Les Arcs

The praise is for scale: the link to La Plagne via the double-decker Vanoise Express opens an area you can ski for a week without repeats. The lifts are mostly modern and fast and the pistes well groomed. Accommodation is ski-in ski-out almost everywhere. The nursery zones around Arc 1950 and Arc 2000 are rated excellent, and the long descents to Villaroger and Bourg-Saint-Maurice are called the best thing here.

Cost is the main grievance: the full Paradiski pass is dear, rates climb in peak weeks and lunch on the hill is absurd. Queues build mid-morning and after lunch, most often at the TransArc gondola and the Grand Col chair, while the funicular up from Bourg-Saint-Maurice is packed at busy hours. Many are disappointed that you cannot ski between the two halves of the area, only ride the cable car. The concrete architecture divides opinion and beginners run out of progression quickly.