Le Grande Foret Hotel, La Tania, France
Hotel Information
Recent Price: £51
Hotel Class:
Hotel Description:
Comprising the Britania and Le Grand Bois apartments, the modern, well maintained Le Grande Foret is ideal for skiers of all ages. The shops, bars and restaurants of La Tania are just moments away and there's easy access to the local pistes. loading...
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Le Grande Foret Hotel Reviews
The location and the views from the apartments is superb – it was ski-in and would have been ski-out had there been enough snow but it was literally a minutes walk down a little slope from the entrance door to the Tania gondola. The room itself was spotless with lots of clean kitchen equipment, but the toilet was awful – it smelled of urine and the underside of the toilet seat was not a sight for the faint hearted!
It’s worth noting that the 9th & 10th floor walkways to the rooms are also a public walk way & elevator from the chalets on the upper slopes of the resort to the village centre and gondola so you can imagine the noise from many pairs of ski boots clumping past your bedroom window from 7:30am – don’t expect a lie in!!
La Tania is set on a steep mountainside nestled in the trees with fantastic views. The resort is made up of many traditional chalets and a handful of huge apartment blocks which aren't that bad to look at (it's definitely not Tignes!). The resort centre is made up of a few bars and restaurants, hire shops, a tobacconists, a fast food restaurant, a shop that sells ready made traditional French food which you just heat up, and a supermarket that sells pretty much everything you need to make some basic meals from scratch if you're on a budget. It's worth noting that there's no chemist so if you run out of ibuprofen for all those aches you will have to get it from Courchevel or Meribel.
Food: You can get anything from pizza to King Prawns so if all that Savoie meat and cheese isn’t for you try La Taiga or Hotel Telemark. They have excellent menus including fish & veggie options. It’s a little on the pricey side but if that’s your worry then you’re in the wrong resort! If the meat/cheese is your bag then try Marmottes for superb Tartiflette. They also have a huge pizza menu and will do takeaways for you on request.
Apres: Most of the bars & restaurants in the resort centre will do après but it tends to go a bit quiet in the smaller bars after around 6pm. Ski Lodge usually has live music on some nights, and usually pulls in the younger crowd but we found most of the bar staff to be a bit narky - whether it was end of season blues I don't know but we only went in there a few times and decided the atmosphere wasn't for us. La Taiga also has live music a few times a week and has a more laid back atmosphere and friendly staff. Both bars serve until the early hours but not much later than 3am so if you need more booze you better make sure you stocked up back at the apartment.
Slopes: The Three Valleys offer some amazing terrain which you will never cover in a weeks break so if you only get one snow holiday per year consider spending 10 days or even 2 weeks here. Head over to Courchevel 1650 and up Chanrossa, Roc Mugnier & Chapaletes chairs where there are plenty deserted red & blue runs which you can speed down without worrying about taking out any ski school ‘snakes’ that like to use the WHOLE piste up. These guys tend to stick to the main runs into Courchevel 1850 and here the pistes are literally crawling with wobbly learners (I'm not knocking the learners - we all have to start somewhere!) The runs down into La Tania are also usually pretty deserted and there are some great black runs to test you – some even WITHOUT moguls – what’s that all about?
Parks: If you’re a park monkey then I’m not sure you’ll be that impressed. The park off the Epicea drag in Couchevel had various size kickers but the landings weren’t that well maintained and a bit choppy. There looked like there was plenty of metal to break yourself on but none of it was out at the time except a C rail at the bottom of the park. In Meribel the park off the Plattiers 2 gondola had some huger booters to throw yourself off and a couple of mid sized jumps, but again not much metal was available at the time we were there. On the plus side, if you don’t like an audience, there weren’t many wet bums sitting around at the top of the parks watching the action so less embarrassment when you face plant the 180 you were practicing!
Summary: We had an excellent holiday and are considering going back next year which is unusual for us as we usually like to try a different mountain each year. It seems to be quite a family orientated resort with a crèche, and nannies who take the little ones out for the morning if they're too small for ski school. The gentle slope into the resort is ideal for the kids ski school as well. We're hoping to get our old snowboarding buddies back to the mountains next year with their nipper and we think we can tempt them with this resort!
In a nutshell, if you just want to get out and ride, stay in reasonably cheap digs, and aren’t so bothered about hardcore après action then La Tania is for you.