I have long been of the opinion that the person who invented ski-ing must be one of the worlds largest and yet most genius of lunatics in the world. I mean who would think of strapping two pieces of wood to their feet and propelling themselves off a mountain at speed!? That aside, ski-ing has become one of the most popular ways of effectively wasting a week, drinking too much beer, and spending a lot of money whilst trying to kill oneself. Les Arcs 2000 is one of the many resorts set up to facilitate this lunacy, and like many French resorts it is a purpose built resort. In essence rather than a town finding itself lucky to stumble upon a handy mountain this is a mountain that is unlucky enough to have attracted people looking for a huge profit.
Arrival/Departure 9/10
As many people will do we had booked the entire thing as a bulk holiday meaning that the flight, transport, chalet, and food all come in one package so all you need to do independently is order your ski hire and your lift passes. Geneva airport is the place that is popular to dump you which is a two hour flight from Manchester followed by a two and a half hour bus journey to Les Arcs 2000. It is quite a long journey so if you are coming in on your own steam so get to choose your airport Chambery is slightly closer at an hour and a half. On the other hand the journey was smoothly managed and unstressful, likewise Geneva airport were organised and on the ball so everything went without a hitch.Despite what Ciao appears to think Les Arcs 2000 is not actually a hotel; instead it is an altitude on the mountain which in itself has three chalets on one road and many more besides. Les Arcs 1600, Les Arcs 1800 and Les Arcs 1950 boast similar amounts of chalets although once you get much higher there aren’t as many.
Chalet Altitude 9/10
The residence we stayed in was Chalet Altitude which had a number of 8 person chalet areas within it. All of these will be next to identical although some are specifically designed for children whilst others aren’t, but what you get are four two person rooms, a lounge and a member of staff who is your virtual slave for the week. He or she will clean your rooms and cook for you etc. Overall we had a very comfortable stay, as although the rooms weren’t overly spacious there was more than enough space for two people to stay in comfortably. With your room comes an on suite bathroom which will either have shower or a bath and if you’re lucky or you pre-book it you’ll get a balcony as well.
The lounge area of the chalet included enough sofas to comfortably seat 8 people without feeling like we were sitting in each others laps, a large dining table and a fire. I guess in January when the weather is biting the fire would be on all day, but in the 20 degree C weather we were enjoying there was no point. Meals were inclusive with the chalet and our chalet host, Harry, was a competent cook. At nineteen years of age he could cook better than most people I know and served a variety of well presented and very tasty three course means including baked cod marinated in lemon and herbs with mustard potatoes and a spicy chorizo sauce.
He was also able to cater for vegetarians in our party.
All of the chalets are non-smoking but if you do smoke you are permitted to smoke on the balcony. Within Chalet Altitude there was also a larger lounge downstairs with each chalet having a ‘locker’ and although you are not allowed to wear your boots upstairs it is permitted to carry them to allow them to dry out.
Ski Hire 10/10
If like myself you are not lucky enough to own you own ski’s then you need not worry. In Arc 2000 alone I counted five ski-hire shops, and that doesn’t include the ones further down the mountain; you are spoiled for choice. We personally used Ski Republic to get two sets of ski equipment and a snowboard set, and honestly cannot complain in the slightest about the service. Normally we find there’s a fair amount of faffing and almost always we are given an incorrect set of ski’s somewhere, but here having booked online everything moved smoothly even when we had made a mistake in ordering. They had no issues changing the miniature ski’s my brother had mistakenly ordered for a full sized set with no price difference.
Price wise it depends on what standard ski you want but for kids it’s between £6-10 a day and for adults between £10 and £25 a day taking into account the 2 for 1 offer.
The ski-ing 6/10
But of course, there is no point in you being there if the ski-ing is atrocious considering that this is the only reason for turning up to Les Arcs. The basic ski pass for the Les Arcs resort was £217 but you could pay more if you wanted to do the Les Plan area which we didn’t, in hindsight it would have been a wise decision.There are some spectacular beginner and intermediate slopes with some stunning views within the Les Arc area, and in this I am including Arc 1600 all the way up to the altitude of 3200 because this comes automatically with your ski pass. In a way we were unlucky because of the unseasonably warm weather and the fact that a lot of the really nice runs are in the lower altitude range as they run through the trees. The 1600 area in particular had some nice ones as did the Le Plessis area, but as the day wore on and the temperatures soared they became very slushie and heavy going, if not completely bare. Due to this we repeatedly found ourselves going higher and higher up the mountain, but even so it was never difficult to find a nice red run and the occasional black.
