Club Med Alpe d'Huez - French Alps — Hotel in Grenoble

Dreadfully disappointing start to an awfully expensive family holiday. After a previoilsy good experience at another Club Med resort marred only by chaotic and disorganised transfers where we were left stranded at Geneva airport for three hours with kids in tow we thought this time would be better when we had a seamless transfer into a private car this time.||Unfortunately, this evening has been a sequence of disasters. Despite going to the effort of inputting all of our data into the website before arrival, no option existed to input shoe size of one of our sons. Despite calling the company in advance to flag this and having to suggest to the customer services personnel that they could contact the resort for us (this did not occur to them) because they couldn't input the information either, the boots were predictably not in the locker when we arrived so we joined the chaotic queue for kit in order to resolve this. We then discovered that we had no kids helmets, three incorrectly sized pairs of boots and two sets of incorrectly sized skis which rather begs the question what the point of booking it all in advance is. All of this took absolutely forever in a very busy and chaotic equipment room with all kids in tow. Club Med charge a premium based on the illusion that they make family skiing easier but this is not the case. There was a similar experience in kids club where all previously inputted information appears obsolete and you have to repeat everything again in person with fractious kids in tow.||We were then eventually allowed access to our rooms only to discover the stench of stale urine which made one of the interconnecting rooms (and by extension, the other) uninhabitable. Forget 4, it is absolutely unacceptable to present a room in that state even in a 2 establishment. Raising this issue turned into a mammoth nightmare. We were advised that the only individual in the building apparently able to make a decision about what to do (despite a lot of staff hanging around) was busy welcoming a coach and we therefore spent over an hour in reception and had to speak to staff several times before the assistant manager came to speak to us. We were then left for longer whilst a solution (a room switch) was proposed and it was a further wait until rooms were prepared for us and made available. The whole of this process took 3 hours, after a 12 day of travelling with young kids. ||There was no apology, no acknowledgement of the inconvenience of this or the fact that it has wasted our first evening nor any attempt to recognise how disappointed we are in this given the enormous amount of money we have spent on what should be a family holiday of a lifetime. There has been no attempt made by the staff to turn things around and improve our experience. A decent hotel would apologise, immediately resolve the situation and seek to make amends by offering a drink whilst we waited or offering a goodwill gesture to make up for the bad start and the loss of our holiday time. When I enquired whether our luggage would be moved for us between rooms I was advised that we could do this ourselves and we will also have to move all of our ski gear between lockers too. More broadly, the hotel is tired looking and corridors are dingy, unclean with dirty carpet, the outside areas appear unkempt and there is a foul smell outside the restaurant which has been raised in many reviews before and remains unaddressed. ||Overall, a bitterly disappointing start to our holiday. Club med you need to...

First off, I'm not a complainer in general. We had a fab holiday overall - the kid's loved their first ski trip and (spoiler alert, other than the food poisoning days) we had a great time, despite Club Med.||||I'll start with the good. The ESF were fab - for the kids and for myself with the lessons. The convenience of the kit being ready and in your lockers is amazing, and dropping the kids at the kids club at 8.30 where THEY get them into their ski boots and escort them to the lessons whilst you ski off on yours was amazing. The rooms are clean, a decent size and fairly quiet and comfortable.||||Now the rest. We came to Club Med with it highly recommended and we splashed out a fair chunk of cash to make the kids first trip special (and try to get my lovely wife to give skiing another go). We were massively disappointed.||||For a buffet, the food was pretty good. Unfortunately, there were enough 'big buts' with that statement to satisfy Sir Mix A Lot...||||But #1 - it's in the other reviews, you might be thinking of choosing to ignore it, but don't. The stairs down to the restaurant stink of drains. It's the single best way to get rid of that appetite and keep those holiday pounds off. Well, the second best way.||||But #2 - food poisoning. I lost a day and a half after eating something dodgy. Again, reading the reviews I am not alone.||||But #3 - it's absolute and total carnage. The ski school timings means that everyone in the hotel is kettled into a very short window. Think 20 minute queues for omelette and the need for lightning fast reactions to scoop the premium fare.||||The bar service wasn't much better. 3 bar staff for probably about 300-400 people at even the busiest times. 30 minutes to queue for a drink. I'm a brit, I know how to queue dag nammit, but unfortunately my fellow hotel guests often did not (nor did they or the bar staff respond well to being challenged on jumping).||||I shared all the above via email with the hotel on the 2nd day, and could read the "acknowledge, don't apologise, do absolutely nothing" training in the reply I received, again, as you'll see from the reviews from years gone by.||||Finally, one particularly bit of bad service ended up being a bit of a blessing in disguise...||||At the end of the kids ski week, they have the opportunity to buy a medal for 7 euros. What nobody tells you is that this must be in cash. Remember cash? It went extinct in about March 2020? Well, that's not quite true - they tell you that cash is required approximately 6 minutes before it is required to prevent your little darlings having a potential meltdown for not getting their medals. The nearest cash point is a 15 minute walk away in town.||||When I suggested to reception that this wasn't ideal, the lady showed zero empathy, blamed ESF (who work in close partnership with the hotel) and sent me on my way with a particularly smug shrug of the shoulders.||||The glorious result was that my kids ended up not caring about the medal AND we noticed later that the 7 Euro medals were the same kind of plastic tat you can buy in a pack of 100 for less than £5 on Amazon.||||If I was going to go back (which I absolutely will not be doing), I'd bring a bag and sell em for a fiver. Cards...

