What a Luxury Ski Chalet Actually Does for You Between First Lift and Fondue

A luxury ski chalet is sold on its pool and lived in through its staff. Guests who book with us for the first time read the listing for the hammam and the cinema room. By the Wednesday of the week they can name the chalet manager, the chef, the ski butler and the driver, and they have forgotten where the cinema is. So this is the week as the team runs it, from the first lift to the last fondue. Written from the staff lists on our own Courchevel 1850 listings, and from the Februaries we have spent placing families there.

Nothing here is a brochure. Nothing here is a view either. Where a chalet includes a service we say which chalet, and where it is an extra we say that too.

Seven in the morning: the ski room, and why the boots are already warm

Before the family is awake, the day has begun. At Chalet Odette, which runs a team of twelve, the ski butlers have the boots on the heaters by seven and the skis waxed from the night before. Guests step from the chalet to the piste, ten metres away by the listing, without carrying anything. Not a pole.

At Chalet Pèle the ski lift inside the entrance means the boots go on at the door and the piste is thirty metres down. Where a chalet has no ski butler on the rota, the chalet manager does the boots. We have never had a family carry its own skis through the snow in Courchevel, and we would consider it a failure if we did.

Breakfast runs from half past seven, and in February it runs in the dark for the first twenty minutes, because the sun does not reach the Nogentil side until nearly eight. Chalet Le Petit Chateau includes a daily continental breakfast with the private chef. Chalet Pearl‘s chef cooks breakfast, lunch and dinner. Chalet Vizzelle’s chef does breakfast and the barman takes over at eight. A family that skis at nine eats at eight. A family with a four-year-old eats in two sittings, and a good chef has already asked which.

Two things the ski room holds that the listing never mentions. A box of hand warmers, replaced daily, and the sheet with every guest’s boot size and pass number, which the ski butler keeps so that a lost pass on the Saulire is a phone call rather than an afternoon. On changeover Saturday the room is stripped and reset between ten and four, the skis from the leaving family racked for the shop’s van, the arriving family’s hire kit fitted in the chalet rather than in the queue in the centre. That fitting at the chalet is the single thing first-time guests mention most on the Sunday.

Nine o’clock: the instructor at the door, booked in November

Private instructors in the week of Presidents’ Day and the British half term are the scarcest thing in the resort, scarcer than the chalets. Our chalet managers book them in November against the ages and levels we send with the deposit. By the second week of January the English-speaking instructors at nine in the morning are gone. Ski passes, instructors and equipment are billed on top at every chalet in this piece. Chalet Pearl’s listing names a ski guide and a nanny as optional extras arranged on request, which is the honest wording.

At nine the instructor collects the children at the ski room. At nine the chauffeur takes the adults who are skiing from a different lift. A grandmother who is not skiing has the chalet, the spa and the hairdresser’s chair at Chalet Owens, which has a salon on its lower floor, to herself until one.

Midday: lunch on the mountain or the chef’s lunch at the chalet

Most of our families eat on the mountain three days and at the chalet three. Mountain tables are booked by the chalet manager the week before, because in February the terraces at one o’clock are full by half past twelve. On the chalet days the chef’s lunch is served at one. By then the ski butler has collected the children from the instructor and the chauffeur has brought the adults back from whichever lift they finished at.

At Chalet Oûta one meal a day is included with the chef outside the holiday weeks, and in the holiday weeks it is not. Its listing says so and we say so on the first call. Here lies the difference between a luxury ski chalet that is catered and one that is staffed with a kitchen, and the catered chalet is the one a family of ten wants in February.

Three in the afternoon: the spa, the children, the second shift

By three the light is going on the north-facing pistes and the family is back. Now the spa earns its place in the listing. Chalet Courchevel has a heated pool with a waterfall, a hammam and a gym on its lower floor. Chalet La Grande Roche has a pool, a steam room, a sauna and a massage room, with the therapist booked by the manager. Chalet Pèle has a fifteen-metre covered pool and a five-metre outdoor one. Massages are extras everywhere. Everywhere. A therapist at four in the afternoon in the Presidents’ Day week is booked the week before, not the morning of.

Three is also the children’s hour. Always has been. Where the family has booked a nanny through the chalet, she takes the under-sixes to the pool. Teenagers go into the resort with the chauffeur. Chalet La Grande Roche’s driver works from half past seven in the morning to midnight by its listing, and Chalet Courchevel’s in-station chauffeur is included. A chauffeur in a luxury ski chalet is not the luxury. In the holiday weeks the road through the resort slows after five, and the alternative is a family of twelve waiting for a taxi in ski boots.

