Hotel & Spa L'alta Peyra

“Not bad, just overpriced”

This isn’t a bad hotel at all, it’s just very expensive for what it offers. We stayed one night before leaving for a long hike and at the time of booking it was the only hotel available. Everywhere was clean but the room was very small and the furniture and fittings were basic. The hotel is quite l… more

This isn’t a bad hotel at all, it’s just very expensive for what it offers. We stayed one night before leaving for a long hike and at the time of booking it was the only hotel available. Everywhere was clean but the room was very small and the furniture and fittings were basic. The hotel is quite labyrinthine, so getting to the breakfast room was down a lift, along a corridor, up a lift, along another corridor and so on! The breakfast was nice but the dining room was devoid of atmosphere - I don’t often want background music but it did need it in there! All in all it was fine but it’s double the price of another hotel down the road and you don’t quite feel you’re getting what you paid for.

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“So much left undone...”

I'll start with saying that there were 2 positives to our stay: 1. The team: very sweet, super nice, always trying to be helpful...even if in strong need of training when it comes to an authentic yet professional customer experience. We are Generation X so we don't look for people in uniforms, etc… more

I'll start with saying that there were 2 positives to our stay: 1. The team: very sweet, super nice, always trying to be helpful...even if in strong need of training when it comes to an authentic yet professional customer experience. We are Generation X so we don't look for people in uniforms, etc...Yet, there is a fine line when it comes to offering a unique experience and...it takes training. Which they probably never had. 2. The view. Not difficult. Does not depend on the property really. The hotel is just in a wonderful location. That being said: French restaurants & hotels had been locked down since November 2020. And another year before that. How is it possible that in almost 1.5 year the place was not "refurbished" a bit? Water & cleaning product (we hope) sprayed on the bathroom walls & dried up. Paint not very "fresh", understaffed hotel and restaurant so it felt like a ghost town in there, 4 different buildings with different elevators to take to go to your room (ex: if you are on the 3rd floor, you must take the lift to the 2nd, exit, walk the hallway to another elevator, etc...and it was like that for everything - spa, restaurant...Way to confusing. Also, if room service is going to "clean" rooms in the afternoon (somebody just stepped into our bedroom at 5pm, without knocking. And the a team came to vacuum around 6pm...We're in the mountains, everybody goes on hike sin the morning...understaffed again I suppose? Still, a knock on the door before barging into the room is a basic of hospitality I would say. Restaurant was a stressful experience, food was not that fabulous and the waiter was literally running from 1 table to the other. Stressful. So, beautiful settings, beautiful views, very nice team...but, I will never stress this enough: management should be out on the "floor" interacting with guests - no reporting in the middle of the season I would say - & coaching team members. L&D. Number one necessity for a great hospitality experience.

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“Seriously lacking staff...”

We had originally visited L’Alta Peyra for a day in June 2019 for our wedding anniversary and made use of the spa. We enjoyed it so much that we returned between 2nd - 5th January 2020. It should be said at the outset that this hotel has the potential to be absolutely amazing. The décor and facil… more

We had originally visited L’Alta Peyra for a day in June 2019 for our wedding anniversary and made use of the spa. We enjoyed it so much that we returned between 2nd - 5th January 2020. It should be said at the outset that this hotel has the potential to be absolutely amazing. The décor and facilities are great and the fact that it is at the bottom of the ski runs is fantastic. The only thing that lets this hotel down is the lack of staff. The majority of the staff we came across were helpful as much as they could be but they were absolutely stretched to the max so much so that a couple of them apologised for the lack of staff at the hotel when the service fell short. Check-in was a stressful experience. The older lady on reception wasn’t particularly friendly or helpful. Our room wasn’t ready when we arrived but we were told that it should be within an hour or so. We went up to the hotel bistro to have lunch in the meantime. Lunch was another painful experience as the staff were so stressed. We asked if we could eat and they said only if we ordered quickly. In credit to them the food came quickly but it felt like a real effort to ask them anything - you had to catch them as they were running past. At one point we ordered a bottle of wine from one member of staff but she said she wasn’t able to take drink orders, only clear plates. She went and ordered it with another member of staff and then came back later with the bottle. She apologised and said that everyone was too busy to come and open it for us and that she would have to do it but she had never opened a bottle before. She was very sweet and we felt sorry for her. We felt however that we were just getting in the way and that everything was slightly too much trouble for the stretched staff. There were no pleasantries (apart from the sweet girl who opened our bottle). We went back to reception 3 or 4 more times and each time the lady said the room wasn’t ready but couldn’t seem to get hold of any room attendants to get them to clean the room. We were told there was no one to help with our bags and that we would have to take them ourselves. This would usually be fine but the bags were heavy and we had to carry them up some stairs. The hotel is also quite confusing to get around as there are a lot of corridors so it would have been really helpful if someone had shown us to our room. When we were eventually given our room it still had all of the cleaner’s products in it, plus we found an old sock in the wardrobe! The room was also much smaller than we had anticipated having booked a superior room - you couldn't open the wardrobe door fully because the bed was in the way. The balcony however was fantastic and the views amazing. While we were waiting for our room to be ready we asked if we could have the welcome drink that came with the booking but they said we couldn’t because there was no one at the bar to serve us. Breakfast was good but quite often the food would run out and it wouldn't get replaced. One morning we were waiting for the bread and pastries to get replaced the whole time we were in there but they never were. Generally the hotel feels a little dirty. The carpets in the corridor need a good hoover which makes you question the quality of the cleaning throughout. The spa was good but the steam room wasn’t working (and wasn't for the whole of our trip) and there were no towels anywhere. We didn’t see a single member of staff check the towels or the state of the spa while we were in there which is probably why it was a bit of a mess with old towels and rubbish lying around. We had to go back up to our room dripping wet! We hadn't noticed the lack of staff when we only visited for the day in the summer however it was extremely obvious when we stayed there. On our first night we were regretting booking it. Overall, we feel that the lack of staff really ruins this hotel. L'Alta Peyra management - please please please get more staff and a good general manager and this place could be perfect. We had always intended on going to the Michelin star restaurant here but we were so worried that we would have bad service that we decided not to take the risk. We would love to come back again but the issues mentioned above would stop us from doing so which is such a shame. Ultimately a hotel’s reputation comes down to the quality of the staff and the service people receive. If certain aspects are not up to standard but the issues are managed well then that is the lasting memory that people will have, i.e. the good service rather than the issues. The service falls much too short of that expected from a 4 star luxury hotel. We must give a special shout out to Matias who worked so hard during our stay moving cars around and carrying people’s bags. We also saw him in the summer working behind the bar. He is an asset to the hotel, it just needs 50 more of him and then it will run perfectly! We would be interested to know once the hotel has more staff and then we will return. We are coming back to Saint Veran in March but will look elsewhere for accommodation until we can be sure the service has improved.

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