Sainte Foy: Reviews

There is nothing not to like about this place.
The only thing would be the après ski, if you are into jumping up and down on the bar top to acid reggae in your ski boots.
Ste Foy however has a few civilised and very friendly bars with great food, which personally I much prefer, hence the 5 star review. Après ski isn't just just about queuing for massively over priced jagger bombs you know!!!! Ewan

This resort is awesome! Perfect for children and perfect for advanced to expert skiers looking for an amazing week of off piste skiing.

Do not be disheartened by the lack of runs as it makes up for it in other areas; for beginners it's amazing, there are plenty of long winding blues for kids and beginners to practice their turns, while there's some good red/harder blues from the top two lifts to fulfil an intermediates needs, and then there's the off piste for the advanced. You can literally access the whole mountain from the top 2 lifts, whether it's a little hiking you’re into or a steady traverse you can access over 1000m of fresh powder on both faces of the mountain by using just 2 lifts.

If you have the money and want to hire a guide then it's an excellent way to see what else the mountain has to offer. The back country in St Foy is second to none and includes several routes including Le Monal, Col De Graniere and La Foglietta that are a must if you want to explore some of the best off piste in the Alps. But note; avalanche equipment is a must, even the locals don't ski these without them.

The best thing about St Foy is the lack of queues, even in half term the bottom lift queue was no longer than about 5 minutes, so you can still get up and around the resort quickly and without is looking like a motorway of skiers. But if you want to take real advantage of this amazing resort then visit in Jan/Feb; powder hounds will soon see why as the only people you'll see in line for the lifts are powder hungry mountain goers with 118 underfoot. But beginners don't panic this just means you have the pistes to yourself, even better for perfecting those parallel turns.

I could rant all day how much I love this place. After skiing some of the bigger well known resorts such as Val, Tignes and Les Arcs it’s clear to me why people come back again and again. But don't take my word for it, go and explore it for yourself!

We visited Sainte Foy from 4th April 09. The conditions were very good despite the very warm weather and we were able to get in a surprising amount of piste mileage bearing in mind the limited number of lifts. All the pistes come back to one point which was superb for us as we had a mixed group and it allowed our teenagers to safely snowboard in a small group without us worrying that they'd get lost! The pistes were very quiet even though it was the Easter holidays.

The village is purpose built but very nicely constructed and well laid out. There is not much in the way of night life, though the boys seemed to enjoy the piano bar. There are a couple of nice restaurants – booking is recommended! The Iceberg at the bottom of the slopes was great at lunch for crêpes. The on mountain restaurants were busy and quite expensive. The snack bar at the top of the 2nd lift was ok.

All accommodation appeared to be of a high standard and easy walking distance to lifts. Access to pool/ health suite is rather expensive unless you plan to make an evening of it. Quite a lot of new development planned.

SainteFoy is a great base if you have a car for visiting Tignes, Les Arcs, Val d'Isère etc. There is also easy access to Les Arcs via Villaroger.

We stayed there in January 2007 and were rather disappointed. The snow was poor, which is just bad luck, but other, larger resorts still offered good skiing. The pistes in Ste Foy are very limited, and an intermediate can ski them all in a day. If there had been a recent fall of snow, the supposedly superb off-piste would presumably have been available. As it was, we nearly went mad with boredom at the restricted amount of skiing that the pistes provide. Fortunately, we had a car and were able to drive to Tignes/Val D'Isere, where the snow was very good and the pistes never-ending, so we could enjoy our skiing. The apartment where we stayed was good quality. The purpose built village is quiet, and in low season was, frankly, rather depressing. We are not party people or night owls, but we do like to feel that at least someone is enjoying life after dark. The maintenance in the resort was patchy. To get from our apartment to the shops, we had to cross a large dangerous patch of ice which the authorities left untreated for several days. This would be a good resort for a family which wanted gentle skiing and a quiet village. For good skiers, stay at Val or Tignes and visit Ste Foy after a snowfall, so that you can enjoy the off-piste for which it is famous. We cannot comment on the off-piste because there was none available because of the snow conditions. Recently, the Sunday Times nominated Ste Foy as the best ski resort in the world.

I took my family to Ste Foy for a week during February Half Term this year and was amazed at how quiet it was in comparison to other resorts in the area. We went to Val d'Isere for one day but couldn't wait to get back to the relative calm of Ste Foy!

Although the resort is small, the local restaurants are good and family-friendly, and the skiing is phenomenal. The runs were varied enough to keep the children entertained all week, and the off-piste was great. I would highly recommend a trip to Ste Foy for families and serious skiers alike.

I 'gave up' skiing a fews years ago due to age and arthritis, but Sainte-Foy inspired me to try again due to its uncrowded pistes (except in February) and I'm thrilled to have been able to ski again, finishing on a 'high' on 16th March 2006, my 73rd birthday, with my first descent from the top chairlift in perfect snow and under a blue blue sky. Will be back for more next season!

Oh dear - we've been to Ste Foy so many times but this was our last. The new developments might be traditional in style but there are so many of them - and Spas too! The people going have changed, probably because of the Spas, to be the same as every other French resort, and the lift queues were horrible - not as big as Val or Tignes but the lifts are so much slower than the larger resorts.

