Esprit Ski Reviews 794

Second trip to La Rosière with Esprit and can’t fault the team’s warmth and care to our child. Everyone we encountered was friendly and helpful. Wonderful location in a great resort. Very sad we won’t be able to continue using Esprit in the future, their approach to childcare on family ski holidays was brilliant.

Couldn’t have asked for a better holiday to introduce our children to skiing. Everything ran like clockwork, the team were amazing and we all had the most fantastic time. Thank you Esprit for everything - we are so pleased we had a chance to holiday with you.

Flawless family ski holiday. Staff were superb and everything ran like clockwork. Esprit Ski will be greatly missed but will travel with their sister company Inghams in the future.

Great childcare in Val D'Isere for 2 grandchildren aged 5 and 8..both very happy in all ther events and activities which left a good week for 2 parents and 2 grandparents to enjoy their week's skiing.

Holiday interrupted by estate agent to view my room. That is unacceptable.

I stayed in the Chalet to rest my legs after a few days of skiing. I was interrupted during my rest because an estate agent wanted to have a look at my room with a potential buyer.

The estate agent was not apologetic. She also made me feel awkward even though she was the person who was interrupting my rest. She also asked me if she could walk into the rooms of the other families while they were not there.

Very poor experience. I hope Inghams does a better job.

Awful from start to finish. Glad they are closing down.

I went on a great Esprit Ski holiday back in 2019. I've been opted out of their mailing list for years. On Christmas Eve 2023 they emailed me. They emailed again on 10, 22 & 26 January. They emailed me more on 02, 09, 16, & 25 February. Every time I get one of these emails I click the unsubscribe link, click the confirmation and get "You have successfully unsubscribed from the selected mailings!". Yet they continue to breach GDPR and spam me again a week or so later.

Surely activating the Unsubscribe button after clicking the unsubscribe link should be enough?

If I had more time, I'd get revenge with a full Subject Access Request; a complaint to the information commissioner; and then exercising my right to be forgotten.

I can only hope that this review spurs them into action...

Exceptional company, staff are among, fabulous holiday

Fantastic ski holiday with Esprit in Val D’Isere. Hotel Duc du Savoie was a great location; all staff fantastic and the food/ drink was high quality. Huge hit with the kids in our party as well who attended Coco Club in the evenings.

• In March, we were due to fly from Edinburgh to Italy for a holiday. We booked the holiday through Esprit (part of the Inghams group), who then, as part of our package, put us on Jet2 flights.
• Prior to travelling we had checked the COVID travel requirements:
o As per the instructions on the Esprit Travel Hub website, which Esprit directed us towards, we went to the UK Government website. The UK government instructions stated that for travel to Italy from the UK, our children (aged 7 and 12 at the time) would need to have a COVID recovery certificate as they only had 1 vaccine at the time.
o As per the instructions on the UK Government website, which has a page for Scottish travellers, and we then followed the instructions given. These instructions, prior to April 2022*, clearly stated that for Scottish travellers, a COVID recovery certificate was not available and that the email you have stating you have from the government stating that you had a positive PCR result** should be used as proof of recovery. We had both a paper and electronic copy of this email with us at the airport.

* - as of April 2022, this certificate is available, but we were travelling in March.
** - the email was from early December 2021 and as such was valid for travel in March 2022.

• On arrival at Edinburgh airport, Jet2 refused our children access to travel as they didn’t have a proof of recovery certificate. We pointed out that for Scottish travellers a proof of recovery certificate was not available and that we had, as per the government website, provided the email.
• Jet2 did not accept this and despite trying to intervene, Esprit were unable to help as it was Jet2’s decision.
• We then spent months arguing with Espirt and Jet2, during which we repeatedly stated that we had provided the paperwork which was clearly stated as being required on the UK/Scottish government website which Esprit directed us to. Esprit and Jet2 dispute our claim and keep stating that we didn’t have the correct paperwork. On this fact, they are wrong!
• I did eventually try and claim via my travel insurance, Direct Line, though they state there is no COVID clause in my policy and I’m therefore not covered.
We took this to ABTA who merely served as a post box and send us the same information from Esprit.
We then took it to arbitration, who after some time found against us. I note that they made a notable mistake in their judgement as they referred to us getting recovery certs for the children, but these were NOT available in March 2022 (available from April 2022).

I would like to point out that prior to travel, we did our preparation; we did our research and we’ve been let down by official information provided to us.

