Planibel Hotel

We have just spent the UK half-term week skiing in La Thuile and staying at these apartments. For the money they are good value. Our one bedroom apartment had an en-suite bathroom and there was an additional shower room too. Very basic cooking facilities but a good level of kitchen equipent. Paid additional fee for the use of the leisure facilities - well worth the cost. The apartments are very close to the main gondola and only about 5 or 6 minutes walk from the village itself. The Maison de Larent restaurant is very good but not if you are after pasta or have vegeterians in your group! Good pizza in the pizza restaurant underneath the Copperpan restaurant. Would say this is a very good family ski resort ( for beginners and good intermediate skiers), with very little if any lift queues, and good accomodation

Five families recently stayed at the Planibel Hotel and Residences in La Thuile, Italy. We booked self catering accommodation. Rooms were OK in that they were clean with two bathrooms, one bedroom, and kids slept on the couches in the living area. The big plus was that the appartments were just outside the Gondola and Bosco express chair so that we walked for 100 yards and were heading up the slopes. There are several bars, restaurants and shops within the complex including a good supermarket and deli. There are also several ski shops and ski hire shops. We didn't use the Fitness centre or try the evening entertainments. The kids went sledging every night and loved it. La Thuile is a small town with plenty bars and good restaurants. We ate very well while out and would recommend the Copper Pot which is just past the Gondola and La Bricole restaurant. Food is good and reasonably priced on the slopes. Skiing was excellent as we had fresh snow every day for four days. I would be happy to go back.

Stayed in La Thuile from 21st - 28th Jan 2007 - what an absolute gem of a place almost hidden in the Alps. No queues, plenty of snow and amazing views once up top. Planibel Apts are as good as it gets for the money - comfortable, spacious and clean. Pretty basic cooking facilities - but with a bit of ingenuity you can vary the offerings (with a well stocked supermercado on site)! Anyway, there's not a bad selection of restaurants and bars in walking reach. Facilities (for an added €25 weekly) included 25m pool, sauna and Turkish bath which really relax the limbs after a day on the slopes. Will definitely return and stay in same place!

Stayed at the Planibel apartments in January and thought they were great, although pretty basic cooking facilities. We had 2 bathrooms for just the 2 of us. There was little snow in the village but go up the cable car (outside the apartments) and there was plenty of powder snow. Overall fab holiday.

The planibel apartments are directly next to the gondala, they are a litte basic though very clean & the beds are very comfortable, for the amount i paid to stay there would say it was excellent value. OK its not the most plush place I have ever stayed, if your looking for luxury dust the cobwebs off of your wallet! all in all would say a great place to stay that is very convenient for the slopes. If you have not been to La Thuile before its a gem with some of the best skiing (& powder) in europe & a fantastic snow record to boot, Not many package deals go there so its mainly Italians. I have never had to Q for a lift in the 6 times I have skied there. The offpiste tends to be very very good (everytime I have been have had some fantastic powder) The Heliski on the minotel glacier is awsum to say the least & very much worth the money!

