Just returned from good stay in La Plagne. Accomadation had everything u need and a local Spar next to reception. Not much nightlife in 1800 but you can get buses to the other villages. It is expensive to drink and eat in resort. £5 a pint!but was expecting that.All in all though had a good time and the skiing was excellant.

Just stayed in the Maeva aptments in La plagne 1800. Very basic but nice apts. The outdoor pool at the reception was just bliss after a day on the slopes. (Sitting in water at 29 degrees while its snowing .. what more can you ask for.)
The La Plagne area is just a great resort for all types of skiers and boarders. Loads of pistes, loads of lifts.
Not a great place if you are looking for Apres ski activites but if you're like me you'll be too knackered to do too much.

This was our first time going Self Catered on a ski trip so we weren't sure what to expect. Have to say we had a brilliant week.

Location
This is a fab location especially if you have kids in ESF ski school - they meet opposite the apartments. The Gardin Des Neiges, for the younger ESF kids classes are just a gentle stroll down the slope (about 150m). The location is also stunning, right on the edge of the resort so nothing to block your view of the mountains. Belle Plagne is however located on a slope so the actual shopping area is down a lot of steps, lifts are available but not in a coherent form. The apartments are accessed by car through the underground car park right at the top of the road - though it does list which hotels etc are located through the car park it doesnt list Nereides for some reason.

Service
Found this lacking a bit, though can be easily rectified. Reception only opens for a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the afternoon/evening. We arrived at about 11.30pm, reception is shuttered down with a piece of paper with a telephone number written on it to ring if you arrive out of hours. We managed to get through on the number, luckily as both my and OH phones were very low on juice, and we were told to go to the hotel next door to pick up our keys. Why they just couldn't write this on the note in the first place is beyond me. The hotel is called Andromede (or similar and can be accessed back through the car park just a few meters back down towards the entrance).

The Apartment
Recently referbished the apartments are still looking really clean and fresh. The apartment had been cleaned really well. You enter into the kitchenette.

Kitchentte
There's a four ring hob and a microwave - no oven. However there is a grill function on the microwave which was east to figure out and was guite effective for making toast/garlic bread etc (Use the wire stand). There was enough crockery, cutlery etc but a potato masher would have been welcome. There was a pack of cleaning products on arrival, little bottle of washing up liquid, bottle of general cleaning detergent, pack of five dishwasher tabs, sponge dishcloth and a scourer and two tea towles. Next time I will take a couple of extra tea towels and cloths. We'd taken a few dishwasher tabs so that was ok.

Lounge/dining area
Spacious enough, table for four. TV, need to collect remote from reception. No kids channels as far as we could see. sofa bed, very comfy - we just left it as a bed for the whole week and gave the kids the bedroom. There's hanging and shelf space, a hoover and brushes. The whole apartment was very warm, plenty of heaters. Door out onto balcony.

Bedroom
Twin beds, door on to balcony. Spacious enough. No hanging space though.

Bed linen was provided.

Bathroom
Bath (yay) and shower attachment, big heated towel rail.

One hand towel and one bath towel per person is provided.

Seperate WC

Ski Locker
Grat big ski locker, located on the third floor for us. It had that rubber matting down, with drainage holes in, so no soggy socks! They had those spike things to put your boots on, never noticed if the heated at night or not as we took our boots up to our room. There appeared to be not seating - which you really need if you are trying to take kids ski boot off/put them on. You had a key for the locker and also for the main door to the locker so good security.

There is a Spar about 100m from the main entrance, down the slope. There is also a restaurant (Hors Piste) that does take away pizzas, very close by. The nearest ski shop is Ski Set (ii). well worth hiring from there as the others are all down the steps and its not fun lugging ski gear up them. If you book online you can normally Google some discount codes for pre booking at ski set.

Had a superb Christmas 2009 experience in Belle Plagne. Village really pleasant (if a little expensive, but there's the euro for you!) and apartment was superb. A little way out of the village, but could be easily accessed by stairs, that are a bit of a challenge on the first few days (I blamed the altitude), but not an issue. As it was the first week of the season, the apartment was spotless, included really well placed ski lockers and had a superb view of the valley and ski area. A group of four opted for the luxury of a two bedroom apartment, that could potentially sleep 7. Think that would have been a bit of a squeeze and the bedrooms weren't huge, but was an excellent base none the less. Had a reasonably equipped kitchen, dining and lounge area and had two bathrooms, one with shower, the other with bath. The only down side was only one loo, which wasn't too much of an issue, but could have proved interesting with a group of 7! Thanks to great snow conditions you could ski from the front of the apartment, with a reasonably easy blue run down into Bellecote (just gun it!) which then linked to the majority of the ski area, or there were some lifts in Belle Plagne that linked to a number of runs or the bubble up to Roche de Mio, or down to Bellecote. Ski School was literally out of the door and our second Level 2 instructor, Jean Marc, was excellent, but I would air on the side of caution when picking levels to go into. On paper we were a Level 3, and by the end of the week were still doing Level 3 things, but for a group of English, straight off the plane, after a long day previously, being sped off down the mountain with no assessment, on difficult runs, was not an ideal day and led to an injury :( So if you've not skied for 8 or 9 months I would suggest going a bit lower, you can always ask to be moved up if you're finding it too easy.