Viewing 17 posts - 1 through 17 (of 17 total)
  • Anyone been on holiday with Alpine Elements?
  • Rockdodger
    Free Member

    Looking at booking a snowboard holiday with Alpine Elements, just wondering if anyone had been with them. The chalets all look nice, but seems a lot of money to share a bathroom with a stranger, or is this the norm?

    DT78
    Free Member

    Skiing is always expensive!

    Went skiing with them twice both good, had a premium chalet in la plagne and it was lovely.

    Went once with them for a summer biking holiday to morzine. Never again.

    steveh
    Full Member

    My only knowledge of them is as a summer outfit. Just don’t covers it.

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    allthegear
    Free Member

    It like it’s one of the fundamental laws of biking:

    1. If in doubt of the route, it’s probably uphill;
    2. Tyres never puncture when it’s warm/sunny;
    3. Holidays at Alpine Elements may leave a sour taste in the mouth.

    ditch_jockey
    Free Member

    +1 for “just don’t”

    We went to Morzine for biking. Chalet/food was okay, biking guides were atrocious. We ended up going off and doing our own thing with a map. One of the guides turned up without his party – apparently he’d got bored waiting for them, so just pedalled off and left them to find their own way home.

    imnotamused
    Free Member

    Blimey, I stayed a week in the summer at les gets with them and my mates and had no probs. We just took the full board and flights option, no guiding. Chalet was worth what we paid, food was average, staff were friendly and the mechanic service use of tools etc, all free, was superb. They spent an hour cutting an old steerer with a blunt hacksaw to get a sfn to replace my bent one, for free. That’s just one example of the service, there were a few others.

    I’d recommend them for summer flights and accom

    phil.w
    Free Member

    try putting “alpine elements complaints” into google – it makes for some interesting reading.

    if you have a copy of there brochure have a look at how many of the chalets have the same view out of the windows – assuming they still use the same photoshoped pics from a few years back.

    woffle
    Free Member

    try putting “alpine elements complaints” into google – it makes for some interesting reading.

    wow! Well, I’ll be avoiding them then…

    gordonb
    Free Member

    gotta agree with imnotamused, been on 3 summer biking hoildays with them, all 3 to le chamois in les gets, accom was ok for what we paid for, food was ok, biking was great.. it wasn’t their fault that it rained big style the last time we were there, and it’s not their fault that the french have been arresting the guides. my first trip had 4/6 of guided days and that was great. if you wanna go posh, go elsewhere, if you wanna go and do outside activities, and crash, probably well drunk at nights, alp elements are ok. buy the staff a beer or 2, you get added onto the “staff beer” list to pay half price!

    robarnold
    Free Member

    I’ve done winter seasons with Crystal and Skiworld then had the misfortune to go on an alpine elements winter trip last season. It went along with the bulk of people on here unfortunately….piss poor reps, chalet staff, organisation and levels of professionalism, service and hygeine. If i’d have been managing the staff we came across with my experience from previous seasons, i’d have sacked the lot of them on the spot.

    HORRENDOUS

    tomstickland
    Free Member

    Here’s the complete list of things for me:
    -price escalation due to charter flight details, having a shower
    -email promising that invoice would be arriving soon, followed by a snotty email asking where the money was, then followed by the invoice
    -sitting on transfer coach for several hours waiting for late arrivals
    -arriving at 6pm despite having started the day at 2am
    -ski passes late because of late arrival
    -cramped chalet
    -lack of food hygeine
    -out of date food in fridge
    -chalet host had not been properly trained
    -noise from chalet staff returning in early hours waking downstairs guests
    -below par breakfast, eventually fixed
    -resort manager not interested in doing anything
    -Alpine Elements in denial over complaints that one of the guests laid out in a letter

    One or two of those could be excused as “stuff that happens”, but all together and combined with the lack of interest in taking any complaints seriously.

    tomstickland
    Free Member

    They used to be called snowboard lodge.
    http://forums.adrenalintrip.net/showthread.php?s=dcbc4109cd0d9470f512e1fe94ab1707&t=11051

