behind two people. The app is only partially effective as it wants you to upload a picture of your passport or other identification. All files exceeded 2MB limit and were rejected. Finally I tried to use the camera feature offered and take a picture of our passports, also rejected for file size. Unfortunately the lady in front of us was checking in for 9 people and had not done the check in via the app. We waited in line in the lobby for more than 30 minutes waiting for poor C (still no help for her) to get people checked in. ||||Our turn for check in then went relatively fast since we had used the app. No apology for the long wait we had endured. C only needed to take a photo of the identifications. Then we wanted to change into ski wear, the only place to do this is in a small Women’s restroom of stated capacity of 1 or a Men’s restroom of stated capacity 1. After waiting for a while outside the locked restroom, so I could change, a man came out of the Women’s room. ||||We were told at check in the room would be ready at 4pm, slight miss as we had to wait until 4:35pm. They did send a bottle of wine the next day which was thoughtful and appreciated.||||Also during check in we were told we should make a reservation for dinner, so we tried to do this while still at reception desk. While the terms of our contract indicated we can only dine at the restaurant corresponding to our hotel, we asked for La Fouchette as this is the Valle Nevado Hotel restaurant. We were told it was not available 2 of the nights and one night we could eat at 10pm? What???? She suggested dining at the two lower end hotel restaurants, which according to our contract is not even allowed. How about during my multiple communications with the reservations boss (we will call her M) she tells us we need a reservation? Never. We even asked re: lunch reservations and dinner reservations were never brought up. After insisting on 6:30pm for 3 nights at La Fouchette the reservation attendant we were speaking to at the desk agreed to two nights, but would not confirm back to me 6:30, and would try for the third. So we go to dinner at La Fouchette at 6:30pm and the restaurant is 30% full, when we finished at 7:40pm it was similarly 30% full. Waitstaff literally standing around looking for someone to help. What? Something very strange is going on here.||Food was very mediocre at best. Service was friendly and attentive.||||On the bright side, our hotel room has a beautiful view of the mountains, the snow was fine and the slopes were not crowded at all for some skiing the first day. No lift lines which was nice.||||They seemed to have lots of nice looking and new snow making equipment but I’m not sure it was fully utilized as there were pebble and dirt patches on some key slopes most days. There was a smell of sewage consistently at one point on route down to gondola and strong diesel fumes daily on route to Tres puntas lift.||||People were friendly. Overall quite disappointing though and not the level of service, food, upkeep that one would expect for the price point. For context we have skiied Zermatt, all over Utah and Colorado so that is our comparison point. We tried Valle nevado because it was on IKON.

I stayed at Hotel Valle Nevado for 1 week, from 25/8 to 1/9. It was my first time at the Valle Nevado ski resort. However, my experience was not good, due to a number of reasons.||Firstly, the hotel reservation center had cancelled my reservation at Hotel Puerta del Sol without consulting me, and when they tried to make another booking at the same conditions (number of people, days, period and hotel) it was not available and I was forced to stay at the more expensive hotel - which was 30% more expensive, 1500 USD. I have the whole e-mail history of proof. This is definitely no way to treat clients.||During my stay at the hotel, even though it was the best hotel at the resort, it did not feel like a premium 5 star hotel. The Wi-Fi is terrible and connection rarely works (I had to buy a SIM card instead to get internet connectivity). In the room, the shower drain didn't work and flooded the bathtub every day (the hotel said they couldn’t do anything about it, because it was like this). Room service left a couple of water bottles and chocolate on the second day of our stay, and just a chocolate on the third day, and never again. Food and beverage are extremely expensive and overpriced, even more expensive than European ski resorts! It is a complete extortion of tourists. Some ski lifts and pistes were closed without reason - I’ve asked the staff and they didn’t have a real reason. Also, the pistes are badly signaled - especially during cloudier days it is very dangerous even for most experienced skiers. I have skied many times in various resorts worldwide and experienced some grey days, but a cloudy day at Valle Nevado was terrible and dangerous.||Regarding the restaurants, the top two restaurants (French La Fourchette and Italian Monte Bianco) lack ingredients or didn’t have the menu dishes available for many days. Also, during breakfast, the service is terrible: no waiter comes to the table with the coffee or tea jars (I had to get it myself), and I only found out that they could make omelets and special plates after I saw a neighbor table had theirs. This is definitely not a premium 5-star restaurant service.||Finally, it took us 9 hours to go up the road to Valle Nevado, which usually takes 1.5-2 hours maximum. Valle Nevado staff don’t clear the snowy road, the police didn’t organize the traffic and many cars were completely blocked for hours: only one car at a time passing through, and there were people wanting to drive up and down the mountain - because Valle Nevado staff didn’t clear the snow on the road. To make things worse, there were at least 4 snow tractors that were parked along the road and had no one driving it to clear the road. It’s a real shame. They let hundreds of people in their cars completely stopped for hours into the night in freezing weather - this is a serious danger.||On the whole, we did not have a pleasant experience due to many reasons and were not treated as true guests of a premium hotel in the complex. I would not recommend going there.