The Penthouse, Morzine: Accommodation Review

The Penthouse is a luxury chalet situated in Morzine, France. It's not cheap and there are one or two inconveniences inside; but the location is central, the chalet itself is excellent and the service from the owners ranks highly too.

A group of us stayed in The Penthouse, Morzine, earlier this year in January. It was a good holiday despite snow conditions and the accomodation really added to it. Here's the review.

I'm gonna start by getting the minor annoyances out of the way. To begin with, there was only one standing shower. The other three bathrooms all had the hand-held style where the water kinda goes everywhere. Secondly, there wasn't a great deal of storage in the bedrooms: only one of them had a set of wardrobes. Finally, there were only two keys for the chalet, which spread between 6 to 8 people can be a bit of a stretch...

Inside the chalet. And now the positive things. The comment about the showers should be balanced against the number of bathrooms: 4. That's right, there was one bathroom per bedroom, which is a luxury in my book. Likewise, with regards to space/storage it should be noted that the ski locker was big and there was also plenty of general space around the chalet, which is usually where you need it when in a group.

The living space was comfortable and well finished, with fire, tv and dvd player. The dining table was great, with plenty of room for all and the kitchen was fully loaded to match. The living space was all open-plan, which was good for the social atmosphere and generally pretty sweet.

Location. The chalet is situated in old Morzine, at the bottom of the hill near the church. It's a really nice area: great views from the chalet's balcony, good shops right on hand, an Internet cafe and two good bars just across the road - Robinson's (I think) and Dixie Bar, both are good hangouts.

The supermarket was within comfortable distance and, if it's your type of thing the chalet sits above a pretty good delicatessen, great for cheese and such like. There's also a bus stop right outside so if you want to head to the base of Avoriaz it's super easy - excellent! All in all the chalet has a lot of great amenities right on hand.

The only downside is that it's a ten minute walk up into the newer part of Morzine. It's here that the base ski-lifts are found: on one side of town there is the Morzine area (and Les Gets) and on the the other there's the Super Morzine lift, which takes you up towards Avoriaz. There's probably a bus that takes you up the hill, but I never used it. In this instance I don't think a walk up the hill is such a bad thing; kinda like a warmup :) That said I've got snowboard boots on - not ski boots!

As I mentioned above, if you are heading to Avoriaz there's a second option: take the free bus to the Avoriaz base area, Les Prodains. It's a quick option for getting up there and the bus stop is literally right outside the chalet.

On the evenings though, we found the main restaurant selection to be in Morzine centre, which meant a brief walk. It didn't bother us, but it's something to think about...

Price. 6 of us paid £1500 at the end of January, for one week. I think that's fairly expensive, but it should be balanced against the quality of the accommodation, which was high. What's more, if you were to look for a similar style apartment/chalet that's central in the majority of French resorts, you'd struggle to find something in this price range. If more luxurious accommodation is one of the things on your list, The Penthouse ticks a lot of boxes!

Service. The owners provided good friendly service, taking time to answer all questions before hand and the transfer from Geneva that we opted for was very smooth, with friendly local knowledge given on the way. Add in a bottle of wine as a welcome drink and it all stacks up pretty nicely.

Overall. It's not easy to find this type of accommodation in central town locations. To me, given the quality of The Penthouse, this justifies a higher price. Personally, I was most looking forward to riding in Avoriaz, but I wanted the type of accommodation on offer in Morzine. In this respect, the chalet is excellent. Given the pros and cons mentioned above I still feel the location is spot on.

For sure I don't want to spend this amount of money on all of my snowboarding trips, but for those times that you do want to spend a little more - The Penthouse is a great option.