Six o’clock: the apéritif, the turndown, and the only two hours the staff are invisible

At six the barman at Chalet Vizzelle is already off, by the listing’s hours. At the chalets with a butler, Owens, Pèle, Courchevel, Le Petit Chateau, the butler is serving the apéritif. Turndown happens while the family is at the bar. Le Petit Chateau lists evening turndown explicitly, and Chalet Courchevel changes towels daily and sheets twice a week. Between six and eight the staff are in the kitchen and the children’s wing and nowhere else. A good chalet manager calls this “the quiet two hours” and plans the day around them.

At six the manager also comes to the family with tomorrow: the instructor’s time, the mountain table, the chauffeur’s first run. One sheet, read aloud, two minutes. Done. Families who get this at six do not ask questions at eight in the morning.

Eight o’clock: dinner, and the Valentine’s dinner on the Sunday

Dinner at eight is the chef’s. At Chalet Odette all three meals are included, with a private chef and the team of twelve around him. At Chalet Pearl the same. At Chalet La Grande Roche the chef cooks and the maître d’hôtel serves two meals a day. Where the chef is on request, Chalet Courchevel among them, we book the chef for the week at the time of the contract, and the food is billed at cost. The fondue is one night. One. Six other nights are what the chef does, and a chef in a Courchevel chalet in February is usually the best cook the family has had all year.

Sunday February 14, 2027 falls inside the Presidents’ Day week, and Valentine’s dinner at the chalet is the one evening we plan in detail with the manager. Children fed at six, adults at nine, a table on the terrace if the night is still, which it is roughly one February night in three. In 2025 the night was not still. Wind, then snow. Dinner went to the cinema room at Chalet Owens, projector off. Nobody asked for the terrace. Nobody noticed.

The luxury ski chalet staff list, as it appears on the listings

A luxury ski chalet at this level carries a chalet manager, a chef, a butler or ski butler, a chauffeur and daily housekeeping. Better ones add security, a maître d’hôtel or a barman. Chalet Odette’s twelve include a manager, a chef, a chauffeur, ski butlers, security and a concierge on call around the clock. Chalet Pèle’s listing names a manager, a butler, a chef for two meals, a concierge, a chauffeur and housekeeping.

It also has a separate staff circuit, so the team is never on the family’s stairs. Chalet Le Petit Chateau names a chef, a butler, daytime housekeeping, turndown and a chauffeur in a people carrier. Chalet Axel, by contrast, lists housekeeping and a grocery service and no chef, and we quote it to two couples who want a catered chalet’s quiet without its brigade. Between those two lists lies the whole range of our Courchevel page, and we would rather you know it before the deposit than after.

Our full page of Courchevel 1850 chalets shows all twenty-two houses with their staff lists. The Chalet Courchevel listing is the clearest example of a house with the butler and chauffeur included and the chef on request. Our fully staffed villas and chalets collection gathers the houses, in the Alps and elsewhere, where the brigade is part of the rate.

In the half-term week of February 2026 a family of ten at Chalet Pearl asked on the Monday for “someone to take the children at three”. By three on the Tuesday the chalet manager had a nanny at the chalet, booked through the agency the chalet uses, billed as an extra as the listing says. By the Thursday the nanny was in the pool with the under-sixes while the parents were on the Saulire. The mother told us afterwards it was “the only week of the year I skied every day”. Not the pool, then. Three o’clock made the week.

Questions guests ask us about chalet service

What is included in a luxury ski chalet in Courchevel? It varies by house, and the listing is the contract. Chalet Odette includes all meals and a team of twelve. Chalet Pearl includes three meals a day. Chalet Courchevel includes the butler, chauffeur and housekeeping with the chef on request, and Chalet Axel housekeeping and groceries. Ski passes, instructors and equipment are extra everywhere.

Do we need to book the ski instructor ourselves? No. Our chalet managers book private instructors in November against the ages and levels we send with the deposit. English-speaking morning slots are gone by mid-January in the holiday weeks.

Is a chauffeur really necessary in Courchevel 1850? In the Presidents’ Day and half-term weeks, yes. After five the road through the resort slows, and the included in-resort chauffeur at Chalet Courchevel, La Grande Roche, Owens and Pèle is used more than the spa.

Can the chef cook a Valentine’s dinner on February 14? Yes. We plan it with the chalet manager at the contract, children fed early and adults at nine. A terrace table is possible about one February night in three.

Tell us the ages, the levels and who in the group does not ski, and we will send three chalets with their staff lists beside each. Request a Tailored Selection