We stayed at le village (arc 1950) for a skiing holiday in late January 2012. We booked our holiday with neilsson and the brochure was somewhat confusing with regards to what type of resort we were going to and where excactly we would be staying.
In summary arc 1950 is a purpose built village, built by intrawest, which is an American company. Having been skiing in north America for the past 4 years is it very typical of their resorts, similar to resorts like panorama or fernie in Canada.
1950 has 8 separate blocks of accommodation. All of these combined are known as 'le village'. The 8 blocks appear to be owned by two companies - radisson blu and Pierre & vacance.
Radisson blu have the following 4 blocks, if u are readi the relevant block reviews: Manoir Savoie, Sources de Marie, Chalet Des Lys and Jardins de la Cascade.
PIerre & Vacance own the following blocks: Auberge Jerome, Hameau du Glacier, Prince Des
Crime and Refuge du Montagnard.
In essence when you book your holiday you don't appear to be able to choose where you stay. Despite being owned by two different groups the accommodation is apparently exactly the
same. From what I could tell the four blocks owned by Pierre &vacance are situated around the village centre type area, and the radisson ones slightly further away from the centre area. Athough I am talking a matter of one minute away.
The village is lovely. It is very quaint indeed and the very visually attractive. Within the centre
area there are numerous restaurants and a few bars. The restaurants all cater for different tastes and are slightly on the pricey side, but nice all the same. There are also numerous ski shops and souvenir shops around the centre, in keeping with the overall theme.
There is a really well stocked spar shop too, which is very good in terms of choice and quantity
of stuff. You genuinely can do your holiday much cheaper if you choose to cook in. Several reviews state that itnis expensive, but I do not think the prices are that much more expensive than English prices. Having paid canadian supermarket prices in previous ski holidays it was quite refreshing.
The accommodation itself was really nice and come equipped with a small kitchen. This is really well equipped with cooking equipment and utensils. They also give you some condiments of salt, pepper, olive oil, tea, coffee, washing up liquid, scourer etc etc. Our place had a comfortable living area and separate bedroom. Overall the room was top drawer and I have no complaints about the standard of accommodation. We stayed in manoir and it was
very nice. The block also has a gym, which is adequate, along with spa pool, sauna, steam room and outdoor pool. All were excellent and my only gripe was that it was quite possibly the coldest hot tub i have ever been in!!
On every other floor of the hotel there is a washing machine and tumble dryer that is free for guests to use. Take some of your own washing tablets to save a few pennies!!
There is also free wifi in the communal area and in every room. Admittedly, as stated in other reviews it is slightly slow and you constantly have to log back in (reception provide u with a login and password). Whilst this is annoying they provide this service free of charge, which is certainly not a pre-requisite in many hotels nowadays!!
A couple of gripes though. Generally to do with checking out. Firstly, as well as carrying all your luggage down they make u hand in your dressing gowns at reception when u leave. Why anyone would want to steal something that many people have worn before them is beyond me!! But it obviously happens. Secondly they then give youba list of cleaning to do and state That they will charge you over 100 euros if you don't do it. We will always leave places tidy but I resent having to fully clean kitchens, empty bins and strip beds, placing all towels and sheets in a pile by the door. A small gripe but I think that is going above and beyond something u have paid a lot of money for.
Overall the resort is fantastic place. It is defintitely geared towards families and couples though in my opinion. Not really many places for groups and 1800 seems to be far more geared towards this. Having ventured to 2000 and 1800 I would definitely say that 1950 presents both the the nicest accommodation and is the most aesthetically pleasing place. The facilities are excellent and most importantly the accomodation is all ski in ski out. We literally walked out of the ski locker room and you were on the slopes.
Skiing wise les arcs Is fantastic. The snow was awesome for our visit and everything was open. We had a day over to le plagne included on our pass but we didn't even use it there was that much terrain in les arcs area. Without doubt the slopes are more crowded than the candian slopes we are used to and the local skiers far ruder, but we still had a cracking time on the mountain. I would say les arcs is very much geared towards the intermediate standard skier as there are endless blues and reds.
Overall i would recommend les arcs as a destination. Our accommodation was bangbon and 1950 was a lovely resort. The skiing is fantastic and I would return without hesitation.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