However, as a group of competent ski-ers we easily ran through the available runs within the first three days, and here we found the large problem of the difficulty jump. The red runs were gorgeous and approachable for any level of intermediate ski-er, but instead of the black runs just being steeper and more sheer the largest amount were either ‘mogulled‘ or unpiested which is more or less the same thing at the end of a day. I quite enjoy taking on the challenge of a near to vertical, piested black run but the thought of moguls sends me into a cold sweat. Because of this there were only a few really challenging runs that we were able to actually do.
My brother was the only one out of our party reckless enough to attempt them and he gained the title of Most Impressive Fall for the sixth year running in the process. This was managed by going the entire way down one on his backside until he flipped and went down the remainder head first; how he is still alive is something I’ve asked several times over the years.
The other main problem we found was perhaps directly linked to this; on too many occasions to be easily smiled away the resort seemed to have forgotten how to use their piesting machine. I don’t mind it occasionally but if I have paid for a ski-ing holiday then I expect the vast majority of the runs to be well maintained before I arrive on the slopes in the morning. In other resorts this has always been the case, but in Les Arcs there seemed to be a laziness that cannot easily be explained away. Too many times, and even early morning when there is no excuse, we were met with runs with massive lumps and heavy snow patterns. This might be excusable if we had actually had heavy snow, but we hadn’t so this smacked strongly of incompetence.
What do you get when you don’t feed your kids… 5/10
Finding food on the mountain has been a constant source of argument with me and my brother vs my father. This led to the year where for two hours straight we sang loudly to the Oompa Loompa song one of our own devising; ‘Grumpa Lumpa Deedily Doo/We’ve got another tantrum for you…’. I’ll leave you to guess the end of the title line.
The issue is that no matter where you go, on the mountain or off, food and beer is going to be extortionate leaving you wondering whether you need to remortgage the house. This is a given. But normally you’d hope for a chance of finding a half decent food establishment…or at least beer. In total we found one restaurant at 1600 that we were happy to go back to and even then we were stung with a €60 bill for four people’s afternoon lunch. The other main restaurants at the stopping points were completely sub par, and it really does grieve you to fork up €40-80 when you haven’t enjoyed what was put in front of you.
And if you thought the food prices were bad then the beer is astronomical. For a fizzy European lager that will set your stomach off (still the closest to real beer they have), then you are looking at a minimum of €6. For this reason I would suggest that the only time you drink in the pubs is Happy Hour (5.30pm – 6.30pm in March, an hour earlier in darker months) where everything is half price and €3 really isn’t a bad price even if the beer is crud. Other than that, head to the supermarket and buy a crate of the stuff. It’s still expensive, but not jaw droppingly so.
Shops 6/10
Les Arcs 2000 is fortunate insofar as there are two supermarkets within easy walking distance. The smaller one of the two is situated next to Chalet Altitude, whereas the large one is a bit more of a hike into the main square although not difficult to find. It is however a little more expensive, but it has much more choice.
What lets the area down is the small number of gift shops; whereas ski-hire shops are too numerous to count there is a single fairly small tobacco, gift and souvenir shop in the entirety of Les Arcs 2000. In 1950 there are three very small and unimpressive gift shops surrounded by millions of ski-hire points. My take on this is that it’s probably because it is purpose built rather than a town, and although it did save me a fortune it was rather disappointing as most food you need is provided for you at the chalet.
Total 45/60
It is a completely gorgeous area with some stunning runs down it, but if you’re a high level intermediate ski-er who can do piested blacks without hesitation but are not at the level of moguls then you may be disappointed. Possibly if we’d have got the ski pass for Les Plan I’d be singing a different tune, but as it was we covered all the available ground in three days. And that was even with a highly incompetent snowboarder with us constantly for the first day and a half.
If there was more to the area and what was available was piested properly then this would easily be a five star area. Because even with the cruddy food on the mountain, high prices and lack of a decent beer in miles it would still be worth that score. The chalet, area, and ski hire are fantastic and there are some truly stunning runs down the mountain. The laziness in maintenance was a little bit too noticeable however.
I want to give this 3 and a half stars but Ciao won’t let me. I don’t feel able to give four stars due to the two days of boredom and irritation that came from ski-ing the same slopes which could have been fantastic if properly maintained. This could be a stunning resort, and would be if you only went for 3-4 days.
But for 7 days and £400 per person without lift passes Les Arcs 2000 is just above mediocre.
Stunning runs but poorly maintained 
E x