A great intermediate resort (Les Gets)

Member Name: LucyRuth

Product:	Les Gets
Date:	08/02/09 (141 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good choice of intermediate slopes, lots of bars and restaurants, easy to get to from Geneva

Disadvantages: Lack of advanced slopes

My husband and I visited Les Gets in the French Alps in March 2008 and were very impressed with the resort. We went to ski and enjoy the snow, so i cannot comment on the area as a summer resort (which offers mountain biking in the summer) but will certainly share my experience of it in the glorious snow.

We travelled to Les Gets from Bournemouth airport via Geneva and the journey was a really easy one. We hired a car at Genenva airport and the drive to the resort took just under two hours, which included a stop off at a supermarket on the way!

The resort itself is pretty and when we visited was relatively quiet. There are a number of bars and a couple of discos and clubs. There is also a wide range of restuarants- most of which offer good value pizzas etc (bear in mind we visited almost a year ago when the £ was much stronger so what I see as good value may seem more expensive now with the change in exchange rate). There are also all teh shops you would expect- a couple of small supermarkets, a bakers, butchers, newsagents and of course many ski hire/ ski-wear shops.

Now onto the important bit- the skiing! Les Gets forms part of the Portes du Soleil- a collection of 14 French and Swiss resorts which offers over 650km of runs. The majority of runs in Les Gets are intermediate (a quick look at the map shows a multitude of red and blue lines) but there are also some good blacks for those looking for a little more adventure. My husband and I are both intermediate skiers and we didn't leave Les Gets for the 6 days that we were there. There were enough good runs to keep us happy for our trip, although I think we would have ventured out of the resort if we'd been there any longer as we pretty much covered all the slopes in that time.

We don't have children, so don't have any personal experience of the ski school but we did notice the Grand Cry Territory- an area of nursery slopes decked out as an American Indian territory. We had a sly ski through to check it out and it looked like the perfect area for little ones to learn to ski. There is also a free dotto train that operates all day through the resort which is a bonus for little ones (and big ones) tired out by a day on the snow.

One tip I would offer is that one ski hire shop- Sport 2000- allows you to leave you skis there overnight, meaning you don't have to lug them back to your hotel or apartment everynight. They also let you leave your own shoes there during the day, so youcan just walk down to the slopes in your shoes, swap them for your skis and boots at the shop and then you're right on the slopes to start your skiing. A fabulous bonus that anyone who has ever walked in ski boots will recognise.

Overall I would highly recommend Les Gets to anyone looking for some good intermediate skiing in a fairly quiet resort. The resort seemed very family friendly- there were certainly lots of families there. It might lack the more advanced runs that more expereinced skiers are looking for, but we'd certainly go back to the resort although we'd probably use it more as a base to explore the surrounding slopes.

Summary: A picturesque resort with some great red and blue runs