Spent Christmas at the Hotel Plannibel in La Thuile, Italy, returning home New Years Eve. What a lovely hotel, with very friendly staff. Hotel food was very good. Breakfast consisted of assorted cereals, pastries & cakes, rolls & bread to make your own toast in a large toaster, fruit juices, prunes, peaches, cheeses & ham, assorted jams & marmalades, yoghurts, fried eggs, bacon, boiled eggs, there was even a machine to boil your own eggs for however many minutes you wished, tea, coffee & hot chocolate. A chef also cooked fresh pancakes for you and omelette's etc. Evening meals were lovely, which consisted of a large buffet table with numerous hot & cold starters which also included seafood, which they kept replenishing all the time, there was always soup and 3 pasta dishes every night, with tomato, seafood, meat and sometimes a risotto. Every night there were always potatoes done various different ways but there were never chips, it was nice to go somewhere where they give you something other than chips which was great. There was always 2 hot meat dishes and hot fish dish and there was always a chef at another table carving up big joints of meat, turkey, pork, beef. There were always 2 different sweets, one night there was tiramisu & a nutty almond cake which you could pour hot chocolate sauce over, huge baskets of fresh fruit and the chef would cut up pineapples for you, pancakes various sauces. There were always 3 different cheeses, but no crackers. The hotel laid on champagne and canopies Xmas Day and Cheese & Wine party on Boxing Day. The hotel rooms were of a reasonable size with a kingsize bed in our room and twin beds with interconnecting doors between us and our friends which was great when swapping DVD's and making teas & coffee's. You need to take your own kettle, tea & coffee as this is not provided by the hotel. There was a mini bar with various drinks, beers & juices & cokes in the rooms. There were 2 large wardrobes with shelves at the bottom, there was plenty of hanging space & hangers and 4 drawers in the room and a balcony with views over the mountains. Bathrooms were average size but had everything you needed, bath with a powerful shower, free toiletries replenished every day and a hairdryer. Never did get to the night club though, but did get to use the swimming pool and the sauna, the gym was large with various weights & treadmills and other gym equipment etc and piped music, they also had a stretch class and aerobics at 17:30 if you were up to it, the class was packed when I looked through the window. The skiing could have been better in La Thuile as only 30% of the runs were open, we had clear blue skies everyday and brilliant sunshine and even managed to get a tan. The apre ski was a bit of a let down, but had read peoples reviews so was not surprised, not one bar was really lively not like the apre ski in Soldeu in Andorra where the bars were jumping from 4pm onwards. Look out for the chocolate shop where they make homemade chocolates on the premises and is also a coffee shop - Yummy We would highly recommend The Hotel Plannibel, I don't think that anyone would be disappointed, hotel was clean, staff very friendly, especially in the dining room and food great. Our other friends stayed in the apartments at the Plannibel which was a five minute walk away, they had two bathrooms, one separate bedroom a huge lounge area with beds and a 2 ring kitchen cooker & fridge. No kettle (you had to boil water in a saucepan) or toaster, they took their own toaster as that is all the kids eat for breakfast. Apartment was pretty basic, in need of a refurbishment, couldn't really cook anything as there was no oven, they ate in our hotel some nights which was 23 Euro's each for adults & 13 Euro's for each child. You can get take aways just one minute walk from the hotel, pasta, pizza, chips & wedges etc. We found a few nice restaurants whist out walking but never got to eat in them but the food looked great. You walk past the Gondola down the slight hill and round the bend, its the first place on the right you come to, up a few steps, we had coffee in there, the place was packed and the food looked good.

We traveled on the 19th March 2006 for 1 Week with Crystal holidays flying from Bristol. Transfer time from Turin was 2 hours on a coach. My girlfriend and I stayed in the Planibel Apartments in a sleep(2-4). The apartment was clean and spacious, but there were few facilities. There is no ski locker room, but there is and area for storage in the apartment. There was a twin room and a sofa bed in the lounge, and 2 bathrooms(1 with bath). Towels are provided and the room is serviced once during the week. There is no deposit to pay if you are with Crystal, but if you want to use the hotels lesiure facilities(2 mins) this costs 25 euro for the week. These facilities consisted of a 25m pool a smaller pool for childern, a gym with several excercise machines and freeweights, and a sauna and Turkish bath(both unisex). The cooking facilities are very basic with only 2 hobs a sink and a fridge. There is no kettle so water must be boiled in a saucpan, no toaster and no oven. This limits the cooking options, but there is a take away very near by the apartments as well as a well stocked supermarket(1 mins walk). We ate out most nights, and found a good range of restaurants all of which were very reasonable. La Bricole is probably the best restaurant, but quite expensive. There are a several other resaurants offering good Italian food at reasonable prices. There is also a mexican in the village(5 mins) if you get bored of pizza and pasta. A bottle of wine usually costs about 12 euros and a beer about 3 euros. Other benefits of the Planibel complex are a good pub, 2 sports gear shops, 2 ski hire shops and a number of cafes. The village of La Thuile is 5 mins away. The skiing was excellent both for beginners and advanced. The resort was very quiet and not once was there a queue for a lift all week. There are excellent nursery slopes to build confidence as well as some gentle blue runs from the top of the gondala. There are reds which come all the way back to the apartments. If you can not ski these then the gondala brings you back down and this gondala is a 1 min walk from the apartments. The instructors spoke little English which made the beginners lessons more difficult. The advanced lessons were better and there was lots of off piste sking as well as sking down into La Rosiere in France. There was also helicopter sking avaiable at the top of the resort. The only dissapointment was the lack of apres ski at the end of the day. There were several good resaurants on the slopes but few bars at the bottom. The nightlife was not great either, with the bar under the Bricole restaurant being the main venue for evening entertainment. Finally there is little to do in Turin airport on the return flight and few places to eat so a book and snack is advisable. Overall we had an excellent week and would definatley recomend the resort to others, particulary if there are beginners in your party.

