Cheval Blanc Courchevel vs Amanfayun

The ski concierge is what people actually remember, not the marble. Guest after guest, months and years apart, describes the same choreography: boots off at the door, equipment prepped and waiting each morning, nothing to think about between the lift and the room. That's a rare thing to be consistent about, and it's the strongest reason to book this over almost anywhere else in the Three Valleys.

The rest is more conditional. Le 1947 is genuinely the draw for a lot of travellers, the resort's only three-star and by most accounts worth the detour even for non-guests, though the room itself reads as formal rather than warm and the menu skews heavily meat-forward. Service across the property gets named person by person in a way that doesn't happen by accident. But the value math falls apart fast once you leave the concierge and the tasting menu: a €95 filet with nothing on the plate, a €20 side of fries, a NYE dinner north of €700, all reported within the past year. Several guests are blunt that you're paying for the address and the prestige as much as what's on the fork, and that at Courchevel prices generally, not just here.

None of this works if you're price-sensitive, and nobody claims otherwise. It also isn't the cozy alpine hideaway the brochure implies: Courchevel 1850 itself can feel congested and try-hard, telecabins and all. If you're already committed to skiing this resort at this level, the ski-in/ski-out access and the concierge make the case on their own. If you're shopping on value, look elsewhere in the valley.

What you're paying for at Amanfayun isn't the room. It's a reconstructed Longjing tea village strung along a stream beside Lingyin Temple, with monk-led chants at Yongfu at dawn and a footpath gate that lets you beat the tour buses. That setting is the whole case for the property, and travellers keep describing it the same way years apart: the stream-lined pool against centuries-old stone, the tea gardens, the sense of arriving somewhere old rather than merely nice. Guest after guest names the same staff by first name, unprompted, and mentions the same soft spot for grandparents and toddlers.

The rooms are the catch, and it's not a minor one: the "cottages" are consistently reported as too dark, by fans and critics alike, in reviews years apart, so this isn't one bad villa. Dining is genuinely strong at the vegetarian restaurant and the in-house Steam House, but Hangzhou House (the Michelin-starred restaurant on property, run separately from Aman) draws a real split — some call it among the best hotel meals in China, others paid roughly SGD 350 for two and found the food bland and the service checked-out. Service overall skews warm and attentive, but there's a genuine minority of accounts describing poor English and dismissive front desk staff, including one detailed 2024 report of serious lapses that reads as an outlier against years of warm accounts, not the rule. Worth noting too: the public footpath means non-guests wander the grounds, which undercuts the sense of exclusivity you'd expect at this price.

Book it for the temple access and the atmosphere, not for a polished five-star room experience — and budget the transfer time, since the traffic-controlled West Lake area makes arrival genuinely complicated.