Review of La Plagne

10th January 2008 by Nick Crawley 

We stayed in Montalbert over New Year in a lovely ski-in ski-out ground floor apartment and had a great time. It’s a good station for beginners with a couple of free button lifts and some nice confidence-building blue runs nearby which can be accessed by a Montalbert-only lift pass. Although small, Montalbert has everything you’d need (including a well-stocked supermarket and a nightclub) and is pleasantly quiet. One major downer however, is that Montalbert is quite a remote end of the resort and THERE IS NO HOPPER BUS. We were caught out and took a 70 Euro taxi. The bus advertised on their website only covers the central resorts, and as Montalbert is a fair trek from resort centre, it’s very difficult to get to many places and Les Arcs is not within reach.

The resort as a whole is huge and we didn’t ski anywhere near all the runs. The glacier is well worth a visit and the views from there are breathtaking! Lift queues were generally not a problem, although major connecting lifts can get very busy near the end of the day. This isn’t helped by there being only very few express lifts (sometimes it’s quicker to take a button than a chair!) Snow cover was mostly very good, but there wasn’t a fresh fall while we were there so while many runs nearer the resort centre benefited from snow-making facilities some wooded runs suffered from bare patches. Most annoying, however, was the prevalence of lots of tiny little stones littering nearly every piste and which my brand-new skis didn’t really agree with.

There are some lovely mountain restaurants, but those in the central resorts were somewhat overpriced. However, we found a very nice creperie at the bottom of the Carella chair with tasty food for very reasonable prices. If you’re going over New Year and fancy a meal out though, make sure you ask to see the special New Year’s menu before you book a table as we were caught out in this respect at Les Trappeurs in Montalbert which while very nice charged us 65 Euros per head while advertising dishes on their menu for around 10 Euros each.

Overall I can definitely recommend La Plagne as a decent resort, but if you’ve got the extra cash and intend to do a lot of mileage, I’d suggest somewhere more central than Montalbert.

Return to La Plagne