We spent a week at Planibel, skiing/boarding. I have mixed feelings. We were in the 'Residence' in a 1br apartment (sleeps 4 with a sofabed). The Good: excellent location - directly at the cable car; good facilities with a decent supermarket; short walk to good restaurants (such as La Bricole- it was amazing!); 2 ski hire shops on site; 2 skiwear shops on site for last minute ski needs; the apartment style facility was good for a family with younger children and was cheaper than 2 hotel rooms; has a pool and sauna; the apartments have 2 bathrooms - one with tub and one with shower. The Bad: The kitchen was small and had only 2 small hobs-No microwave, No oven, no dishwasher - so you are limited to what you can really cook except cereal for breakfast unless you are very creative or very broke; you pay extra for *everything* - fee for safe in room, fee for ski storage room, 25euro for cleaning, 25 euro per person for use of the pool/fitness but then an extra 3 euro per towel per day for the pool (which is crowded and not really warm and you must walk outside to the 'Hotel' across the courtyard), and you must wear a swim cap so that costs extra too because who thinks to bring one?; the apartment is serviced only once per week; our room overlooked the noisy internal courtyard which got very very noisy when the pub closed every night at 1am; finally the building has no atmosphere to speak of - its big and empty feeling. Not offensive just not warm or cozy in any way. So if you have a family it may be a good compromise but bring towels, swim caps, paper plates, dishsoap and extra money. If you are a couple, there are better choices. My brother couldn't get a room at Planibel and stayed at the nearby Chateau Blanc which was a 4 minute walk from the lift and full of character and charm with a lovely staff (who even personally woke him up at an appointed time if he overslept due to jetlag and saved him breakfast!). When we saw his room we wished we had booked there - it wasn't a large room but had a beautiful stone wall, flatpanel TV, and a cozy, happy, and warm feel. If we went again, I would skip the hulking Planibel and stay at Chateau Blanc.

we have just returned from Le Thuille having spent a week at the Planibel apartments. What a great place to stay. Apartment was huge, clean and very comfortable. We had an en suite and a seperate shower room.Although self catering there were plenty of places to eat or cook yourself from provisions from the supermarket in the complex. Convenient location for the slopes. The only down side for me personally was the toilet facilities on the slopes Or lack of them if you are a woman. All resteraunts had toilets but they were merely holes in the ground. Ok if you don't mind squatting over them and hoping you don't splash your clothes. Having said that the apartment was right at the bottom of the run so it didn't take long to get down and use own facilities.

I would happily return to La Thuile, and would stay half board at the Planibel Hotel again. Public areas such as the dining room were good, the bedrooms themselves were a little ‘tired’ in comparison (often the case in such a large hotel), but they were comfortable and with good bathrooms with bath, power shower and hot water always available. Convenient location, next to nursery slopes, shops, supermarket, ski hire, main gondola to ski school meeting place and chairlifts. It is only a 5- 10 minute walk to the village if you wish to go further afield. Apart from drinks, dining is buffet style with a good choice for vegetarians/non meat eaters. The staff serving the main courses and looking after the excellent starter and dessert buffets are very attentive. There is an extensive starter selection, then a first course of typically pasta, rissotto or soup, second course of meat or fish with vegetables, then cheese and desserts. There was a good proportion of Italians in the hotel restaurant which may keep up the food standards! The house wines were about €8-10 and coffee and a grappa in the bar afterwards were about €5 for both. Bar was comfortable, quiet and convenient. Breakfast buffet was also plentiful with lots of choice, although the vending machine coffee was a surprise - and did not fit in with the rest of the hotel at all. There was free access to hotel swimming pool, gym and sauna facilities if you are staying at the hotel.