I have provided various parties with a screen shot which shows the Scottish governments website instruction to use the email as proof of recovery. I really don’t see how it can be any clearer that we did what we were advised to do and that we have been caught up in a mistake that Jet2 have applied to Scottish travellers.

The holiday was our most expensive ever but as we'd been through Covid lockdown and not travelled for a few years we decided to go for it.

I also note that we've used Esprit 6 times for family holidays and i'm amazed at the efforts they've went to to not help us here. Very very poor.
After recommending Esprit previous to this experience, we will never do so again.
Do not expect Esprit to help you if they can find a (incorrect) legal approach to defend themselves.

What has happened to Esprit? They've seriously reduced their offering. We have had a few great holidays with them. It made our holiday perfect and stress free having the childcare and revolving everything around the children. No complaints about the holidays we've had with them. But now they only offer very few resort options and have taken Austria off their books completely. We only enjoy the Austrian ski experience.

We booked an esprit ski holiday fairly early in 2021 on friends recommendations. I booked it secure in the knowledge I had a great BA flight at 8:30 am which Was great for our 7 year old. First this got changed to easyJet at a similar time. No refund offered. I was not impressed but continued. THEN it got changed to a brutal 6am flight, which necessitated an extra night away at lovely Gatwick airport. I then argued SURELY this was a big change but ski esprit STILL said this was ‘minor’ and would not refund the deposit. Because of this we decided to go, thinking things might get better after the flight.
The transfer was awful. 3 hour wait for a coach at Geneva airport, no sickbags on the coach. Clueless reps who actually could not find our accommodation and stood in the middle of the road not knowing what to do until I took over. This was because we were placed in an annexe of the hotel ( we were not told this) which unlike the place the reps thought we in, had no ski in ski out, was full of furniture which would not grace a junk yard ( I took pics) and was in the basement: it had a view but we had NO privacy with the curtains opened as there was a road 2 yards away. Having glimpses the main ski in ski out apartments they looked MUCH higher spec. We were given twin beds: we were not even asked if we wanted a double: as we are a same sex family I do wonder whether we were given this as they assumed we were not a family!
The skiing was fine and child care was fine but I will not be wasting my money on ski esprit again after a nightmare transfer (worst ski transfer in 35 years) and really terrible junk yard like accommodation in Montana village apartments with no privacy. Ski esprit we’re completely intransigent in both flights and accommodation after Inwrote to complain at the time. Definitely very disappointed and will never use them again.

Handling of Covid has been exemplary.

Espirit unfortunately had to cancel our holiday due to COVID. They phoned me on Wednesday and offered 3 options. I opted for a refund and they informed me it could take 14 days. The refund came in 3 days.

Will definitely book with them for next year.

Not sure what has happened to Esprit over the past few years, having travelled with them last 8 years, Last year and now this year they have cancelled our holiday in the summer as they have lost the chalet. (NOTE THIS IS NOT COVID RELATED) No real remorse, just have your money back and find something else. Customer service poor and having to fight to get our deposit back.

Just focussed on getting your money rather than delivering a service.
Sorry to say AVOID, will never go back.

Screwed up our skiing lessons, didn't tell us till we arrived in the resort. It was take it or leave it. Destroyed a very very expensive family holiday. Kids were in tears half the time because we weren't able to get back in time to see them in the afternoon due to rearranged lessons.

On our return they refused any notion of any sort of a refund. We started court proceedings but thought we'd be the bigger people and cancelled it due to coronavirus, couldn't even send us a thank you letter.

I will never use these company again, their customer service staff were a joke, their rep in the resort was rude and given the amount of money we paid their services was awful.

Avoid Avoid Avoid.

Very contagious Gastro Bug in Belle Plagne Deux Domaines. 3 out of 5 of our party have been stricken down with it and we’ve only been here two days. It’s out of control with atleast 10 other rooms currently experiencing the same thing. Esprit staff are useless, just interested in selling you lift passes, ski hire and child care.

Hotel staff will do their best to help you which is good.

Looking at other reviews it seems as though the gastro bug has been around since August.

Took my family to val d'isere on a skiing holiday and stayed in the hotel le Savoie.
One of my children stayed in the nursery, one was a spitlet and the other was in the spite age group.
My general vibe of the whole experience is that the staff are here to party, the safety of our children is not their top priority, while signing our kids in the kids club, staff smelt strongly of alcohol and was clearly still drunk/ hungover. I believe they were called Charlie and Jake.
My 1 yr old was left in a soaking wet nappy and developed a nappy rash. I spoke to someone called Rachel and told her I felt like the staff were not experienced to look after my kids,she gave me the yawn that they all are professionally trained, but it doesn’t come across this way.