Pros ||Good food. Nice drinks, Friendly service., Swimming pool. Kids club for children under 11 is great addition as they get kids ready for ski school. Ski in and ski out. Rooms are nice. Price includes lift passes and ski lessons and all food and drink. Fire works on Saturday nights at 9.45pm. ||Cons||Hotel is huge so a long walk to anywhere. Nasty smell in main stair well near restaurant. Loud dance music played almost everywhere which if you like the Buzz of apre ski might be a plus but this is lively hotel and not for everybody…. If you like peace and quiet this hotel isn’t for you, this is party hotel! Shower is over the bath type which for a hotel of this price point isn’t great. Food is buffet only, well there is one other gourmet restaurant however the menu is the same all week, so we only used the gourmet restaurant once. Cant check in until 2pm and rooms might not be ready until 8pm…. ||On arrival is disappointing that our room wasn’t ready but in fairness I had ready online that rooms might not be ready until 8pm! We got our room about 4pm ( after arriving at 2pm). If you arrive before 2pm you have to pay extra for lunch at the hotel. So worth planning your arrival after 2pm. ||Worth requesting a room near block B, ( we were block E) and this is a long walk to anywhere, block B is the place to book. ||Teenagers have to ski with the other teenages, our 11 and 14 year old were not allowed to ski with the adult lessons. Ski lessons are with ESF. ||On site ski rental looked modern with good skis. ||Mini club for children under 11 is a nice touch you just drop you kids off and they will get them to their lessons. Note on the first morning it’s a fight! Arrive 45 minutes early on the first day, I,e if you have 9am children’s lessons drop kids off at 8.15pm….( they said 8.30 but the queue is already massive at 8.30am) its fine the rest of the week just the first day you need to arrive mega early for lessons/mini club drop off and expect to queue for 30 minutes. ( 5 minute queue for rest of the week). ||Gym and fitness classes are great. Spin class in particular was very good as are the spin bikes. ||Ive ready lots of bad reviews from people saying that things haven’t improved since last year…. Well lets be honest if it was bad customers wouldn’t rebook…. The club med chain has a large number of repeat guests. ||The clientele is mainly middle class parents aged 40 to 55, well I say mainly I mean almost exclusively. So everybody is about the same age with kids at a nice prep school. There are also older teenagers however all well behaved. If you don’t have kids then don’t book this hotel…. If you don’t ;ike loud apre ski dance music again don’t book it. ||1 minute ski down to marmots lift or a 5 minute walk and you have access to the marmots lift which takes you up to the folice Douce… Some of the best Apre ski ive ever seen. Well worth a visit to Folie douce 3pm to 4.30pm ( leave kids in the kids club until 5pm). Review of the food in the Folice Douce are mixed but we had good food...