pabarnes51
February 9, 2024
We (a group of 13) stayed here with Crystal early Feb 2024. As others have said, the hotel is a bit of style over substance. The public areas are extremely stylish, albeit underused. Meanwhile, the rooms are rather dated. Many of them look out onto a large concrete wall at the back of the hotel. The rooms are nowhere near as big as they look in the photos. On the plus side, the rooms are warm - too warm really - with a large bathroom and plenty of hot water. There is limited wardrobe space, particularly drawers, although there are coat hooks, essential for skiers. Breakfast is very good. Huge portions of fresh fruit, all the usual cooked meats and cheese, hot food and a variety of breads and rolls. Evening meals are taken across the road, in the Sports Village hotel. Their dining room is huge, seating around 300. Its atmosphere is a bit 'staff canteen'. Food is buffet style - plenty of starters and soup. Mains are a mixture of ready cooked dishes - mainly meat stews of various types and roasts ( we had chickens, suckling pig, beef shins and pulled pork) - together with freshly cooked meat or fish on a griddle. Desserts were mainly small pastries and mousses, together with several ice creams. The main problem was that most of the food was lukewarm, not helped by cold plates and having to queue for fresh cooked food. It was also disappointing that, despite comments from 2022 about this, the situation with wine hasn't been resolved. Crystal guests have half a litre per couple included. Sometimes this was served by the glass, sometimes bottles were put on the table and sometimes you were charged. I had a bill for 33 euros for 3 glasses to sort out before we left. We did get the Crystal rep to sort things out and, on the last night, signs appeared saying it was 2 glasses each ( although there didn't seem any allowance for non drinkers). The other issue was the cost of things in the hotel. The first evening we had a coffee and 2 spirits after dinner. Coffee was 4.5 euros and the two drinks - whisky and brandy - were 47 euros!!! There was a Spa across the road but it was 65 euros per person for 3 hours, treatments extra. All in all, the hotel is good but certainly not 4* away from public areas.