Résidence Etoile des Neiges — Hotel in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne

Outdated, dirty accommodation with poor customer friendliness. Lots of nuisance from student groups banging on your door in the middle of the night and playing music on a professional dj set set up in the hallway. After having the luck of our door being kicked in by these fellow residents the “emergency” phone number found at the reception is a pre-recorded message requesting you to send an email to the accommodation, since the reception is closed in the evening. This defeats the purpose of such a phone number.||Also, the check in and check out are incredibly inefficient. The hostess is unfriendly from the moment you walk into the reception.||Upon entering the apartment for the first time the place welcomes you with the smell of mold. Additionally the place was not clean at all. All mattresses look like they have been used to mop the floor. All furniture is about to fall apart. The dining table is permanently sticky. Ventilation in the appartement is non-existent.||Our group of skiers is used to the typical older and cheaper style of accommodation found in many French ski resorts (Val Thorens, la Plagne, Flaine). Therefore we already take precautions as booking a 8 person apartment with just 5 people. ||Also we book these places with adapted expectations and knowledge that luxury is not to be expected. However, this residence even lacked the very basics, as described above. ||Long story short: we will never return to...

In January I visited Le Corbier with a group of friends. We stayed in Etoile des Neiges. Our appartment wasn't huge but cozy and we had everything we needed. What impressed me the most was how friendly and helpful the people were who work here. The lady whom we spoke to on arrival gave us all the information we would need for the week. She spoke clearly, in good English (which is quite uncommon in France) and made sure we understood everything before continuing. During our stay a light needed fixing and the service man was right on time and polite. He asked if there was anything else we might need. It's these small gestures that make interactions pleasant. We had the impression that we could ask for help or advice for anything. Great!||Practical notes: the Etoile des Neiges is accessible from the piste, and there are sturdy ski lockers at your apartment door. The different hallways are only accessible through a code-locked door, so you feel safe that no one who isn't staying there can get in. Near the front desk there is a local goods store where you can get French cheeses, dried meats and liquor. They also have fresh baked pizza's to order, perfect after a long day in the car coming in. The complex is connected to an underground tunnel so you can reach the entire village without having to go outside. It might look a little run down in places, but for a low budget destination it functions well, and really has...

We stayed here for two weeks in late March. The apartment was equipped for six people, but was so economical that we were happy to book it for just three of us. These may not be the smartest ski apartments ever, but our apartment was much bigger than most ski apartments and was clean and equipped with everything we needed, including a kettle, a microwave oven and a dishwasher. The girl who welcomed us was friendly and spoke excellent English. The ski area is not very well known in the UK market, but has a lot of Dutch visitors, so English is fairly widely spoken.||There is a traiteur in the building, selling cheeses, wine, charcuterie and, stek and chips and huge pizzas. At the foot of a flight of stairs just outside there is a small supermarket and a ski hire shop. The usual range of shops and restaurants are ranged along the indoor gallerie running up to the front de neige. The village is quite steep and we counted 300 stairs between the supermarket and the main lift! In reasonable weather, we found it less effort and more pleasurable to walk up the outside path to the restaurants.||In better snow conditions, the apartments would probably be ski-in, ski-out, or very close, but as spring was rapidly encroaching, it was a short walk downhill to the nearest lift and a similar downhill walk at the...