We have been to Sainte Foy for the last 3 years. This year the scale of the building development was noticable, although attractively done. The nice surprise was that the lifts/pistes were still very uncrowded. The new lift next year is an exciting prospect and we look forward to coming back for that. After 3 years in a row we still do not tire of the place. It is very small but we think the positives, being lack of crowds, stunning views, tree lined skiing and lovely atmosphere, make up for the lack of piste mileage. We will return next year without question!

You will just love this fantastic resort. Sainte Foy is developing all the time, a new lift system will open we understand next autumn ready for 06/07 season. If you like uncrowded pistes, great off piste, traditional french villages, first class resturants and quality Ski school then this is the place, if you like disco's, union jack shorts etc its not for you, we spent two weeks last season and will return again and again, we stayed right on the piste, just 25 m from the lift.

We fell in love with Ste Foy a few years ago. Having done the big resorts for years and stood in queue's for hours on end, having been wiped out a few times whilst standing at the side of the piste when out of control skiers slam into you, Ste Foy is a dream come true. Our children are safer by far there, they 8 & 9 and know all the instructors and hug them as freinds. I have never seen more than 4 or 5 to a class obviously more in peak season. Four good restaurants at the station (how many more do you need? One lively bar now in french hands (much better) Two ski shops and a minimarket. No roads or serious trafic to worry about excellent nursery, 90% of ste Foy is off piste and if you are uncertain get a guide they are superb people. Why am I saying this there will be too many people there, but the french needmore people to put more lifts in. We have now acheived our dream and have a chalet there. Still can't believe it!

We have just returned from our first skiing holiday spent in this resort. This is no mean feat as we have five children two at 14 two at 12 and one 11 year old. All of us were complete beginners. What a fantastic time we had. The ESF ski school were fantastic the instructors were excellent adjusting classes to the ability of the individuals needless to say the kids advanced far faster than us oldies. The instructors even made time to take one very advanced 14 yr old off piste. The hire shop zigzags went out of their way to help with kitting us all out correctly. The slopes were great, no crowds and therefore no queues for anything. The lift operators recongnised us and slowed the lifts as necessary.The scenary was truely spectacular and if I had an office with the views of Mont Blanc as did our instructor David there would be no problem with over time. We are now well and truely addicted.

I had read the rave reviews so decided to try Ste Foy in March 04. The queue for lift passes was long and there are limited snack options too so plan ahead. It's much quieter than Val, Tignes, etc. - the off-piste is great but for the average intermediate (me!!) there isn't so much to do.

Before I arrived at Sainte Foy I had heard much about the off piste skiing and the quite slopes. But event I was shocked at what the 'resort' had to offer. Although it isn't in the same league ( in terms of size )as Tignes - it has some of the best snowboarding that I have ever come across - without the queues. They are doubling the size of the pistes and there are 3/4 new bars / resuraurants opening soon. This will make this great place even better. Although it isn't for everyone - no Gucci shops in Sainte Foy it is a truly remarkable place with a real alpine village feel. Fantastic

Having read so much about Ste Foy in recent skiing publication & being a keen skiers now with a young family we decided to find out a bit more about the place... We were pleasantly surprised to find we could still have a catered chalet holiday & more importantly a nanny service with Premiere-Neige.com. We flew into Geneva with the usual Easyjet hassles but were then met by their enthuisiastic driver. We weren't really sure what to expect of Ste Foy & I was slightly concerned about the skiing available. However once there the proximity of everything- ski shops, restuaurants, ski school & the nanny service made our family holiday effortless - especially as there was never a queue of more than 2 people & the slopes were all for us! As we chose the Ski Safari package the adults in our group managed to ski a day in each Val d'Isere, Tignes & Les Arcs. We had some great skiing & enjoyed being shown the way by our friendly host but did spend alot more time queueing for lifts or restaurants than in Ste Foy. All in all an excellent family catered holiday that suited everyone but Ste Foy does need another bar!

My son and I went to Sainte Foy last February school half term, travelling
by overnight sleeper train and staying at Chalet Number One. The pistes
were almost empty at times with hardly any queuing at chairlifts. It was
an ideal place to have a go at offpiste skiing - in both mine and my son's
class we did some. The pistes were very challenging in places. The tiny
old mountain restaurant was beautiful and cosy and I liked the fact that
you would come across everyone you knew at least once during the day.

There was a lack of co-ordination between the management of the resort and
the ski school. Our lessons finished at 4.30pm, the same time the last
resort bus left for the day. It was only after kicking up a fuss and
overcoming the unsympathetic shock reactions from both ESF and the resort
office that we had actually come on holiday there without a car, that they
altered the last bus departure time.

There may be virtually no queues at the lifts, but the same cannot be said
for the ski station office. It took over 2 hours to get our lift passes
on Saturday morning. The ski hire shop was similarly overwhelmed,
especially when checking back the equipment on our last day.

As intermediate skiers without the ability to go to other resorts, we were
ready for a change of scene by the end of the week. We got a lift to La
Rosiere on our last day and experienced the huge crowds we had thankfully
been missing. It was then that we could really appreciate the unspoilt
nature of Sainte Foy.