Madame Vacances Hôtel & Spa Le Mottaret

My 12 year old son and I stayed here for a 4 night trip. My son loved it. and I was very relaxed and comfortable. This is a comfortable, friendly and snug place to stay. Our (eventual, see below) room was lovely. This is a relaxed place, has a lovely vibe about it. Mostly a mix of French and English guests during our short stay (I saw two Crystal Ski reps on changeover day). No hotel has everything, but this ticks most boxes for a ski break. An older hotel that has been well maintained / modernised, it has a quirky layout, a bit of a maze but you quickly get used to it. Very friendly and accommodating staff: I wish to single out Aloise, Freddie, the Limerick/UK sisters in the restaurant, and a few more names I'm afraid that I forgot (including behind the bar), that were really very helpful and welcoming. We had a room problem on arrival but in fairness to them, they sorted everything for us satisfactorily and we had a lovely replacement room (333) with balcony overlooking the mountains. I booked at very short notice and therefore paid very handsomely for that decision, but you can't fault a hotel for that. I didn't get to try the pool. The bar/lounge area is very cosy and snug, large open fire and chilled music vibe, perfectly happy to while away a few hours. Old collection of books and board games to pick up. It has a pool table that my son loved. The whole hotel is well muted by design, so it was never loud. Very chilled place. The hotel is ski in/out, maybe 200 metres up from the base of all skiing in Mottaret. That was terrific. Bear in mind though, when walking in the evenings it is a bit of a steep five minute climb down/up a few stairways from the village. However it really is very close so it is no big deal, unless you are on crutches / less mobile.

There were several small dogs about the place. I had no idea this was an actively dog-friendly hotel, and I was initially very disappointed but I got over it and relaxed quickly. I love dogs, but I really don't care for them barking and yelping in the dining room at meal times or in the otherwise very relaxed lounge. If pet allergies are a thing, or you don't like dogs, this might be an issue for you. The boot room is small and inevitably gets quite congested at peak time after breakfast, tricky when you are trying to get out to a lesson. But not a major drag. That room is separate from the ski storage area, a floor below on the outside. On a positive note, the boot room is accessible from a central place internally, which is really convenient when coming and going. Yellow flag: the hotel has a wi-fi setup internally, but that has no external internet connection! So no working wi-fi while we were there. When I asked a couple of staff about this, it was a polite "Sorry, no internet on the wifi, nothing we can do about that". For netflix / etc for pre-teen programmes,, we were entirely reliant on tethering our mobile phone signal to the TV through its wifi settings, which you need to be able to configure for yourself in the TV settings menu. No problem for us, but I could see this being an issue for people who can't manage that. The hotel was advertised as having wi-fi internet but there simply isn't any. Mobile signal was fine in our room (4G / 5G). We have younger children (6 and 9) and I was very glad they were not on this short trip, as the hotel is not particularly geared towards younger kids (by design I expect, and that is not a bad thing at all!). No probem for 8 or 9+. We only met two children under 10 (and you knew they were there!).

Lovely place

No mini bar

Friendly helpful staff, excellent food, close to ski run.