This is a 3 star hotel so you do not expect nice toiletries or Kleenex in the bathroom, nor CNN or BBC on the TV (very bad reception in any event), and the jam at breakfast of a dismal quality. But a good choice at breakfast , with eggs, yoghurt, fruit etc., albeit served in a space without charm, as is dinner.
When staying on a B&B basis, if you ask the day before, you can have dinner there (4 courses). As is so often the case in Italian restaurants, they refuse to give you jugs of tap water and insist you buy it by the bottle, which with a bunch of kids, dehydrated after a day's skiing, means a lot of bottles of something available free, which irritates me..
I had possibly the best room in the house (301) a 3rd floor corner room facing South with good size bathroom and 2 balconies. Walls and floors let through a lot of noise though, so my relatives in other rooms reported.
When buying ski tickets through the hotel, there is a minor discount which however does not compensate for even 8 year olds being counted as adults for ski tickets!
The hotel is located up a hill, perfect for the Cotes ski lift but a brisk hike up from the village. I gather the hill is known as 'heart attack hill' but twice a day for several days i hauled my 80 year old bones up there, so it is doable, but indeed not what you want on arrival with luggage and/or small kids.
Sauce is not a good place for those who like flat walking; it seems every street is either uphill or downhill!
The pool in the basement is accessed and exited by lift only, and the lift is small (3 persons) and very slow, causing major traffic jams at the end of the afternoon when people returning from skiing want to go for a swim.
Management and staff of the Splendid are very helpful, and with a little investment this place would not look so tired and old.
Good places to eat in town: Falco. Also the one at the bottom of the Cotes ski lift, called La Grange if I remember correctly. Very good value for money there.
