Just come back from a long weekend in Courmayeur and stayed at the Hotel Centrale. On the positive side the hotel is in a great position just off the main street and about a 10 minute walk from the lift station. The staff are also very welcoming and helpful. The hotel is clean but don't book it if you want a comfortable nights sleep. The matresses are like sleeping on a board and the pillows are as hard as bricks. Ask for a room with a bath as not many have them. The shower in my room was so small that an average size man would have difficulty getting into it. The lovely black mould all down the side of one wall didn't exactly add to the atmosphere either. But if you want a clean basic hotel in a good location - go for it.

The fact is when you consider skiing accomodation, you consider proximity to lifts, cost, facilities in that order...Unless of course you are a "get up at 10 ...probably skiing by 11" kind of skier. Having read some of the reviews prior to taking my girlfriend and children, I was ready to accept something less than satisfactory. (it was italian holidays and i was running out of options) I was pleasantly surprised by the position, the staff and the quality. For those of you who can remember school ski trips in the 80's on monarch air when the walk to the lifts with boots and skis was not much less than 2 miles, the walk to the main cable car from this hotel is honestly 10 minutes max. The fact that lockers and ski, boot & board rental is available up at the main ski area means you dont have to negotiate the walk with all your gear. The staff were very friendly and not at all like the previous reviewers here. They were very helpful and spke very good english.....not that we were deterred. Our Italian got an outing. The hotel is very clean and typically alpine. Tiled floors, dark wooden doors....a bit of an echo wherever you were. Breakfast was ok but not great. To be honest the view from the restaurant window was too good and we were up and out by 8 everyday. We were lucky with the weather. Deep blue skies everyday bar the last when it snowed. Skiing was pretty good for a long weekend (4 days) but not for 2 weeks. Several blacks, a host of reds with co terminating blues. The village itself is very well looked after and very charming with a fair choice of places to eat. By the way The hotel is 100 yards from the main high street.(pedestrianised?) Note book restaurant on saturday nights but dont bother with the mountain restaurants...take your chances...there are at least 12 mountain top eateries......All in all Hotel Centrale is a 3* hotel no more, no less. watch out for the check in clerks recomendations for places to eat...they are more likely to be a fair walk away and related to him but what did you expect....the Ritz?

we booked for two single rooms for last minute ski trip
arrived on sun left early thurs and the hotel worked great for us
we found staff very helpful
breakfast is weak continental ,could do with up grading quality if going to attract skiers,
hotel is basic but good value
parking is good ,location is good but walk to lift means need to hire ski locker at bottom of mountain

In July, 2007, I was hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc with two adult children, and we found ourselves in downtown Courmayeur with a 2-night hotel reservation that had somehow fallen through. At the central bus station we found an extensive hotel board with hotel names and red or green lights indicating whether rooms were available. We phoned the Centrale and arranged for a room.
The hotel's location was perfect: right in the center of the town. Our room was lovely with stunning views of Mont Blanc towering over the slate roofs of the village. The size of the room was adequate for 3 adults with hiking gear. The hotel’s 3-start rating seem to be well deserved.
But location is not everything. The individual at the reception desk had quoted us a price for 2 adults over the telephone. When I reminded him that we were 3 adults, he said, “That will be no problem: the price will be slightly more.” When we received our bill upon checking out “slightly” turned out to be exactly double.
We needed to launder out hiking clothes before continuing on the second half of the Tour du Mont Blanc, and quickly learned that Courmayeur, unlike other villages in the Alps, had no public laundry facilities. We asked the manager before noon if he could have our laundry done at the hotel. His reply was that it could be problematic: maybe yes, maybe no. We inquired later that evening as to the status of our laundry, and he basically avoided the issue. The next morning we finally received our laundry at 10:30, which put us resuming the hike around noon.
Because our hotel bill was twice what we were quoted over the telephone and that the manager’s uncooperative attitude bordered on rudeness, we will never again stay in Hotel Centrale in Courmayeur. This hotel certainly deserves its 3-star rating, but travelers will be surprised at the 4-star costs of staying there.
My advice for travelers would be to stay in one of the wonderful, quaint 2-star hotels 5 kilometers north of Courmayeur, in La Palud.