My daughter and me had a wonderful week staying at VIP Club Bellvarde from the 2nd – 9th February 2020.
The staff in the Chalet were great, they were always smiling, very willing and the two Chefs produced some fabulous meals each evening.
However, with all good comments there have to be some negatives & I hope you will view the points below as ‘constructive feedback’ rather than criticism.
1. We found it really hard to make our meal choices for the week on the Sunday evening at dinner when we had had a long day travelling. If this is the way you choose to do this, I would suggest waiting until Monday morning at Breakfast when ‘one’ would be fresher and in a better place to make a decision.
2. You say that Club Belvarde has ‘flexible dining’. In our opinion, that would be slightly different to the reality. We would suggest that there is a blackboard in the main area of the chalet detailing the meal for that evening. If someone had a real aversion to the meal (bearing in mind you would state any dietary requirements before you arrive) then you could be offered an alternative.
3. The blackboard could also provide basic daily information such as weather and skiing conditions, temperatures, resort updates. A welcome pack to Club Belvarde in each room would be really useful as again, you are given all the information when you arrive & because you’ve been travelling all day, you forget things!
4. When Izzy was not in the Chalet, the boys were less able and on one day we arrived for breakfast only to find both tables in a total mess with no clean china or cutlery. The table had not been cleared from the early risers! We cleared our own space and found clean china etc.
5. The wonderful indoor pool and sauna is a great facility but sadly despite being reported as not working, it took 2 days to fix. Very disappointing as such a wonderful facility to have!
6. The Chalet was not overly clean!
7. The evening routine was canapes at 7.30 for dinner at 8. This never happened! We usually ate around 8.30. On one occasion when a large group had been spending rather too long in a bar enjoying Apres Ski! We ate around 9 oclock which was not a problem except that by 9.45 we were being ushered away from the table so the team could clear up and leave the chalet for the evening. I think they need to be flexible.
8. The outside access to the path/piste was up steps & was treacherous. Most other chalets had their steps cleared so guests had easy access to the piste. Club Belvarde had minor clearing & I can honestly say, as a woman over 50, I found it really hard each morning to get up these slippery steps. If it was done regularly, it would not be a big issue, in my opinion.
9. The wine fridge was not cold and the white wine was often warm and had to be put outside in the snow!
10. The daily room cleaning/bin emptying was ‘hit & miss’. It was certainly not done everyday
11. Whilst I would love to trust everyone in the world, staying in a chalet is not different to staying in a hotel & we chose to lock our room everyday (particularly as our safe didn’t work) One guest pointed out that even though you locked your room, the keys were left in the basket by the boot locker and anyone could have access to your key! I did report the safe but nothing happened.
12. We were unfortunately involved in the storms and major delays on 9th February. There was absolutely no communication from VIP. Once we had gone through security we were ‘on our own’. Luckily for us, we kept the card that we’d been given and managed to get hold of the Resort Manager who put us in touch with Andy, who was ‘landside’ at Grenoble. He tried to help us and keep us informed. However, we were incredibly lucky to have a brilliant BA captain who was fantastic at keeping us informed. After a 11 hour delay we got back to Gatwick.
On the whole, the VIP Ski experience was a positive one, the staff at the Chalet were great and very helpful but very young. I felt that they would benefit from an older colleague, a Manager, who was there daily. Dan was there from time to time but he wasn’t always around for the daily running of the Chalet.
I hope these comments will help future VIP clients and you will act on some of my observations.