Havsdalsgrenda Geilo Apartments

3.5 / 5 - Its 'Good'! Its somewhere between average and very good! there should be more stars! The positives: reception, access around property, pool, gym, sauna, cafe, ski-in / ski-out. The living rooms and facilities / decor / fit & finish. The views are exquisite (northern lights on the first night), and the staff were excellent. The negatives: Bedrooms, bathrooms, the communal steam room smelled awful (near the pool). Ski in access. And the ICE!! Review: Communal areas are lovely and the staff great. moving round the property is easy in the underground car park, but above ground, especially with the Ice we had when we got there was treacherous and wasn't cleared, many people fell, some hurt themselves. However this cleared later in the week when it snowed. The Ski out element is brilliant, either a green run down to Slaata (ski school and green slopes) or a short run down to the drag lift up Geilohovda. However, the Ski In options are not as good if your a beginner - just be warned. The blue 41 from GeiloHovda is ok if your intermediate but steep for a beginner (like me) and in fact ALL the runs are coloured easier than they are - so blues are harder than blues in say France/Italy and reds are in places more like blacks. The other ski-in option is drag lift H and a blue across into the resort (which is ok). Drag lift H is a death trap! and is far too steep for a button lift. there was a nasty accident while we were there when a woman came off the button and tumbled to the bottom (its a black run one side and a red the other). this should be a chair lift and is just plain dangerous!! To overcome this we took taxis at the end of the day, some days. Taxis from Slaata / town are about 200 Krone normally (although 300 Krone late at night or during the weekend if they have a special event / festival on) - that's about £15. The living space is lovely and the kitchen, lounge, TV area etc was nice, well equipped and with great views. There was only 1 x 3 seater sofa which wasn't amazing for 5 adults if you have a night in but not unworkable. We had a 3 bedroom, bottom floor apartment for 5 adults (20E) - but there is only one bathroom for 5 adults which is really poor !! The sauna is off the bathroom which makes it basically un-useable for any length of time - it essentially became a drying room for ski gear which was good as there isn't a drying room anywhere either in the room or reception for wet ski gear. The bedrooms are small and we had to move the beds around just to make space to walk round the beds. there are no wardrobes in the room or chairs/arm chairs. there are cupboards in the communal areas for clothes storage but that's not much use if your sharing with others to wander round the communal areas to get your clothes. The 3rd bedroom was bunk beds & again thats not much use for 5 adults (we were all 40+ except 1 who was 26 and got the bunk). The snow is the snow and there isn't much the resort can do abou

The accommodation was much better than we expected. We came from the UK and booked through Crystal and I don't think the website does it justice. The site layout is ingenious with ski paths to all rooms above ground and a warm underground route through the car park to reception when on foot. We stayed in a 3 bedroom apartment, which was arranged across two floors and was spacious, comfortable, well equipped and very clean. It probably wouldn't suit beginners as the ski in/out would be too difficult at first as it is accessed via a blue run. There is no Crystal rep in this resort but receptionist was incredibly friendly and helpful. The only improvement I could make would be to have an onsite restaurant. The nearby ski café was great at lunchtime and you could pre-order breakfast from the accommodation reception but in the evenings our only real option was to cook or to get a taxi into town, which was quite expensive (around £40 return). I believe the local Spa supermarket delivers to this accommodation so we would look into this if going again. In addition to the ski café there was a great little ski hire shop about a 5 minute walk from the accommodation, at the bottom of the adjacent blue run. The town centre was about a 10 minute drive away. For anyone with a car this accommodation would be totally perfect as every apartment had an allocated space in the underground carpark close to entrance to the lower floor.