Hôtel de la Forêt

View from the room was exceptional. The facilities at the hotel were ok but have seen better. No coffee or tea making facilities in the rooms, bottled water in room were chargeable at 3 CHF per bottle and restaurant closed at 1900!! Hair dryer should have been included in the room according to the specification but had to be requested at reception. The hotel location was high up in the mountains. Great if you are capable (driving and walking) but could be too much for some people if not so mobile. Town centre was ca. 1.5 km from the hotel with several restaurants offering a good range of food types. The limited on site facilities could have been better.

We stayed at Hotel de la Foret in February 2022. There were four of us (2 adults and 2 children) in a family room at the back of the hotel (so no balcony). There was plenty of space for four, with 4 single beds (two pushed together). Wi-Fi (vital for teens) was good. Always lots of hot-water. Found the hotel quiet at night. Breakfast was excellent every morning, with cereals, bread/toast, teas/coffees/hot choc, pastries, fruit, ham/cheese, yoghurt. Plenty to stoke yourself up with for the day. The hotel is well located, about a 3 minute walk to the Etoile bus stop, from where you can catch the free buses in either direction. We went to Barzettes and started our day on the Violettes lift most mornings. The buses always arrive exactly on time! In the evenings we normally took the bus into town to a restaurant then walked back (about 15 mins downhill). The staff were friendly, but the only negative was our experience of eating in the restaurant. We ate there twice. The first night it took 40 minutes from ordering to receiving our food. Just about acceptable. The second time it took over an hour, maybe 1h10m. Communication was terrible and there was no apology or offer of compensation. Ultimately after I pointed out that this was appalling service, they took some money off the bill. I am aware they were short-staffed due to Covid, but we were the first in the restaurant and others arrived, ordered and left before we even received our food. That aside, we enjoyed our stay and I would recommend the Hotel de la Foret for families or as a budget location in Crans Montana.

The only two good things about the hotel is the staff and the view. We booked a deluxe room with a view of the mountains and when we got there two big threes where blocking half the view (technically providing the Mountain View but not at all as showed in the pictures. Furthermore this was supposed to be the best room the hotel had to offer but was full of stains on the carpet floor and there was a whole in the bedsheets. The hotel itself is very old looking and very used, and the facilities such as the hairdryer (which is a million years old) and the tv (which isn’t nearly as big as said in the add, actually it’s more the seize of a computer screen) did not in any way live up to the expectation we had when booking a “deluxe” room. The road is just down by the rooms and the car noise is super disturbing, when sitting on the balcony and trying to enjoy a peaceful moment. You can even hear it when closing the balcony door. But the worst disturbance is the ability to hear EVERYTHING private that goes on in the nearby bathrooms. Every pee, ever splash, every handwash and flush of toilets. Super uncomfortable. Another minus is the cleaning lady who starts hovering the halls around 7.15 in the mornings. So no chance of late sleep-ins there. On the webpage it said that the restaurant was closed which was true, but the bar also seemed very closed. Another big letdown was the “spa and wellness available” which is just a small fitness room and a sauna. So don’t book if you’re there to have a relaxing getaway in the mountains. The breakfast is okay-ish. Better than expected. We ended up leaving a day earlier because it just wasn’t what was promised in our opinion. So the only two good things was the very very lovely staff who did everything they could to help, letting us change rooms to a full Mountain View but then having a smaller room, and that the receptionist let us have the last night as a voucher, if we wanted to give them another chance if we ever came to the area again and so the money wouldn’t be a total waste.