Reviews Les Terrasses d'Hélios

Nice modern, new apartment. Well equipped and spotlessly clean. Beds comfy. As with all ski accommodation room was a little too hot but easily solved. Location is a bit out of Flaine with a green run/path to allow you to ski in/out - easier on skis than a snowboard. Pool facilities excellent, shop, ski hire and restaurants all on site so v handy. Felt it would benefit from a bar but was fine.

Not sure about the 5* rating as the apartment could have benefitted from better cleaning & having to get out sofa bed each evening & then put away in the morning was a little annoying however, the apartments were quiet & easy to get free shuttle bus into Flaine forum during the day & the free minibus of an evening. The resort in general is very quiet so perfect for families & those more interested in skiing than apres ski. The ski to door is fine for skiers but if you are a beginner & signed up for lessons be prepared to get the shuttle bus to Flaine Foret & then the fenicular down to Flaine Forum for your lessons (not ski to door by any stretch of the imagination!!). We had our son signed up for Rabbit Club which involved this whole process which was very inconvenient with all of our gear!! There is an ESF office at the base of the hotel so rather than booking ski school through tour operators you may want to book via the hotel itself as then you can have lessons which start from the hotel which is obviously so much easier!! We had fantastic weather & there was great terrain for us as intermediate skiers & great fun parks etc for our son (we ended up with him having private lessons as he was the only English child in ski school, this was far better for him). Staff in the hotel were great & having the leisure facilities was great at the end of the day.

Genuine ski-in/out, though you'll need lift passes before you set off as it's either ski out, lift, ski or ski out then a 10 minute walk to get to the main resort where you can buy passes. They sell these at reception if you arrange in advance though, so not a big problem, just something to know. Similar with ski hire, I'd recommend paying the extra (if at all) to use the on-site ski shop for hire rather than one of the shops in the village as it's a bus ride/10-15min walk to/from town if you don't have skis and boots and passes already with you. We didn't realise this when we pre-booked ski hire. We saved maybe 20 Euros by booking at Simond Sports in town (who were excellent), but this meant an hour roundtrip trek to/from town to get these sorted, not something we'd do next time. Apartment (premium 6-person) was fine, there was a hob, microwave though oddly no oven in ours (microwave didn't seem to be a combination oven). Beds were fine, though the pillows were a bit odd. Sofa was acceptable for a couple of hours and the TV was good, with HDMI connection for the kids' iPads. We knew from other reviews that the onsite shop was expensive, but it's hilariously so; 6 Euros for a box of cereal for example! That said, the convenience made it worthwhile and actually overall, it's still much cheaper to buy supplies and cook than to eat out all week. Overall, we really like the residence and the ski area and will definitely return for a full trip. We had 4 days (7 hours/day) of skiing with two confident children and the Flaine area was fine for this, for a 6/6.5-day trip, we would probably buy the wider area passes, but equally we could have made do with just Flaine for this duration, there's plenty of variety, from high to low, very easy greens to very hard blacks (Diamont Noir is a genuine challenge in places), and theres a 14km run if you do buy the wider area pass. Lifts were busy at times (early New Year) but moved quickly so there was never really a big wait. Some of the pistes that link the different areas got busy, but mostly we felt that it was fine. The ski rangers in the area were great, when they weren't helping people, they were offering 'advice' to people about the dangers of stopping mid piste. We were one of the groups who received this advice after we stopped to tend to one of the kids, but it was well delivered and therefore well received.

I was really impressed, this place was so much better than i had expected.Great accommodation, functional, well equipped, clean and comfortable. Ski in and out was a real bonus. The spa facilities were great and very very clean. The restaurant on site was amazing and a must if you are visiting. Having a Spar on site just shows that they really have thought of everything.

The hotel exterior and interior are high quality, worth their stars. Staff is very professional. Despite the buldings being away from the main resort there is very good support (ski link to the main area, ski rental, ski school, shop, restaurant) to make the experience work very well. We visited at the beginning of April when most of French Alps resorts were losing snow and yet had a great week of skiiing including skiing lessons for our 9 and 3 year old. I recommend booking ski rental and lessons in advance.