First, I’d really like to thank the F&B team. They do an amazing job and manage to keep it friendly and professional at the same time. The choice of food is exceptional and the service is excellent (special thanks to Jean & Yannick B. from the main restaurant and to Jean-Baptiste, mixologist at the main Bar).
The rooms are up to expectations and the Housekeeping team is very diligent, accommodating and friendly though very professional.
The mountain guides are very professional, patient and highly qualified, namely Damien for his lengthy explanations and Sylvie & Eldril (sorry if any typo) for her kindness to make my 9yo autistic boy feeling included and interested.
The concierge staffs were very friendly and caring upon arrival and departure.
Unfortunately, it took us nearly 2 hours to get working keys to our rooms due to manual or technical hiccups and incapacity of the front desk staffs to sort it out.
So I had to spend that time finding ways to pacify my 2 autistic children (4 yo girl and 9yo boy). Moreover, no one proposed to give us pointers on the club’s facilities during that time and no info session was scheduled (we arrived on a Monday and they apparently have it weekly on Saturday). Last, no one indicated how to find out rooms once the working keys were ready and the rooms were assigned. At the same time we saw GOs guiding new comers. This is my first Club Med in France (I’m French but based in Singapore so I’ve only been to those located in SEA i.e. Bintan, Cherating, Phuket and Bali). Clearly this is the worst arrival, setting a sad first impression for my parents who were traveling with me and discovering the Club Med for the first time.
The big frustration came from the terrible management of the kids club, especially in comparison with other Club Meds or Melia all inclusive where I have stayed.
My Daughter was excited to go there as always, so I enrolled her on Tuesday morning. The petit club was chronically understaffed, I could sense the nervousness of the male staffs scolding a 4yo boy in front of me at 8:30am (« tu ne peux pas mettre ton blouson tout seul? Tu es un bébé ou quoi? Arrête de pleurer! »). They were 3 staffs for 40 kids and they managed to forget my girl who was found wandering by herself in the lobby when the group was supposed to be on the way to the bus; luckily my Mother and the boutique staffs found her and helped, also with the intervention of the remarkable Chef de Village (hotel’s GM) who always had a kind word for us during the stay. After that they took the batch to an outdoor activity and obviously they were too understaffed to ensure a smooth outing, which is puzzling me given the ample number of staffs that we can see during activities taking place within the Club Med premises (evening dance, Wednesday bouncing castle, etc).
So I kept my girl in the afternoon and found out while talking to parents with their kids at the pool that many were also finding the environment of the petit/mini clubs too unsafe. That completely defeats the purpose of choosing a place like this for our vacation.
On the next morning, I left her at the petit club since they were staying within the premises. I picked her up for lunch, the GOs didn’t make me sign anything and told me everything went very well. Until later on when a dad came and showed us scratches on his Daughter apparently done by my daughter. And the staff didn’t know. So even within the premises, they are incompetent or overwhelmed but in any case this is a kids club management issue. When I tried to share my views I faced people in the denial and responding without any sense of concern. I’ve kept my daughter with me until the last day, I had no choice. She’s only got high-functioning autism and goes to normal French kindergarten and has a normal social life at home and everywhere we go; she doesn’t need dedicated supervision but her French is more limited than her English. She’s been in many kids club and NEVER had any issue.
The entire mindset needs to be changed at Valmorel starting by a new kids club management and a proper staffing especially during school holidays. We’re not in the 70s; English speaking staffs should always be present and, in general, staffs should have basic command of child psychology. What a shame!
I’m done with any Club Med in France as Long as I need to rely on the kids clubs.
