Les Jardins de la Balme — Hotel in Albertville

The worst place I have ever stayed in my life, everything was a disaster with a capital D:

The building comes from 1970 or about and the itself and all its equipment, as well as the room and its equipment, has remained the same since 1970. Only one elevator of two was working, but it has a faile for two days during our stay. The stairs from 4-th to 5-th level are literally falling apart and you should be careful not to fall off when you walk on them. The whole facility is depressingly drab and dark, especially annoying in a room where you literally have to use a flashlight if you want to find something. Some of the furniture in the room was more or less damaged, including the hits in the form of sliding doors falling out of the wardrobe. The size and equipment of the kitchen are drastically insufficient for 7 people, luckily we were just in two people, so it wasn't a big problem. However, more people will find it difficult to use the kitchen, both in terms of space and very scarce prehistoric cookware, which was probably stolen from USSR military reserves from the 1960s. Ski storage room - dirty to the point of absurdity, dark, unheated, and the cabinets do not need to be closed, because the door will be opened with a slight pull by anyone, even a small child. You have to dry your shoes in the room, improvising with wall-mounted, idiotic electric heaters. TV set - dummy: no remote control, mains cable disconnected, electrically inoperative The gate to the underground garage is out of order, two tall, strong guys are needed to open it (fortunately, my brother and I met these requirements). Contact with the property is a fiction: the phone number provided on the internet only an answering machine responds and the other phone number given us upon arrival - the same. In general, the conditions of our stay reminded us of those we had in Poland in the 1970s at sports camps as childern: poor, dirty rooms in barracks with only basic equipment (chairs, table, lamp, a wardrobe from planks, ect. The difference is that at that time Poland belonged to very poor socialist countries and the society lived on a very low material level. Now we are in the 22th century of prosperity, but it seems that Les Jardins de la Balme apparently does not need to modernize the conditions of stay for its clients, because some clients will keep coming until the building is technically unusable. In general, I strongly advise potential clients of Les Jardins de la Balme not to use this depressing, unpleasant and uncomfortable place.

In summary, a comment to the annoying opinion of the local guide: it is not true that if you pay 1/10 of what in 4-star hotels, then in turn you get 1/10 of the standard of this hotel. You pay the normal price for an apartment and in return you get 1/100 of what in 4...

Really not sure where to start on how bad this place is, and that it is still on Booking.com!!! So I’ll start with check in- tried to contact the property via the contact number on Booking.com web to no avail as my friends were arriving later than the specified 8pm (which I had already advised them via email) to no avail. I followed map to accommodation but there were no way finding signs advising where to check in or reception. We eventually asked a kind gentleman from another property who directed us to a back alley where we finally found the property reception. On arrival I was asked to prepay a €300 damage fee before getting keys, and was then taken to a room that I can only describe as an image you get from films as an abandoned drug den!!!! I have more than the images below but can only put on 10. I then went back to reception to complain of which I was then given another key to a room next door which was better but not habitable with items Dangerous to Life and Health and Safety. I straight away went back to reception but the staff had quickly looked up and closed, leaving me no option at 9pm in the evening, so rectified what I could of the dangers present and straight away called Booking.com for them to resolve my issues and change property, but they were not forth coming, in fact very very poor. I advised them that I would not be staying at the property any longer than 1 night (having to option) but they needed to get a resolution for the next day. Booking.com never called and left it for me to contact them and having to wait 40mins plus to speak to a human being, but even then they had no authority to give me a change of hotel/accommodation, but promised to get resolved and a call back advising where/when etc etc of which the call never came. we then checked into a hotels at a cost of €235/night. I called Booking.com that this happened and called for the following 2 days, bearing in mind that we were only skiing for 5 days. I always kept them informed via email as calling was painful, and as the booking at the property was “non refundable” I was still not going to pay and they in fact owed me money. ||I did get a call from Booking.com on the LAST DAY to ask to try and resolve this issue but to be fair I lost it with the advisor and said I was taking it further, as I believe that the photos of the property on their website were misrepresentation even if the...

What an experience! The one good thing about this hotel was its location.

The rest was absolutely horrible. We stayed four persons in a room for four. When we arrived at the "hotel" we were greeted with no staff at all. After inspecting the "room" we found that a lot of things were not desirable or missing, for example:

We only got 1 Coffeecup, 2 Foodplates and four different sized glasses The frying pan was filled with burnd food We only got half a coffee machine (the the glass canister was missing) Broken radiator (2 out of 10 settings worked, basically Arctic cold or the flames of Dante's 9th circle in hell) Only 1 key (room of 4) Mold in bathroom Beds? Where? They were equivalent to prison beds with cigarette burn marks. Only 3 power outlets (1 of them occupied by the microwave) Extremely dirty floors The kitchen was no bigger than a phone booth. We attempted to make food once before realizing our mistake. The absence of a kitchen fan made it impossible to cook anything. Worst of all, the sheets we got when we arrived were extremely dirty and we had to sleep on them the first before getting new ones due to lack off staff.

After complaining about all of the above we got 6 coffecups and new sheets. We also got a working coffee machine the same day we were leaving (7days later)

I wouldn't go back there even if...