My children were fed by the childcare team for lunch and dinner, my eldest left the restaurant during what they call high tea, and went up to our room. We had no idea where he was and the childcare team wasn’t aware he had left without being signed out.
The whole layout is a mess. My 1 yr old was left crying and had vomited in her cot while we used the baby listening service. We were in the restaurant eating, no one came down to let us know our baby was unwell.
For the price of the holiday, the care we received was poor.
We spoke to the childcare manager we believe was called Amber who mumbled and kept saying she understood but did not resolve the situation in any way.
The food the children were given was very low standard and they were not allowed seconds. My eldest left there so called “high tea” still hungry hence why he left to get snacks from our room.

I was told by a staff member that they get paid pocket money working here and they blow it all on nights out in the pubs and clubs. We did at times bump into some of the boys at the pubs in the early hours and they are the ones I’m trusting with my children a few hours later.

I understand they are there on a working holiday but we are the paying guests and like our children should feel safe while in your care.

The hotel claimed to have a emergency contact number throughout the night we could call, no one ever answered the phone after 11pm it was as if the whole hotel had gone into hibernation.

There are better companies out there, think clearly before choosing Espritski for your holiday, I would never book with them again.

Unfortunately we had an emergency medical situation during our ski holiday in Belle Plagne, where our 2 year old daughter was submitted to a hospital. When we needed to call an ambulance and get emergency support at the late hour no one was at the reception and no one picked up the emergency number they provided to their customers, so we were left to deal with all emergencies absolutely on our own. When my daughter was submitted to a hospital an hour away from the chalet and I had to stay at the hotel to deal with packing all the suitcases (my partner went to a hospital with our daughter), to sort out insurance etc, we received 0 support from esprit with helping me to sort out the returning of the ski hire (in response i was told that their staff is too busy), with supporting us to get to the airport if we would manage to get out on time from hospital (we were told that they not dealing with it and talk to our insurance). When we had a very severe gastro bug situation no one advised us to keep out from other kids and guests in a hotel so other people would not get ill, as such they are not trying to protect their guests from the gastro infection within their hotel.
The most disappointing was when we wrote the complaint to the company (and we were never after any compensation, we never asked any money from them) esprit refused to admit any failures and just blamed everyone else (they tried to blame me that i called the wrong emergency number, they even did not admit they were wrong when I provided my phone bill with the correct number listed in it. They blamed their vendor company we booked the travel through for not mentioning our daughters special needs). Their complaint department staff was actually a bit rude, instead of compassionate / understanding and even managed to insult our daughters special needs (yes my child has special needs and it seems that this company has 0 tolerance for such people), which for me as a mother was very hard to read and up to this point just makes me very sad too.
All we wanted just for them to make sure that they recognise their mistakes and improve their processes, ensure that when the next time another child or anyone to be fair will need an emergency help their staff would be prepared, react quick and provide the relevant support (as the last thing what you need when you in a foreign country with a very sick child to handle extra complications without any support), but instead they turned blame on us, on insurance on their vendor company and insulted us in many occasions in a very ‘subtile’ ways. I would never recommend this company to anyone, as accidents happen and this company has 0 tolerance to deal with any emergency situations and leave their customer absolutely alone. And as a mother of a special needs child I would never recommend this company for families who has some health challenges, as this company does not seem to tolerate people like this.

Response to esprit: one if your staff massive fails was emergency number not working. When i complained about it I was blamed that I dialled the wrong number, when I showed the call log evidence that I called the right number presented at the hotel reception, your complaint department just said that I had to call now different emergency number and its my own fault not knowing it, to note that number never displayed anywhere in hotel :) i was calling the number that was shown at the reception for the guest and your company failed to react and this point was never addressed and you did not took responsibility, just blamed me instead. Your own hotel manager admitted to me that she never received any training on how to deal with emergencies. All we were after for you to admit the lack of training and see if you can do something about it and ensure that your emergency numbers work correctly. And you saying that you did not know about my daughter issues is just a lie, as we advised it prior arriving and the same day when arrived to a hotel.
We just go back and forward here again.
How about the call log and emergency number not working and your staff blaming me for calling the wrong number? I have an email trail of it, so please can you advise then why in the reception of the hotel you provide the wrong emergency number?
Regarding training its your word against your own staff, you say you provide high level training, which your own staff said they never received and to be fair from my own experience it felt like they did not receive it. Luckily this incident ended up ok, because I reacted quick enough and get the ambulance on time, what your staff suppose to help with, but wait a bit longer and my daughter could end up in a coma due to the seriousness of the situation. So your company should very seriously look into reacting to the emergencies asap.