    Do a search of the Forum for more. There was a bit of hoohar a year or so ago and SBL got a bit threatening to Ade (who “owns” the Forum) and myself. Their basic arguement was that they’d rather people came to them directly with complaints rather than air them in public. For me, if they’re no good, then this is a perfect place to discuss it. But the key here is discussion, rather than slating.

    jonfrog
    Free Member

    Tignes 2010 december with Alpine elements. I feel for you ‘tomstickland’. We also had a horrific experience on almost every level, accomodation, reps, all the way to managerial level. Returned home after 2 days on our own accord to get answers from the UK office as nobody would help resolve our complaints in resort, to then just be blanked (whilst i was told that a manager was dealing with it – he still would not speak to me on the phone) I wrote a complaints letter and sent it by professional guaranteed next day delivery. Over 28 days later, which is the industry standard time for a response I had to ring and ask where my response was. I promptly received it by email. (They say they had sent it by standard mail – it never got to me). Their response was inaccurate and full of falsehood that never happened. Took another week of work to deal with this.. sent it by professional post ‘guaranteed next day delivery’. The customer services of the company asked me to send it by email. NO WAY – I once again legally need to know they’ve received it. It looks like I will be spending 2011 taking legal action against them. Fortunately for us, we rapidly felt within 1 hour of being guest of this company, that we had made a serious error to book with them. We used 2 cameras and a helmet camera + 2 memory cards to start gathering evidence.(these we genuinley to hopefully remember and amazing snowboard trip with). On top of many problems, the cherry on the cake – was we also filmed a rep smirking, to then start to laugh, to then quickly turned away. She was laughing directly at my brother who was distressed due to another issue he was bringing up in resort and asking for help. The company at present says the staff are helpful and professional!! Thank god we did start to film events as they unfolded as soon as we did. Our holiday went from bad, to worse, to diabolical. Im not a serial complainer. Ive never had to write in a complaints letter to a holiday company ever before. Im the chap who actually commends and writes in letters to companies when things go well. Book wisely.. everyone.

    Shandy
    Free Member

    If you had filmed me with your helmet cam I might have laughed a wee bit too.

    All the big tour operators are like this, to one degree or another.

    cheez0
    Free Member

    Me n Mrs Cheeze did an activities package there last summer and it was great for the money in my opinion.

    Yeah, the accomodation is basic but the food is good and the staff when we were there were v.helpful/ accomodating.

    The poor weather got a few of the activities cancelled, but we got our cash back on those with no hassle.

    It was the first time mrs cheeze had done any real biking and she loved it.. we came back and got a couple of ‘proper’ XC bikes for pootling about on Exmoor.

    We’re off to Morzine again in June.

    If you want 5star and are the type of person who goes on holiday just to do nothing but moan about flights/ accomodation/ colour of the wallpaper, go elsewhere.

    We loved it, had a chilled out time being left to do what we wanted, and not being hassled all the bloody time by overzealous staff asking us ‘Everything OK for you?’, like you get in some places.

    If you are going to PDS purely for biking, scoff and somewhere to get your head down, plus have somewhere you can tinker/fix your bike, what else do you need?

    cheez0
    Free Member

    jonfrog – Member
    Tignes 2010 december with Alpine elements. I feel for you ‘tomstickland’. We also had a horrific experience on almost every level, accomodation, reps, all the way to managerial level. Returned home after 2 days on our own accord to get answers from the UK office as nobody would help resolve our complaints in resort, to then just be blanked (whilst i was told that a manager was dealing with it – he still would not speak to me on the phone) I wrote a complaints letter and sent it by

    BTW looks like jonfrog is doing quite a hatchet job on AE around the net..

    http://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?t=27550&start=80

    Double posting even!

    ciderinsport
    Free Member

    Took 22 to a chalet in Val D’isere in Jan 08…. The staff were either pissed or asleep.. We skied alot and drank all we could, and went out for lunch and dinner..
    After a shed load of complaints we all got a little back, but not enough to cover what we spent on food to make up for the shit they served.
    But if you want a chalet staffed by untrained 18 year olds who dont give a damn, go for it!!

    The following season we went with http://www.skiolympic.com paid a little more and have had a great service since… (4 seperate holidays in different resorts!)

Viewing 17 posts - 1 through 17 (of 17 total)

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