La Folie Douce Hotels Chamonix — Hotel in Bonneville

Really terrible service. After driving all the way from London, we were absolutely exhausted and were very hungry. We were met with an extremely rude lady at Frutiere who insisted that all their restaurants were fully booked. I politely asked if they reserve any tables for their hotel guests, and explained we had come a long way, only for the lady to just tell us no. She made zero effort to accommodate us and was very cold. I asked if the hotel does room service, as we were very hungry and were happy to simply eat in our room, of course the answer was no. It was only after insisting I speak to the manager and finding another more friendly staff member did they then try and find us a table at a cheese restaurant (I am lactose intolerant so that was not ideal, but we were starving and had no choice). Not only were we shocked that a hotel of that quality could not offer a hot meal to its guests, but we felt super unwelcome, and they did not seem to be sorry and alluded to the behaviour being normal/ expectation and that we were the ones out of character to expecting to be able to eat dinner at a hotel! (Shocking…). If you want service and hospitality like any normal hotel, please do not come here. The waiter was friendly which was the saving grace, but she was the only waiter for the whole restaurant and was very over stretched. We waited 20 minutes at our table just to get the menu. Waited more than an hour for the food just to arrive…

We ordered 2 twin beds, and we double checked at reception, only for us to go upstairs and see just bed. At this point we were so exhausted speaking to the staff, we just let it go. We also had ski equipment. We were told “the ski room is downstairs you can store it there”. The hotel was like a maze, but we eventually found it only for the ski room to be locked. We went back up and explained that hoping it would be sorted but it wasn’t. My friend ended up keeeping his skis in the room, and I eventually found someone else who put my own skis on storage.

To be as balanced as possible for full transparency, the Hotels had a superb location. The only ski in ski out hotel in Chamonix, but also right in the centre of town. Given we only stayed 1 night the location was a big plus. Breakfast was also nice.

There were 1-2 staff members that tried to help in the end with all the drama, so I do thank them, but overall not a good experience, and would not come back. I’m a big fan of the Folie Douce franchise. It’s a fabulous brand, but they haven’t managed to conquer the hotel industry yet. They need to focus on getting the little things right and prioritise hotel guests if they are going to...

Weeks ahead of our stay at Folie Douce Chamonix we had pre-booked dinner on Christmas Day via email with the hotel Concierge. The concierge provided the menu for the 25th December as requested which was a Christmas set menu and booked us in for 7pm. 

As we were seated at our table on Christmas Day it became apparent that it was the ordinary menu and the concierge had got the dates wrong and the Christmas set menu was only available on Christmas Eve or at lunch time on Christmas Day. We explained the situation to our waitress, who then disappeared for 10 minutes without returning. We left the table to find out what was going on, spoke to the restaurant manager who was extremely unhelpful, unapologetic and generally rude about their mistake. At this point we were without Christmas dinner as booked on Christmas Day. 

We then went to the reception and asked to speak to the hotel manager. One of the young receptionists rang the manager and although we don’t speak much French it was not hard to understand the word ‘anglaise’ and ‘plainte’ while he was laughing and smiling. When we spoke to the hotel manager, Ophélic, to raise our complaint she was very unhelpful, though apologised and offered us a glass of champagne or wine on the house, though of course this was on the condition that we dined at their most expensive restaurant. Feeling really disappointed and let down we went elsewhere to try and find dinner on Christmas Day without a booking. 

We had 7 nights left of our stay and since Christmas Day we have seen the hotel manager a number of times who has just stared at us as we have walked passed and the whole situation left us feeling very awkward.

However we would like to recognise Orson, who works on reception. He was extremely friendly, helpful and understanding - always happy to have a conversation with us and have a bit of fun as well as answering our questions. 

For this level of hotel, brand and cost (approx £250 per night over Christmas and New Year) we are extremely disappointed and angry with how this situation was handled and the general level of customer service (with the exception of Orson). To live up to it’s claim of ‘truly evoking the friendly and passionate spirit of La Folie Douce’ significant training of their inexperienced and seasonal staff to understand firstly what customer service is and secondly to provide the right level of service for the brand is desperately needed. If you read previous reviews it is clear that poor customer service and rudeness is an ongoing issue. Interestingly these reviews have not been responded to which suggests this may be a cultural problem within...

Where do I start… Me & my husband are currently sitting in the hotel lobby (it’s 11:30pm) because as we were going to bed and as we moved the sheets we realized that they were not clean (particularly bunch of hair that clearly do not belong to either of us, especially knowing that we neither sat or laid on the bed nor touched the sheets whatsoever) so instead of sleeping we had to urgently call housekeeping to have that changed… which was probably a “cherry on the pie” to our overall experience. Let me say that I used to work in hotels for over 7 years and I know the hustle pretty well but I have not seen this many disasters I n one place for a very long time. We arrived @11am and we were fully aware that the checkin time is 4pm which we were ready to wait for. We went to use the hotel pool in the meantime. The pool area is nice, but for the amount of people you only have for three changing rooms (male & female combined), one(!) toilet w the broken door and three exposed showers which provide zero intimacy so you cannot actually take one. You are not allowed to have any drinks at the pool area nor there is an option to order anything which is also pretty strange considering the level at which the hotel is advertising to be on. Our check-in that was promised to be at 4pm delayed and we only got the room by 5pm, the lady at the reception was lovely and very apologetic, providing us with a later checkout complimentary. Now, the room, well the remote control had layers of dust and filth to the point that I had to disinfect it myself, the handle for the shower head was fully broken so you have to constantly use one hand to hold it as you shower and the room phone broken as well so we had to call from a cell. It was easier to find things that WERE working rather than the ones that were not. Plenty of dust and filth on the floor, chipped off paint on the walls, bathroom that looks like it was abandoned in the middle of construction process but who’s counting at this point. Another interesting thing was , that if you need to iron something you will have to take your clothes to the special ironing room in the hotel and not actually have the iron & board delivered to the room so your leisure experience severely resembles university dorm. We are speechless. Staff to who we have spoken to have mainly shown zero to none interest in all those issues (I’m assuming it’s because there are so many that people must be calling them...