Some reviewers have commented on the smell when you arrive at reception. However, this is the only area where you can detect it and it needn't detract from your stay at all. The staff are brilliant, very welcoming, courteous and very pleasant. The food id excellent and plentiful. The only thing I would change is remove the power closers from the bedroom doors as these do tend to slam in the night.

Can't recommend the hotel highly enough for a great skiing holiday, with brilliant service and friendly but professional staff with fantastic meals to end the day's skiing.
The ski bus stops right outside the hotel so you needn't walk in your boots to the lifts.

I've never written a review on trip advisor before despite using its reviews to plan my last 6 years of holidays and short breaks. I feel compelled however to stand up for the the Foret Hotel in the wake of a couple of terrible reviews just before i departed to Val d'Isere which left me apprehensive about staying there.

As far as i can see the bad reviewers have blown things out of all proportion, here is my response to the nit pickers based on my experience in room 302 with 4 guests:

Yes, there was an occasional smell of chlorine in reception but being next door to the hot tub this was perfectly normal and if anyone used the hot tub and sauna they would have found it spotless like i did. Also, 8 euros is cheap for Val. I smelled no sewage however drain problems are often weather related with melt water backing up the sewerage system.

Yes, i did have a 2/3 of pigeons on my balcony 1 day but they soon flew off. Being a big resort Val has pigeons and talking to guests of other hotels and chalets it is common for them to roost under the wooden rafters of balconies. The only way to keep them out would be netting off the balconies spoiling the view. As for pigeon poo being a health hazard i would suggest not not putting it in your mouth or eyes :)

Yes, the ski lockers are small but a little bit of rearranging meant we got 3 snowboards and 1 skis in ours with our boots being brought upstairs to dry for the morning.

Yes, there is a walk to the first lift but this takes no time at all, i am a bit fat and unfit and it took me 3/4 mins fully kitted up. If you can't handle this though a free bus (Yellow line) does the 1 stop on the bus every 15 mins.

Apart from this i found no issues, the predominantly Scandinavian staff were very helpful and polite. With the ample dinner, they are aiming for modern french cuisine and more often than not the combination of tastes worked well. Breakfast was continental with an absence of croissants but you can't have everything. To save bit of money we filled up rolls for lunch (a ham roll costs 7-12 euros on the piste) and none of the staff seemed to mind.

The rooms weren't the most spacious I've ever stayed in but were standard for a ski resort where architects seem to work on a shoe-horn method of building design. We had 4 in ours with 2 twin beds and 2 people on the mezzanine level in twins also. The staircase to the mezzanine however was very narrow, probably more suited to children or fit adults.

I didn't notice any evening noise and after a hard day on the piste and apres ski fell to sleep straightaway each night. However, I fear my group of 9 lads could have been the ones making it, if so i apologies to anyone else we may have kept up.

In summary, we had a great time at the Hotel Foret (Booked through Crystal) and yes, it isn't perfect, all of the issues raised by other reviewers have some merit although in my experience, these are very very minor faults in what is a very very cheap hotel (Come on people, this is Val d'Isere, i paid 9 euros for a single jack daniels). It is a deserved 3 star ski resort hotel and i wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.

We returned from this hotel today after a fantstic one week holiday. We also read the bad reviews (the night before we left for France) and were worried by them.

However after a week stay at the hotel we feel these reviews are very unfair and misleading. The Hotel Foret is a 3 star hotel with 3 star rooms and 5 star food! The staff were lovely, our room was basic but more than adequate. The views from the room were fantastic, the colour TV was appreciated and the bathroom was clean and fairly new with lots of hot water for a bath every night. Better than any of the other French 3 star hotels we have stayed at.

Everything you need is close by (ski lifts & the town centre) and the fact that the ski bus stops at the end of the short drive was a great bonus we hadn't expected.

So anyone due to go on holiday to Hotel Foret please do not worry. You will have a lovely week and eat some fantstic food! Our only dissapointment was that the bar didn't have a happy hour as most other bars did.

We would happily recommend this hotel to anyone going to Val disere.

We stayed at this hotel in early March and can't really fault it.

The location was handy for the slopes (free bus stops outside the hotel if you don't fancy the 5-10 minute walk to the lifts), the size of the double rooms was adequate for 2 people (but having stayed in cramped self catered apartments for my previous 2 ski holidays it felt very spacious!)

The arrival buffet on the first night took a little while to come out but everyone was full by the end. Food for the rest of the week consisted of a delicious 3 course meal including lamb, beef, chicken, salmon, duck etc. Portion size was fine all week and the food was excellent in terms of variety and taste. The breakfast buffet was superb, with cereals, meats, cheese, bread, eggs etc.

Ski storage downstairs was ok but a little cramped first thing when everyone was getting kitted out. No boots allowed in the hotel so that meant putting boots on outside or in the ski storage room.

Bar is a lot more spacious than the photos suggest, with seating for about 30 people and the prices were reasonable (€5 for a beer).

Room temperatures were variable, with some rooms very hot. Opening the window meant being woken up by people leaving the bar next door. Luckily we had earplugs but our friends didn't and slept badly all week.

Overall, we had a great week staying at hotel la foret and would definitely recommend it.