On Our Radar: Raving in Val Thorens

It’s Friday night at Club Med Val Thorens Sensations and the scene in the bar can best be described as Pocahontas-meets-acid house rave.

Resort staff in fringed skirts skip around fluorescent wigwams and totem poles under UV lighting, while on stage a tribe of neon-painted dancers whip the crowd into a frenzy with routines to match a relentless stream of bass-heavy music.

I’ve been to a Club Med ski resort before, but this is a level of surreality far beyond that at Peisey-Vallandry.

Val Thorens Sensations is Club Med’s newest, and flagship, resort, and while it is not strictly adults-only, the lack of a kids’ club means guests are nearly all drinking age.

The 384-room Sensations opened in 2014 after an unusual design strategy which saw Club Med’s Facebook fans make decisions about what it should offer.

“Sensations” was chosen over “Titanium”; a 10-metre-high climbing wall was picked to feature in the lobby; and indoor “yurts” were selected for seating inside the main buffet restaurant.

I stay in one of just eight suites – there are two at the top of each prong of the “trident”-shaped structure – where a double-height sloping roof means curtains long enough for a West End stage. I have a digital faux-fireplace, a sexy, white, curved leather sofa, and pink acrylic sliding panels to screen off my bathroom. Deluxe and Club rooms are spacious too, and every guest room overlooks the mountain – 90% via a balcony.

The views and snow conditions are among the best in the Alps, to boot.

Val Thorens Sensations certainly has quirks, but it also offers all the perks that make a Club Med ski holiday so outrageously easy: ski hire inside the building; ski-in-ski-out locations, so no clumsy tramping over to the slopes in your boots; and free ski lessons for all abilities.

So it’s no surprise to hear that Club Med Val Thorens is now the most popular of all of Club Med’s 22 ski resorts. “It’s our best seller, far ahead of our other resorts, with 20% growth year-on-year,” says UK managing director Estelle Giraudeau. “There is lots from Val Thorens that we’d like to replicate in other resorts, particularly on the digital side, because of its success.”

A word to the wise: fluorescent night is by no means limited to Val Thorens. Club Med has optional dress codes every night; use the Club Med app to check for your clients in advance. If they have their old rave gear at the back of their wardrobe and don’t pack it, they’ll never forgive you.