Planning a ski trip to Samoëns? Browse our collection of visitor-generated reviews that rank the mountain and ski town on a scale of one to five stars in the following categories: Overall Rating, All-Mountain Terrain, Nightlife, Terrain Park and Family Friendly. See how Samoëns stacks up to others in terms of skiing and après, and read up on pros, cons and comments from fellow skiers and snowboarders. Don't forget to submit your own Samoëns review! Scroll to the bottom of this page to let other travelers know about your ski area experience.
Skier & Snowboarder-Submitted Reviews for Samoëns
Total (3.3)
A ski resort's overall star rating displayed here is not calculated based on a simple average but takes several factors, including the age of a review, into account.
Grand Massif is poorly run, the lifts are shut frequently for no reason (you will be told it is “high wind”, but this is often not true). If the main connecting lift to Flaine is shut then the ski area is massively reduced.
Samoens is incredibly popular with locals which means the queues are insanely long all throughout the season & the whole ski area is relatively low so you will always have fairly patchy snow.
Some of the runs are great, but this is all undermined by a poor approach to lift management and a total disinterest to run the area properly to service the volume of people who want to ski there.
Supersnow Queen
We love Samoens so much we bought an apartment here 7 years ago after visiting for 14 years. It’s a beautiful village in a perfect valley with all year round appeal. Skiing is good but not exceptional. The lift system needs some simple improvements to make it work better in peak times. Prices are high and inflexible compared to nearby resorts. We avoid February and UK/French school hols when it’s too busy. But we still love it and it’s handy for access to GVA and other locations
Phil Cole
A historic French village, very welcoming and friendly, great skiing, links to Flaine, Les Carroz, Morillon and Sixt. Good progression slopes for beginners, excellent intermediate runs that all the family can enjoy, not a lot of challenging off-piste, but plenty for me! Plenty of piste restaurants and bars . Also excellent in the spring and summer; walking, biking, rafting, etc.
Donald Munro
If you don't read any further, just read this:
***DO NOT GO DURING FRENCH SCHOOL HOLIDAYS***
The Grand Massif area has a good variety of skiing. On nice days there are plenty of wide open pistes in Flaine but if it's snowing there is almost always great skiing to be had in the trees in Morillon or Les Carroz.
However, the whole area has been completely overdeveloped and when it's busy you will spend at least 60% of the day fighting it out in (yes) Massif queues. Last week we had our last run in Flaine around 2:30pm and started heading back to Samoens. We got off the lift down to Samoens village at 5:45pm. This comprised about 15 minutes of skiing and the rest of the time was spent queuing for the four separate lifts involved in getting back.
Lynne Panes
Love Samoëns- a pretty French village that also is a ski village you feel you are in France.
Perfect for families and those with non skiers and young children.
Large ski area that improves every year
Limited late night life but that’s why we love it. Lots to do in village apart from skiing.
Good quality accommodation
Easy access from Geneva-1.30 hours typically
Good shops and bars
anonymous
Very good place
ALAN CHARTERS
This is a great place to ski with lots of intermediate slopes. Its a great family resort ; As long as you go outside French holidays the slopes are almost empty with no queue's. if your going for more than 12 days its worth getting a season pass, before 10th Dec.
Samoens is a lovely alpine village with lots of restaurants and evening activities, including ice skating, bowling , cross country skiing , dog mushing, ice climbing and snow shoeing.
I have to admit apre ski is a little limited so if you want to go clubbing until 4 in the morning, pick another valley :)))
Robert Airton
All our party were quite disappointed with Samoens. We stayed in Vercland which had a 40 year old quirky carbines with few queues. However, it was difficult to get into Samoens as the busses ran every 90 minutes!! Didn't see any taxi ranks. The ski lift in Samoens is quite out of town. They didn't prepare the pistes very well after snow. There was only 1 map up the mountain and that was damaged several years ago and not repaired. If pistes or chairs were closed you wouldn't know. Not a great choice of places to eat up the mountain. There were no singles queues and many of the 6 seater chairs went up with 2,3 or 4 people in them even when there were large queues. We wouldn't go back.
monkdex1
amazing
monkdex1
fantastic my favourite resort been 7 years in a row now!!
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