Sauze d'Oulx, La Fontaine Hotel Review

Overall Rating

The excellent snow and the resort facilities

Panorma, Hotel, buses to piste, service in airports.

We arrived Torino airport where our thoughtful Panorama Rep Wendy with a colleague were blocking the exit doorway and having waited 45mins for the baggage to arrive queuing an extra 10 minutes to exit was somewhat fraught. Having escaped the airport baggage area we then had to walk 10 minutes to the coach park. Wendy offered a lame excuse about the Winter Olympic access....................................but it had ended!!

On arrival at the resort (not the hotel) the snow looked fantastic! We then met friendly Panorama Rep - Scott who was going to take us to the hotel, the luggage van was intended to take our kit down didn't arrive so we had to carry out luggage including boards down the hill to La Fontaine Hotel. On the way Scott stopped us all in the roadway to tell us about the restaurant that sold great Pizzas. COME ON Scotty we where stood in the middle of the road with cars and coaches passing just inches away. My board hung over my shoulder nearly got clipped by a car. Tempers now getting short we arrived in the hotel to find our rooms ready, contrary to what Wendy told us....thank God, travelling through the wee hours was no fun.

Now for the welcome meeting at Hotel Martin in the late afternoon. Wendy was very enthusiastic about the Bar Crawl and failed to tell us any useful welfare related issues like; hotel eating times, access to the hotel after midnight, when she was at the hotel etc. We did hear about the little Pizza place that Scott told us about earlier.......'does Panorama have shares in this place I wonder?'

Snowboarder now on a short fuse with high maintenance girlfriend feeling extremely tired just wanted to leave the meeting and seeing the other sleeping four members of our group encouraged me to request our lift passes from the delightful but useless Scottish Wendy.

'Yea, Yea, I'll giv' 'em te ya in a minute' was Wendy's response.

Thirty minutes later she handed them over. So much for our WELFARE. Panorama thanks a bunch. Small consolation it wasn't just us other people had the same level of service. The meeting was simply a sales pitch and nothing else.

I paid for OFF-PISTE snowboard experience and nearly got fobbed off with beginner lessons, only to be told that they don't do an OFF PISTE experience. The Ski School blamed the Panorama Rep. I blamed them both. In the end I had an advanced Snowboard lesson that cost me 85 Euro when it should have been 75Euro. No refunds offered. Oh and two hours wasted time!

La Fontaine Hotel is in an ideal location just at the bottom of two albeit slow lifts to the top of the mountain. The alternative is the packed out BATTLE BUS to the Sportina lift with the driver trying to cram punters on board with the words 'Poooooooooosh, Poooooooosh!' Doesn't Italy have Heath and Safety polices? The driver is friendly but dim with little consideration to those non Italian speaking people, so watch he doesn't close the door as you are leaving and trap your arm like it did to one of our group members.

La Fontaine is basic and clean, the hot water system goes hot and cold along with the central heating system, more cold than hot. The food is below average on a half board basis, the crusty rolls were more like powdery rolls, the garlic bread lacked butter and garlic. The fresh orange was watered giving us all the stomach problems, so take plenty of diaorr-calm.

The Hotel is run by dodgy Michael and his lovely wife. His wife is the cleaner, bar maid and everything else. Michael will change the prices of the bar to suit himself, increasing the prices up by half a Euro per drink even though the place has/had a visible price list. In the end we boycotted the bar and drinking at evening meals ..he then reduced his prices back to normal success! But future guests watch out he has put postcards over the price list at the bar, he must have thought we were born yesterday!!!!!!

The week Snowboarding was FANTASTIC with lots of powder and snow it really couldn't have been better, there is a run (Red 12) from the top of the mountain to the hotel pushing some 7KM long ideal if you don't fancy returning on the BATTLE BUS or alternatively you can get the two lifts back down to the hotel.

For the return journey home the luggage van didn't arrive to take the kit UP the hill from the hotel (NO SURPRISE!) so I had to carry my board bag, suitcase and rucksack back up the hill to where the coach dropped us off, any thoughts of punching a Panorama Rep were sapped away with my strength. This was a struggle for the males as well as the female members of the group.

Back at Torino airport we did the of a mile trek from the coach park to the air terminal, yippee! On the plus side I am much fitter than I was courtesy of Panorama, but that wasn't what I had paid for. The service in Torino airport is THIRD WORLD, so be very patient with the lazy staff.

On summation the snow was fantastic the hotel food and service was below par and the organisational skill provided by Panorama was almost non-existent.

I have rated this a 5/10 however ignoring the bad points it makes an 8/10.