Club Med Grand Massif Samoëns Morillon — Hotel in Bonneville

Sorry for the long review. |||I am not a person to check the 1-star reviews as I believe that everyone has a different experience. Still, I wish I had with this hotel and the way Club Med has evolved from a company which I shouted about as the best and the best experience and although it is more expensive than most it was worth it, it has changed!! ||I waited to leave a review until I got a response from Club Med. Costing over £14k for a family of 4, the value was very disappointing and unfortunately won’t be repeated with Club Med|The appalling lack of service throughout the whole trip |Upon arrival in Geneva, we were greeted and directed to wait in an area with a group of people from different flights. After over an hour a bus turned up but was full, so we were told we had to wait for the next one. The uncaring GM said "This is the way it is", and we have to wait. We chose an earlier flight to get to the resort so we could get our equipment. We got the second bus after a bit of a walk, and another hour later, we got on our way. At the hotel we sat for 40 minutes on the bus because of the queue of buses arriving. People got off and walked and left the bags on the bus. |Hotel Reception |Incompetent throughout. Checked in with a GM, who said he would call us when the room was ready; to this day, he never called. We grabbed some food and waited and waited. I went back to the reception, and we got the room by which time the ski shop had closed.|The Ski shop – the que was huge so another 3 hours to get of skis. Kids 14 & 17 booked for ski school, which was missed. The next day, that was the only day they attended. the were too many in the groups for 1 instructor, and they left a younger child in the group on the mountain. The parents were frantic. So that was the end of that for us, not so much for the 17-year-old who could look after himself, but for my 14-year-old. We were not confident that they could look after our children on the mountain.|We previously stayed in 2019 and had an amazing holiday, and I couldn’t praise Club Med enough. ||The company has gone massively downhill in every respect, from food to the quality of staff.|Food: The buffet restaurant was shambolic. Finding a table was almost impossible. Large numbers of tables had reserved signs for chalet guests or tables were left dirty and uncleared. We frequently had to ask for cutlery and glasses, and no chance of getting a drink off the staff. We hated mealtimes, but there was only one other choice, which, on the first day, was fully booked for the week. After my insistence on seeing the manager, he said he would speak to the restaurant and call us back. To this day, he never has. Shocking!|My wife, annoyed, went back to the reception and spoke to another manager who said he would speak to the restaurant. She waited until he did although he did try and get rid of her saying he would call. |We got into the top floor restaurant on the last night, and although it was table service, the fight of the buffet may have been a better choice. The food was very average at best, and the waiter could not speak or understand a word of English, which was a challenge. On NYE, we booked a table in the buffet, which was the only night we could book and a bottle of Laurent Perrier Champagne. The table was not available, and they knew nothing of the champagne; they said someone must have moved the reserved sign. In the usual chaotic manner, they found us a table with some other people and spilt their table. The Champagne that came was not Laurent Perrier, so we sent it back as there was a 60 Euro price difference, and they brought us the correct one. The next day, not trusting, I went to the reception and sure enough they charged for both bottles. Getting the one bottle removed was an experience and required persistence, which took 3 days.||Entertainment -|It was Previously superb, but here, the waiters and cleaners who became entertainers were so untalented, which is unkind as they were doing their best along with their day job on NYE we had a ‘Viking’ show, not sure about that one. Also, the robot show was a blast! NOT. Along with rave music, which blasted everyone to an early night rather than listening to the mind-bending techno which was more suited to Ibiza. It certainly cleared the bar area early.|The pool & Health Spa -|The pool was very cold, which was why it was always good to get a space. The sauna/outdoor jacuzzi was for over 18s, and though my kids are classed as adults for paying purposes, they were not allowed to use these facilities.|We pre-booked from an email from Club Med a massage you gave the day you wanted, AM or PM. After a few days, I thought I would check with the spa as the rest of the place was chaotic and true to form, they had not got our booking or heard of it. They said they had said many people had the same issue. The issue then was that the spa was fully booked until the end of the trip. They said they would call if they had a cancellation, but like the rest of the Club Med staff, they also had a phobia of phones, and we never heard anything.|Our room -|Bizarrely, it seemed to be located near the nappy incinerator with the smell. Thankfully, we opened the door and did not go inside the room, as that would have been unbearable.||I wrote to Club Med in their timescale and only yesterday received a fob off response and a comment that we should consider an adult-only hotel. We were with our children and always are.|Well, Club Med, you have lost one of your biggest fans. And as for your shareholders, they will not be getting another £15k from me in the future. I work too hard to get less than a 2-star treatment.||Very disappointed and can't risk booking again...

First of, we have liked or loved club med at other locations including Marrakesh or in Greece or Turkey. The format works well for families and food can be fun and new.

Overall disappointed to very disappointed, after 3 days spent here and 4 more to go. To summarize :

Rooms are very nice, clean and freshly designed but your view/terrace ends up being a total lottery. This ruins the week if your view is not the beautiful mountains but air vents and a wall. see further below. Staff and management acted shocked is just adding insult to injury "but but Sir the picture on the website is not contractual" is level 0 of hospitality. They subsequently went to floor -1 by offering me an "upgrade" for 2000 euros (after I chased for 24hrs...). Poor problem-solving.

