Chalet Hotel du Fornet

Take care when reserving this hotel. We experienced very sharp practice most unlike our experience with other hotels in this resort. During summer 2024 we reserved three rooms for a planned week holiday in December 2024 with our family. Unfortunately due to health issues with one of my daughters we cannot travel so we had to cancel the trip giving the hotel more than four months notice. Despite the lengthy notice and despite the fact that all of the rooms were subsequently rebooked the hotel retained the full deposit of Euro 2,000.00. We asked that the deposit be put towards one room at a later date but the only compromise was the deposit would be put towards three rooms at a later date. When we explained our family live in USA and would not be joining us they retained the full deposit. However this hotel saw their opportunity to get paid double! Clearly they mitigated their losses and rebooked all of the rooms. We expected to pay something towards the administrative burden but the owners / operators of this hotel are not a good advert for Val D'Isere or for French tourism.

We were hoping to stay at the Hotel Fornet this February half term and booked two rooms for our children and ourselves. We then realised - 10 days before arrival - that we had stupidly let our son's passport expire. We cancelled our rooms, and were immediately charged the full amount. We spoke to Mary and asked that if they did sell the rooms to others, they might consider refunding us, even in part. And that if they didn't sell the rooms, and our passport came through, we would still stay. We had paid in full for the rooms after all. Astonishingly though, the owners have said that as we've cancelled, we can't now take the rooms (even if they're empty), and nor will they give us any of our money back, if they do sell the rooms. These rooms cost 3800euros for 6 nights. The owners are within their rights to do this, but it is fundamentally not DECENT behaviour. If the rooms have sold, they could refund us - even if only in part - as a gesture of goodwill. If they haven't sold, and our passport arrives, they should still let us stay in the rooms we paid to use, whatever their terms and conditions.

First of all I never write reviews but this experience was so bad that I had to. My friend from New York and I stayed in this hotel in March 2022. We were so excited to be skiing in Val but our whole experience was ruined by the rude owners of this hotel. Stephane was rude and arrogant from the minute we emailed him. We had said we will arrive by 1pm and he emailed to say if I am here I will find a solution - if not check in is at 3pm. We get out from the airport and the transfer takes 3 hours - so we reach the hotel which is located quite far from the centre at 2pm ish. We bell as it’s a small boutique hotel - so Stephane comes in his skiing clothes really angry and says is this the time you come ? You emailed to say it will be around 12.30-1 and because of you I had to cut my skiing and come to open the hotel. We were shocked at the way he spoke to us. Initially I thought maybe he is joking with us but no way he got ruder as the stay went along. We asked him how do we get to the slopes - there is a decent 10min walk from the chalet to the bus stop which includes climbing steps. On our question he replied - you are from London right? This is not Buckingham palace - you just need to walk it. At this point we were now feeling a bit intimidated by him. Our room was small but awkward positioning of the safe which wasn’t working - so we called Stephane - he said tell me what password do you want? We said no just fix it and we will put our own password, he then laughs and says I have the key for all safes - so don’t try to be smart. It will make no difference. His attitude was no scaring us and as two women we were feeling a bit scared. The next morning we had breakfast and we were so happy to hit the slopes on the first day. Stephane was there and we said good morning to him - his reply was in a shrewd tone - I was watching you ladies last night - your bathroom light was on last night - don’t waste my electricity. I said my friend here likes a bit of dim light and is scared of complete darkness- he said but it’s my hotel you can’t leave it on. We didn’t say anything and went to the supermarket and bought like a dim light. We met Mary his wife who was pleasant to us. However, at breakfast they gave us 2 small pain au choc and 2 small plain croissants. So I wanted one more pain au choc one so I asked Mary. She asked for my basket and swapped my plain croissant and gave me the other one. I was shocked - the money they charge for breakfast is not cheap. The good old Spa - which they have was lovely - however it was never on. Apparently when you reach - you have to go to reception and tell them to put in on and it will take 15 -20 min for everything to start. It was the most pointless thing - after a hard day at ski - we just felt everything was hard work and by this point to deal with Stephane was proving to be impossible. We actually avoided coming back to the hotel so would stay out - just so that we do