I would not use Esprit ever again. We have skied every year for the past 6 years yet this was the worst skiing trip we have ever had. This is a sham company who have charged us £7k for 7 day holiday to Val d’Isere. We were told we would be staying at a catered chalet but this was like a hostel at the back of a different hotel called De Savoie. It was dirty all over, old tatty, once red carpets covered in stains. The so called “family corner” had one kettle and a microwave for the 5 floor “challet” which all parents were supposed to share. It was always empty and crusty with limescale, never cleaned obviously. I had to use it to make up bottles of formula for my baby at night. The corner had leftovers of uneaten food, all dried up, staff seemed not to notice. The room had old electric radiators and broken sockets, unsafe for a family with small children. The worst of all was the food. It seemed like it’s the children trying to learn cookery at school. The chicken was served raw, lasagna was crusty and served with beans and peas, spaghetti were floating in water with a brown blob called bolognaise, eggs were raw at breakfast and cereal was at least a year old, bread was defrosted and burned in toaster, no fresh food, all ready meals from Lidl. Guests were constantly asking for more food, more cups, more cutlery. Despite asking for a dairy free option for my daughter due to her allergy, no such thing happened. We had to pay to eat outside as the food was absolutely revolting. My 1.5 year old survived the week on crackers. Even carrot sticks given to children we’re unpeeled and dried out. Absolute disgrace!
The staff just shrugged their shoulders. These were 18-19 year olds from Manchester who had no experience in customer service, cooking, cleaning, or anything really. They waited for their day off on Wednesday only to get so drunk they rolled in mud outside the pub and stumbled back to the room, which happened to be on the same floor as our room. The smoked in their rooms and one could smell it in the corridor.The manager was a kid wearing a suit who kept saying he would “personally” check whatever the problem was reported to him and never did, whatever it was in relation to. My baby cought a stomach bug at nursery on day two, it was filthy there. The girls at nursery were very kind but obviously inexperienced.
I feel like we have been missold a holiday and charged s lot of money for something that it’s not worth. I could not wait to return home. Although the resort of Val D’Isere is very attractive we were gutted to have traveled with Esprit. They spoiled a week that the whole family had been looking forward to for 6 months.

We had a really enjoyable holiday with friends in chalet Himalaya, Arcs 2000, BUT, having visited the same chalet block with Esprit the year before, the cost cutting was really apparent and turned our premium holiday into a fairly mid range trip.

We all know about the labour laws in France, and I'll return to the way in which Esprit has tackled it, but the cost cutting was petty:
- no pain au chocolat
- no bread with breakfast
- rotten fruit in the fruit bowl that had plainly been there a long time
- no canapes, and plain Prosecco instead of Bellinis
- a shortage of loo rolls (exacerbated by the 2 consecutive nights off for staff)
- no staff or trailer/minibus to take luggage from the coach to the chalet and vice-versa
- no cooked puddings for the kids' evening meal
- no access to the in-house sledges when last year there were lots available, despite asking for several days
- even the pool was much colder than last year

So, regarding the French labour laws - which Esprit has decided means 2 nights off for the chalet hosts. In itself this is disappointing, as Esprit charges that bit more and could have covered with additional staff. However, at least in Arcs 2000, the 2 nights off are consecutive despite the brochure promising they normally would be quite separate. We felt rather abandoned.

With one staff member making breakfast and a different one for the evening meal, it did not feel like we were being hosted in the chalet, but that we were hosting visiting employees (this was made worse by the staff's inability to load a dishwasher without blocking the washer jet, but, whatever). As the staff are rotated to other chalets, it meant annoyances with maintenance and cleanliness (fizzing electrics and dirty kitchen tap, milk jug, kettle - the kinds of things that need cleaning every now and then).

And the plastic mattress protectors ensured we all woke up dripping in sweat. Yuk - please find a better way.

The staff were lovely as always, the evening meals were delicious and the cooked breakfasts plentiful. The location is fantastic and the staff were on hand for ski and boot rental. So it is rather sad that, after our 5th time with Esprit, we'll be comparing with alternative companies next year.