Spotlight on Ski Total

When your fellow guests in a ski chalet start talking about returning to the same property the following year, you know they’re having a good time.

We were only a couple of days into our week’s stay at Chalet Cascades, one of Ski Total’s seven properties in Courchevel, which is in the vast Three Valleys ski area,  when guests started planning to re-book for 2014

But actually, it’s not surprising they wanted to go back before they’d left; the recently renovated chalet has an enviable location directly across the road from an escalator that takes you directly to the main Ariondaz gondola at Courchevel 1650, the service is superb and the price reasonable given that it’s in one of the most expensive resorts in France.

We were greeted on arrival by the friendliest chalet crew I’ve ever met; they were positively fighting over themselves to carry our bags to our rooms, and their super-wide smiles didn’t slip for the whole week. Nothing was too much trouble; lift passes were arranged on arrival, we were accompanied next door to Intersport to fix the children up with skis and boots and lessons were booked on our behalf with the British-run ski school, New Generation.

The food was delicious, from the buffet breakfasts which included a hot option, to the freshly baked cake in the afternoon the canapés served with aperitifs in the new third-floor lounge in the evening, to the three-course dinners.

It was so good in fact that the chef received a hearty applause every evening when he emerged from the kitchen to announce what was on the menu.

Having stayed in chalets quite often, I was expecting a week of stodge: heavy lasagne maybe, the ubiquitous chilli con carne and perhaps a mushroom risotto if we were lucky, served by teenagers who’d completed a hurried two-day catering course.

Instead we got restaurant quality chicken chasseur, duck in cherry sauce, pork loin, cod with mushy peas and a delicious lamb casserole. 

The only complaint I heard was from a vegetarian guest who felt she’d been short-changed. No wait, someone else also complained the food wasn’t quite as good as in other Ski Total chalets – but he also felt there wasn’t enough skiing and yet Courchevel is in the Three Valleys, the largest linked ski area in Europe!

The staff weren’t mean with the wine either, hovering dangerously close to re-fill our glasses as soon as they were half-empty. Unfortunately, it was decent quality too, very drinkable, and so it’s no wonder some of us were a bit too bleary to get the first lift up the hill in the mornings.

Cascades sleeps up to 77 guests in a choice of bedrooms and suites. Ours was on the first floor, facing the road that cuts through the resort, and the noise from the traffic and the bar downstairs was an issue for some guests. If your clients are light sleepers, they might prefer to pay slightly more for one of the valley-facing rooms, which come with stunning mountain views.

Ski Total, a sister company to the family ski specialist Esprit, has chalets in 15 resorts in Italy, Austria and Switzerland as well as in some of the top French ski areas. No children under 13 are allowed, except during the main school holidays when families are accepted in most of the chalets.

I’ve holidayed previously with Esprit Ski, a sister company that is well-known for its excellent child-care, but knowing that Total doesn’t specialise in family holidays I’d thought that my two – aged 12 and 14 – would be tolerated rather than welcomed, but in fact they were very well looked after.  A high tea was provided for kids under the age of 13 – and parents were pleased it was freshly cooked food, not the usual fish fingers and frozen pizza – and the other guests were happy for the children to mill around in the evening.

The only whinge all week was that the chalet’s free wi-fi wasn’t that reliable – so the kids had to actually talk to each other (and god forbid, their parents) rather than play computer games. Shame!