very disappointing

Crystal Ski www.crystalski.co.uk
★★★☆☆
2.7
42.0% of users recommend this

BaileyDickey1966's review of Crystal Ski www.crystalski.co.uk

“very disappointing”

★☆☆☆☆

written by BaileyDickey1966 on 18/01/2016

Firstly, ski holidays are expensive and so you want a great experience.
So many times the big nationals seem to promise so much and deliver so little. Crystal has joined in with them offering a very poor level of customer care for the highest of prices. I booked online to Arc 1950 for Jan 16 departure after talking to an agent of Crystal as the "early bird" best price promise was the same either way.
When I left 5 weeks later the price was £300 cheaper? Crystal said that this sometimes happens but I felt cheated as they had inferred a big discount for booking early but this was not the case. A clear example of big company profiteering and very sad. Gone are the days of genuine brochure prices it seems.

I called Crystal and agreed some requests, namely a high quiet room overlooking the mountains but when I arrived no such request had been passed on. A room on a low busy floor with no views was offered. In fact no rep met us off the coach and we wandered around like lost sheep so thankfully a receptionist helped us out and moved us to a better room.
I tried to find out if there was a coffee machine in the apartment prior to leaving and was told by Crystal "that the French don't have kettles and coffee makers because they're dangerous, they use saucepans to boil up the water" Seriously? There was in fact a kettle and a coffee maker in the apartment. This level of local knowledge is shocking for a big company with reps actually living there.
We purchased ski passes through Crystal as they said they were the same price but they do in fact charge a small fee. When they were delivered there were no piste maps with them so we had to go the lift pass office in any case so I felt that was waste of time and the extra small charge for credit cards which the lift pass office don't charge. The reps are illusive and didn't volunteer any assistance during the lift closures so we missed out on skiing as we didn't know where to go.
I would suggest using a small ski holiday company as Crystal do not have the quality of the staff the glossy advertising might suggest.

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