To expect better hygiene from chalet staff?

[GothDetective]

Just got back from a week's skiing and on the first day they warned us that there had been a bug going round the chalet the previous week and that most of the guests had gone down with it.

Over the next couple of days I noticed that the chalet girl emptied the bins and then went back to chopping veg for our dinner without washing her hands.

Also in the loo off th living room there was no soap or towel even though we asked for one. Our chalet was used by kids from the ground floor creche (not kids from our chalet) at lunch time. They were toddlers and used the loo unsupervised and weren't washing their hands after going to the loo. Then using the dining room table for their lunch and doing colouring on the coffee table. So spreading germs all over the place.

Sure enough 3 days in myself and another guest went down with a bad bug, which involved me chucking up for 12 hours straight and missing a day's skiing. The next day I only skiied for an hour as I felt so weak.

I know that sometimes these things happen but I do think with better hygeine it shouldn't have. If the chalet had been cleaned properly then surely the bug shouldn't have been there the following week still?

YANBU to expect better hygiene! Sounds grim, and I think you should complain.

Why on earth were the toddlers using your chalet? I'd be seriously pissed off about that myself.

Although the lack of handwashing generally is also grim.

The toddlers using the chalet were from other chalets all run by the same company as the chalet we were stopping in.

They don't have one room big enough for all the kids to eat so the kids are divided up between the 3 or 4 different chalets.

So my DD had lunch in a different chalet from ours.

Its quite a standard thing with this company that kids from other families may use your chalet. I am going to complain. Have had a bug with the same ski company before and not complained but have had enough this time.

Name of travel company??

Its Esprit.

Did you complain about all this at the time?

In my experience of chalets, many are run by young people who have never run a home before, have never lived with kids, and have precious little idea of cleanliness or kitchen hygiene beyond what is written in their instruction book. When you look in the fridge on the chalet staff night out ... well, don't look in the fridge. Do complain, with some constructive advice, and perhaps they will learn!

We asked for towels/soap to be put in the toilet more than once and it didn't happen.

I filled out an evaluation form and handed it in with comments on but suspect it may get lost ratherthan go back to head office. So I think that writing directly to head office may be an idea.

The kitchen was quite grim.

I've done my fair share of chalet holidays but this reinforces the reason why we now book our own skiing, direct with a decent hotel (with purpose built, full children's facilities). OK it's a little more hassle sorting out own travel etc but worth it, and often much cheaper for what ends up as much better quality accommodation etc.

Clicked on this wondering if it would be about Esprit. We had a dire experience with them 4 years ago. Turned up and there was a vomiting bug doing the rounds, the chalet girl told us she'd been ill and TBH still looked too ill to be working. Surprise surprise dd started vomitng 24 hours later and the holiday went downhill from then on.

We did complain - about that and other things (missing our flight home, being flown to Gatwick then told we were going to be having a 12 hour coach journey back to Scotland...) - and got a very dismissive response back from them.

Never ever again. We're going ski-ing again this year for the first time since and have forked out to go with Snowline.

The chalet wasn't clean, dd was crawling and I remember ending up mopping the floors myself.

Probably not worth wasting my time complaining then. Must admit I'm very tempted to go elsewhere next year now.

Esprit.... say no more, my DS did a season with them, actually he left after 3 weeks because he was so disgusted with the state of the kitchens, the creche, the toilets......

Well, I've figured out that slagging them off describing my holiday experience on the internet whenever I can in the hope that it puts some people off booking with them makes me feel a bit calmer about the dismal response that I got from my complaint.

Yes and no ... Like cloelia says, you were probably being looked after by a teenager who'd never been away from home before and who really didn't care so much about your health as their own free lift pass. (I have a male cousin in his 20s who recently did some sort of hygiene course and was amazed to learn that you shouldn't, for example, wipe the floor with the dishcloth or use a teatowel to dry your hands, and he is quite domesticated!). Most chalet staff don't get paid anything other than very basic living expenses and are there to ski, not to give great customer service.

Having said that, I ran an extremely clean OCD type chalet (I wasn't there to ski!) and I still had a lot of puking guests (not my food, honest ). I'd be surprised if vomiting bugs managed to live on surfaces for a week - more likely to be the fact you and the kids are being exposed to bugs that you don't have any immunity to imo.