Résidence Odalys Référence Les Chalets de l'Arvan II — Hotel in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne

First off, let's clear some of the good points. The apartments, although basic, were satisfactory. They were generally clean when we arrived and were pretty well equipped with the various things you would need in a self catered apartment. Basically, they did the job. However, that's pretty much where the positives end. The biggest problem with this set of apartments is the management and the serious lack of customer service. The French people who run the apartments, led by a dictator of sorts, Brigette, clearly have no idea about trying to please the customer. I'll be very surprised if anyone who stays in these apartments ever returns. Brigette was miserable and difficult from the very first few words we spoke to each other (unfortunately our Crystal rep wasn't particularly helpful with this situation and actually seemed scared of Brigette to some extent). She didn't appear to want to make our stay in her apartments a pleasurable holiday experience. Perhaps she has something against us Brits, I don't know, but whatever her reasons, she had a surly disposition throughout our entire stay and we tried to avoid her as much as possible.||||Besides this lack of customer service, the whole self-catered apartment setup and how they run it was pathetic. I've been to plenty of apartments like this in the past, at both sky resorts and beach resorts, but I've never had to do an itinerary of the apartment's content the moment we arrived. Furthermore, everything they said we had, we didn't; the vast majority of it was wrong (perhaps the previous tenants filled their cases!). This really isn't what you want to be doing on your "holiday" as it actually took a few hours and several disagreements and what was what, since we didn't have everything we should have done. Fortunately the hotel staff weren't too concerned about these discrepancies (they must get it all the time as clearly they don't bother to maintain the rooms much and update their information). ||||The second main issue we had with the setup was how we had to book a room inspection for the end of our holiday. Essentially the staff would come into our apartments after we had packed and were ready to leave, and they would check to see everything was fit for the next set of guests. Of course this begs the questions whether or not they actually ever employ cleaning staff between each set of guests. Although our apartment was relatively clean on arrival, I can only assume this was down to some thorough cleaning from those before us. The problem here was actually more to do with their standards. We left our apartment in a very clean and presentable state for the next set of guests but Brigette (who did our inspection - and was very late whilst we were just about to leave to get our coach to the airport home) wasn't satisfied with the tiniest of details. One of my friends neatly folded a blanket and left it at the end of the bed; Brigette however wanted it another way! The whole set up was really poor and it's not something I want to experience again, and certainly cannot recommend these apartments as a result.||||Overall therefore, I can only give it two stars for serving the purpose: for us it was a place to lie our weary bodies at the end of each day. But the customer service was shocking and I will never go back to this set up apartments. I was actually ashamed that this was a hotel served by Crystal, because it only taints their good reputation.||||I would also just like to mention the location, which compared to probably every other hotel or set of apartments in St Sorlin, this was probably the worst. At best it was a ten minute walk from the chairlifts and into town (for the shops, bars and restaurants). However, this was really of little concern to us considering we were always just happy to get away from the apartments every day. ||||Furthermore, the size of the apartments was not really fit for purpose. We booked a six person room for four people assuming we would get quite a lot of space a good bed setup (for four friends). Unfortunately the room was only just about good enough to house us all - six people would have been a massive stretch. ||||Finally a few other small mentions: the pool area was pretty standard but wasn't heated; the sauna was an extra cost; the use of the TV in the room was at a charge(!); and there was no wifi available, which is pretty rare these days.||||I think a rating of 2/5 stars is actually a bit on the generous side. I definitely don't recommend staying...

We went there with a couple of friends to enjoy our holiday. When we arrived the lady of the house was impatient when we wanted to order sheets and towels. |She looked very bad-tempered. |Later on we entered our appartement and it looked clean. But when i cleaned it myself as i always do, my cleaning towel was black! And that was only from cleaning the dinner table! The fridge was dirty and In the shower there was mould, it was very filthy. |We rented a appartment for 8 persons but went with 6 persons. Lucky for us because the house was so small, theres no space for 8 especially not at the dinnertable.|We read on the internet that the appartments were close to the ski slope and close to the shops. That wasnt true, it was like a 20 minute walk. |The day after arrival we wanted to use the swimmingpool, which was cold as ice, and the sauna, which was broken. When we asked when the sauna would be ready for use again, the answer was that it was not going to be fixed for like a week. Great. .. not.|When we left the appartment we cleaned it ourselves and the lady of the house told us we didnt do a very good job. I dont think there was going to be a cleaning crew coming over to clean everything for the next guests. And that there wasnt one to clean the house before we got in. Pretty nasty. ..|So it was not a very pleasant stay for us. I would not recommend...

The apartments are on the edge of the village and are of a modern chalet style construction. They are spacious warm and comfortable. Our apartment was on the top floor and on two levels, with open views on two sides. The standard of construction and of fittings are not of a high standard. Our bedroom door did not close and the bathroom door could only be opened half way. The reception was not open when we needed it at 1pm on Saturday for our departure. Meaning after checking out of our room early we had nowhere to leave our bags until our departure time. There is a swimming pool in the main building but we did not use it.||Access to the skiing was very difficult involving either a steep icy path up to the main road or a slightly less steep but longer and equally dangerous road way. We witnessed many falls. The nearest ski lifts are about 1km away. There is a free bus service along the main road during the day about every 20 minutes. These were always completely full at the begining and end of the day and timings fairly erratic. The village has a mixture of old and new and is quite attractive. The St Sorlin ski area has little variation but the Les Sebelles extended area has good variety but mostly at intermediate level. We did experience some queueing for lifts but we were there at...