CRYSTAL HOTEL COURCHEVEL — Hotel in Albertville

This hotel is mostly great but where is falls, it falls hard. There's good, excellent and ugly.||||Starting with the good:||- the location is right on the slopes (but the nearest button lift was closed for us, so no practice runs before you hit the main lifts)||- there is ski hire on site||- the desserts in the evening||- the soup and cakes in the afternoon are great (shout out to the Easter baked goods which were the best of all!)||- the other guests were very nice and we were mixed up at dinner so we met a few other families||- the coach transfers were seamless||- kids have supervised evening meal and the choices are fine, it's not all chicken nuggets and chips thank goodness||- they are vigilant with the hand sanitiser and try to keep sickness outbreaks to a minimum. There were a couple of children who vomited late in the week, but luckily nothing too bad and it was well contained and guests were warned.||||The excellent:||- the childcare staff. Esprit must hand pick them to a high standard because they were friendly, genuinely seemed to like children and were affectionate and playful with them.||- the resort staff in general couldn't do enough for us. We were often getting lifts down to the village when the shuttle was at an inconvenient time for us and Lina the manager was super helpful.||- they replaced what was obviously a swimming pool with a large soft play gym and it is so much more useful for the kids to tire themselves out after tea, if snow club and skiing wasn't enough! Fits more kids and needs less supervision than a swimming pool, definitely an inspired idea to put that in!||||The ugly:||- the beds were lumpy and the baths were grim (plastic peeling off them and clogging) and sinks and baths didn't drain so you ended a shower standing ankle deep in water - I found out when other guests were joking about buying plungers in the lift that this is a hotel-wide problem!||- at the end of the week the food ran out (end of season) and there wasn't much for breakfast or anything we could eat for lunch, which meant it was a long trip back on a Sunday with no food for the kids since breakfast (we went to Chambery, which is adequate but rubbish facilities and there was no food available there either except a cold panini!).||- there is no lunch at the hotel and there isn't really anywhere nearby to go and find lunch if you are not out skiing for whatever reason (we had one injured non-skier who didn't eat from breakfast til 4pm)||- the wifi is only accessible for up to 3 people between the hours of 10am-12pm - in other words, you can only get on it when the hotel is empty. Don't rely on it, but do upgrade your data package before you go because there is 4G data network at this location.||- our TV didn't work, so no CBeebies for our kids, but that didn't matter too much as they could go watch in our friends' room.||- towels weren't changed much over the week and if you showered in the morning it was annoying to come back to wet and dirty towels in the afternoon, particularly as you get sweaty skiing in the sunshine! Probably would have been fine to get more fresh towels if we asked, but we weren't really around much.||||It was our first time staying in an Esprit hotel and although the accommodation was basic, the service was generally great. Would go back to Esprit again but maybe...

This was our sixth and final visit to Crystal 2000 - final because our children are now too old to appreciate the Esprit experience. I have reviewed the hotel before but wanted to give it one last review to put on record that it is generally still an excellent hotel. Certainly for what one pays (even in half term week) the hotel can't be faulted and provided an excellent holiday for all the family. ||||Apart from anything else, there is probably not a better location in the world. It is hard to beat The Three Valleys anyway but the hotel's location on a gentle green slope with easy access to other lifts is perfect for family skiing.||||Yes the building is old and tired - but it is clean, warm, comfortable and has plenty of hot water for a post ski bath or shower. ||||The childcare, which sets Esprit apart, is of course great. Even our nearly 14 year old found herself joining in with many of the evening activities. ||||If I had to critisise the hotel it would be consistency of service in the bar and restaurant. Whilst the food is generally good, there were a couple of notable exceptions. Certain food items ran out at breakfast very quickly and took time to replace. The service on occasion was a bit hit and miss and on a couple of days the bar staff really didn't seem to know what they were doing. However overall this did not detract from the holiday.||||We are all sad that we won't be going back but unfortunately it is...

Being a regular Esprit guest we know what to expect great childcare, super helpful and friendly staff and ok food and accommodation. However this week it is clear that there has now been a significant change with the separation of childcare and hotel operations. The hotel staff are now clearly branded as a separate team. Although still friendly and helpful they were often overwhelmed and at times clumsily amateur meaning the service often fell short. It felt there were too few staff for the number of guests. Food was at times ok but poor at other times. Service often started late and arrived piecemeal. Miserly actions like removing free hot chocolate and forcing you to the bar to pay 3 euros is symptomatic of a company maximising profit at every opportunity. Our final experience was to find no breakfast laid out as promised for our early transfer and being rudely told by staff that this wasn’t a provided service.||||Esprit’s great childcare still makes them unique but failing to provide a great service to the adults risks alienating...