Service is below average for international travelers standard. Staff mostly nice but sometimes a bit rough, dry or looks pissed when you ask for help (with your baby for instance). I also noted they chat A LOT between themselves, not looking out to help clients.

Location : super nice, scenic views of the mountains. Truly the key positive feature of this resort.

Taking into account the pricing - ~8k€ for one week for family of 5 including 2 kids under 10 and one baby - this is overpriced, relatively mass-resort and in all fairness not really all-inclusive.

Why mass-resort? because it’s A LOT of people in the same building using the very few elevators, going to one single restaurant or attending kids dropoff and collecting at the same time. It’s also full of rules. French people LOVE rules and schedules ! Even better if they contradict themselves. And reception will say one thing but kids club will say another thing on time tables.

Why not impressed by Service? Sure, there’s the Club Med "cool attitude yadi yada" thing, but it aint Service. First of all, please tell the staff to give way to clients for heavens sake... I spend my day giving way to busy staff... So basic in hospitality. Second of all, staff should be all over families with babies, make them feel taken care of! you'd secure clients for a long time. they don't really help you find table or baby chairs etc... so many kids and babies but not a soul from the staff cares to preempt and offer help.

Why pseudo all inclusive ? Because it is largely a ski resort repurposed during summer. It does not have much cool included activities and the hiking etc is all strictly scheduled, remember french people love rules and schedules. All the cool stuff like paragliding, river sports etc is done by contractors so for extra fees. It's good quality but info gets a bit lost in the chaos of the hotel and it could be better communicated at check-in.

Why overpriced? Because the above on activities and really the food, sorry if I ruffle some feathers but it’s not significantly above a decent corporate “cantine” in La Defense. Sure you got ice cream and free booze etc but it’s all basic quality. Proteins (meat/fish) is not cooked with great talent (over-cooked often). Breakfast omelet bar is made from industrial omelet jugs! C'mon... Guacamole is industrial stuff, not made from fresh avocados. Fruit salad at Gourmet restaurant is canned... C'mon again! Snacks are just carbs, breads, lots of sugary stuff everywhere. Don't think they are doing a great job at offering veggies or fruits or healthy options for snacks or during the day. No juicing area for breakfast for instance. Club Med is trying to play the sugar and booze "card" a little bit too much.

Finally your room view will be a total lottery. pics below.

So, great location, great pool area, great views from the resort, potentially not-so-great from your room, resort crowded and sometimes chaotic around elevators and junction times. Granted, with so many kids and families, restaurant cleanliness is a challenge but I would def task the staff with direct helping of families and keeping everything cleaner. Right now good luck finding a...

A total disaster. Do not go. It was a nightmare starting at the airport where we had to cart our own luggage a mile in the freezing cold after a long flight to the bus that transports us to the club med. We waited 30 min in the bus at a standstill half way up the driveway with no news as to why to find out after we started to walk from the bus that the resort entrance had too many cars in it to receive us. The resort itself is poorly designed, forcing you to take several elevators to get to the amenities (the family rooms are the furthest away from everything) so god forbid you forget something in your room and need to go back! The staff was poorly trained and unhelpful, every process there requires a lengthy wait in line (dropping off/picking up kids from kids clubs took 1 hour the first day, getting food from food stations takes more time than the time you spend eating, getting ski equipment from the ski shop was chaos), and none of the non ski activities are possible to do before or after ski hours, only during which forced you to choose one or the other that day! I would have liked to do yoga or something before a ski day but couldnt. All of the fitness classes start after 9:30. The pool didn’t open til then either! The outdoor hot tub was luke warm and can only accommodate 4 people which is absurd for a resort that fits 1100. There is no après ski! Just a few tables out in front of the locker rooms at 11:30am for an hour with drinks on some days but not all. We finally were able to dine at the « fine dining » Skyline restaurant the last night of our stay only to find that half the menu was unavailable and the only thing available were dishes containing meat, cheese and potatoes in various arrangements (and it wasn’t even good). After being sick of eating at the same restaurant over and over we decided to go into town which we had to do completely on our own as front desk was incapable of helping us with transportation to or from there or any recommendations for restaurants. Kids club staff were overwhelmed with a kid to GO ratio that was too large. We saw kids that were improperly dressed because they wouldnt take the time to source kids’ gear such as gloves or their own skis. The last day we had to search the entire kids club floor for our kids’ belongings because they scattered stuff everywhere. Adult ski groups were also too big making it impossible for instructors to actually teach anything making them more like tour guides than teachers. It was a joke honestly for a $14k weeklong vacation. At least the rooms were nice and the hotel itself is really pretty, but it lacked any kind of outdoor area to sit and have drinks around a fire pit or something. I’ve written three emails to the onsite manager now over the last week who had promised to respond within 48 hours with some kind of solution and I haven’t heard a peep which is why I’m sharing my experience here. SAVE YOURSELVES AND GO TO A FOUR SEASONS OR ANY OTHER RESORT...