La Plagne Reviews

We stayed at La Plagne 1800. It is a bit quiet up there but a lovely resort. It is quite expensive as most of France is now. It is worth going to the Spa for drinks at 1/10 th price. Do the bobsleigh run; it is worth every euro. There is very easy skiing in and out, with a brilliant variety of runs. The biggest pain is Plagne Centre as it’s quite difficult to ski to the lifts. There’s lots of walking and poling.

richard

La Plagne is a fantastic, huge ski area - the cable car to Les Arcs being closed this year does not matter at all - the skiing in La Plagne could keep a keen intermediate happy for a whole season, let alone a week. Plagne Centre is ugly, Aime 2000 even more ugly. Plagne 1800 is a pretty and more traditional village with wooden chalets and apartments, as are Belle Plagne and Bellacote. The latter two are best placed to skiing the entire area (including Les Arcs), although even from 1800 you can still reach the whole area. Loads of off-piste, in high powder bowls. For beginners, I would suggest Centre or Bellacote are best areas to stay to get you around as much of the area as possible in your first week. Mountain restaurants are excellent quality (spotless toilets!), but amazingly expensive, as are some of the bars and restaurants we tried in Centre, but you get what you pay for and the entire place is first class, can't fault it. Try Caudron Restaurant in Centre for a real treat, Le Petit Chaperon Rouge in 1800 for cosy, log fire ambiance, and Mama Mia's in 1800 for great pizza and reasonable prices.

Apres-Ski 4/5

Laura

La Plagne was recommended to me as great for families as my two sons (10 & 5yrs) have never been skiing before. We were not disappointed! We stayed in a self catering apartment in Plagne Soleil, (a small village slightly higher than Plagne Centre) which proved to be a fantastic location. The local Spar shop was 100m away, the ski-school office and daily meeting points were 50m away, and the apartment block is 100% ski-in ski-out to the locker room (no walking or bus rides to think about). One chair-lift is a very short ski away, a useful button-lift is directly outside. The ski schools for the kids were official ESF, and were very professionally organised. English was well spoken by the instructors (although 90% of students were French, so inevitably the boys missed out some details I’m sure). They both progressed well and were delighted with their certificates and medals at the end (cost €6!) Also next to the apartment block was a great little nursery area with a drag-rope ideal for messing about with the kids after ski-school, and for sledging in the evening. The Pistes are very large and the great majority of runs are Blue (“average”) these were generally wide and accommodating, with occasional tricky sections. It’s been 10 years since my wife and I went skiing so this suited us very well. There were many more challenging runs, but we didn’t get to them. We went over the new year period, and were lucky with plenty of snow at all levels, along with brilliant sunshine for 4 out 6 days. Some ice was beginning to form lower down and on shaded slopes, but nothing too bad. Only slight negatives would be 2-3hr transfer time from Geneva (but very comfortable coaches were laid on.) There was a limited number of lively restaurants and bars in Plagne soleil (plenty more in Plagne Centre though). The button-lift directly outside the apartment provided excellent access to the pistes, but was not an easy ride, with a wicked kick at the start, making it unsuitable for my two novice skiing children. But the chair lift nearby was no problem for the older one. Overall, fantastic!

Apres-Ski 5/5

Charlie