FAHRENHEIT SEVEN COURCHEVEL — Restaurant in Albertville

The Courchevel branch of this hotel opened only this year so did take a risk booking it with no reviews to base my decision on. However for a 4* hotel and fairly hefty room rate I did not expect to be disappointed - i was wrong.

I would start by saying the staff at this hotel are all perfectly polite and try to help. However they are overwhelmed, possibly somewhat under experienced and lack clear management & leadership. The guys in the ski room were great, no issue whatsoever with the ski rental. Ski in ski out location is very convenient and hotel location is good.

Restaurant: We stayed on a half board basis. Breakfast was adequate however you had to pay on top for cooked eggs which I find unusual. Dinner was really poor, I found the food unpleasant but perhaps that was personal taste, too oily too salty. Fondue was essentially yellow water. We were often left waiting for 45minutes+ between courses and I could see other tables also complaining about the same issue. New Years Eve dinner was particularly bad, waited 1 hour between starter and main, fish course totally raw and inedible. This dinner cost around 150 £ per head so really was expecting better. Restaurant staff were totally overwhelmed, couldn't clear tables in time (many were left dirty for 30mins or more) and couldn't get the meals out on time. They just need to hire more people. There was also a modern hanging fireplace in the middle of the restaurant that kept exploding, literally fire blowing out of the unit and almost reaching diners. Entire restaurant jumped every time this happened (around once every 15mins), staff told us it was normal (it definitely wasn't).

Room: newly decorated with a modern style. Smelt strongly of wet paint which got to my head but that clearly won't be an issue for anyone staying there now. We didn't receive bathrobes as we were told they had run out. We were advised to check the spa the following day to see if we could take any from there. Soaps not replenished, had to ask for more pretty much every day. Rooms cleaned very late, sometimes post 4pm, which just disrupted the day when you just want to relax after a day's skiing! Water also didn't get hot, just tepid. Was told this was an issue across Courchevel. Checked with a friend staying next door at Edelweiss hotel - was not an issue for them at all.

Spa: Comprises of steam room, sauna and quiet room. Steam room only worked once during my 6 day stay, the steam unit seemed to be broken and leaking profusely into the quiet room for most of the time.

Hotel: this is going to sound odd to those that haven't stayed here but the lift is ridiculous. There seems to be only one lift servicing the hotel (7 floors) and its tiny. You can wait for what feels like an age for the lift to arrive and then half the time it will be too full to get in. There are some fire staircases but the doors to each floor are only unlockable from the inside so you can try your luck but may end up locked out. Stairwells are also freezing. This sounds menial but it becomes frustrating after a while!

Suffice to say would not stay here again, and would also add I have never been compelled enough to write a review of a hotel before, but really had to vent...

We spent the week at Fahrenheit 7 on a half board package. Hotel is centrally located with perfect ski in/out access to slopes and uplift. Boot room is tight for space when busy but adequate. Newly refurbished the hotel has a nice ambience, colour scheme and all feels fresh and clean. The staff on reception and in the restaurant and bar are all really pleasant, friendly and go out of the way to help when asked. The room we had on 5th floor faced the street which was noisy at night from drunken Brits returning home. Those staying in the hotel inconsiderately continued their noise in the corridors. The hotel bar has a disco Thursday-Sunday and we endured electro music lullabies as we tried to get to sleep. The bed mattresses are rock hard. After the first fitful sleep night we took the bed throw and blanket off chair and lay them under the bedsheet to fashion mattress pads to make the mattress softer which offered us a more comfortable sleep for the remainder of the stay. Toilet is separate and room tiny requiring a limbo dance to enter and exit. Main bathroom with bath/shower was warm spacious and very nice. Breakfast is continental style, good selection and quality. Eggs charged extra at €4. Dinner menu is a simply choice of 3 mains plus 2 fondue choices (shared by 2 people) and a nightly special. All the mains come with rice or chips depending on the meal but you can ask to have vegatbles as a replacement for the carbohydrates. Veg did seem overly salty. Given the small range of choice we did find over the week this limited our enjoyment of eating each night. Quantities of food were good. Soup as a starter was served luke warm and we had fun training the staff to get the chef to serve “hot soup” which by the end of our stay they did successfully. A couple of nights we did not always fancy dessert and asked for Tea or coffee instead of dessert which the restaurant staff said we could. The hassle was we were then presented with an extra bill so this created a bad feeling as we had to complain. As someone else commented we do not normally write hotel reviews but this stay with Fahrenheit 7 compelled us to. In summary our view was the hotel leadership is lacking, and not visible at all. There are a couple of the restaurant staff who are taking great initiative and who went out of their way to fix some of the niggles that irritated. But with greater leadership to direct operations, recognition that the hotel design does not allow loud music to play the bar without disturbing sleeping guests, greater quality control over the chef and menu, mattresses that are comfort to sleep on and tea/coffee served on half board this could be a really great hotel. But as it is today we are really unsure whether we would risk booking for a second time given...

Amazing location to access ski lifts at 1650 which are directly outside of the hotel back door. The hotel ski equipment service was incredibly helpful, I hired my boots, skis and poles from here and everything was brought up for me and ready each day. It was a little more pricey than I might have found it elsewhere, but worth it for the convenience of it. My partner has his own snowboard gear and he was equally well looked after by the great staff in their ski room.

The hotel staff were generally brilliant, nothing was too much trouble and they went out of their way to make sure everything was comfortable and relaxing for us and every-time we went to speak to them they were friendly and professional. There were occasional language barriers with one or two of the staff, but with a little bit of French and some slower speaking in English we always got there. That said, the majority of them spoke good enough English, and again, better than my French.

The room was a Junior suite looking out on the village which gave us a fab panorama of the surrounding mountains and was just a lovely view to wake up to. Despite the cold, we managed a couple of morning coffees on the balcony during our stay to enjoy the sunrise with.

The room itself wasn’t particularly spacious, but it had everything we needed (apart from a fridge which was a bit random?) and it was well decorated and maintained, with a lovely modern bathroom. Initially we thought we would have preferred to have a shower along with the bath, but in actual fact, the bath was perfect for a soak after a day on the slopes. Bed was large and comfortable.

Breakfast was reasonably good and the one night we ate in the main hotel restaurant we had a pleasing experience with a good quality meal with a nice attention to flavours and balance of fresh ingredients on a 5 course menu. We ate at the ski bar one lunch and had a lovely pizza - again, nothing earth shattering but good quality food, served well.

The only disappointment really was the spa area which was really let down with a lack of jacuzzi and the reason why it didn’t get a full 5 from me. I had a look round the sauna and steam room but didn’t use it as it was a bit disconnected and didn’t feel like a particularly user friendly space which was a shame. We opted to go down to Aquamotion instead which was a bit more pricey but fantastic and not too far to get too.

Overall, I would highly recommend the hotel - we had read some poor reviews on line, particularly about cleanliness and staff but this didn’t really reflect our experience at all. We really enjoyed...