Crans-Montana, Switzerland

Six Senses Crans-Montana

Price per night from$813.85

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (inclusive of taxes and fees) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (CHF686.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Six Senses Crans-Montana Photos

Style

Alpine altitude with attitude

Setting

Enchanté Valais

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The Six Senses group might be best known for tropical dreamboat properties, but Six Senses Crans-Montana – their first Swiss property amid the Alpine glory of the Valais region – opening later this year, shows they’re just as hot when you turn the temperature down. It’ll be ski-in/ski-out for superior slope action, have views stretching from Mont Blanc to the Matterhorn and will be equally alluring in summer for equine and wine pursuits. And here the après ski won’t just involve a restorative cocktail session (although everything from fragrant sake mixers to Valais wines await) – a mammoth spa with a thermal circuit, chocolate wraps and all the saunas, plus a lounge filled with biohacking tech, sort out any post-action aches. Adrenaline-pumping and soothing as a mug of cocoa – with some family value – this promises to be peak piste. 

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Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

Either a 30-minute foot massage or body scrub for two

Facilities

Photos Six Senses Crans-Montana facilities

Need to know

Rooms

79, including 14 suites and one residence. Please note, some rooms will be opening at a later date.

Check–Out

12 noon, but, subject to availability, you can stay till 6pm for 50 per cent of the room rate. Earliest check-in, 3pm.

More details

Rates include an organic buffet breakfast that’ll keep you going on the slopes.

Also

Two of the hotel’s rooms are wheelchair accessible and have special facilities for those with hearing and vision impairments.

At the hotel

Spa, yoga studio, beauty salon, 24-hour fitness centre, open-air cinema, alchemy bar, Earth lab, boutiques, indoor and outdoor lounges, Alpine garden, ski concierge, library, packing and unpacking luggage service, laundry service, free WiFi. In rooms: TV, Bluetooth speaker, yoga mat, minibar and gourmet snack counter, coffee- and tea-making kit, bottled water, pillow menu, sustainable bath products and free WiFi.

Our favourite rooms

All rooms have a terrace, surely the most important of assets when you’ve got Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn in your eyeline and the glittering wintry white or bombastic summery green of the Valais Alps to admire from it. And there’s much of the outside indoors too: quartzite stone, larch and oak wood, slate and marble – all worked at by master craftsmen to make into unique furnishings, rounded bath tubs, live-edge benches and more – make rooms feel naturally beautiful, and local artworks hang on the walls. The biggest difference is the size, with the family- and group-fitting Three-Bedroom Terrace Suite at the top end.

Poolside

The most eye-catching of the hotel's two swimming spaces are the spa’s indoor-outdoor pool, which spills out into a birch forest with frost-tipped trunks, and has a ceiling hung with hundreds of timber pieces to bring the outdoors in. And, on the rooftop, at the edge of a large terrace and with views over pine-clad slopes, is a steamy pool and hot tub.

Spa

The 2,000-square-metre spa (open 9am to 9pm) will leave anyone feeling as finely tuned as a Rolex. Treatments stem from ancient Alpine healing methods or zoom forward, bringing in the best biohacking tech. In nine pampering suites you could be swathed in Swiss chocolate (no, don’t lick it), have ski-worn legs manoeuvred back to life with massage, or have your biomarkers screened to make a bespoke wellness programme. There are flotation pods, stretch experts, and a thermodynamic circuit with a steam room, ice fountain, cool plunge pool and no less than three saunas (Finnish, rock and bio-salt) – well, you are in Switzerland. And, if you’ve been tossing and turning, a sleep expert will get you to dreamland, providing sleep tracking, specialty bedding and relaxing lotions and potions. And, in the ‘biohack recovery lounge’ enter the wellness world of tomorrow, with Juvent vibrating platforms, red-light therapy masks, pulsed-electromagnetic-field-therapy mats, Ballancer Pro lymphatic-drainage systems, Normatec recovery compression boots, Hyperice X hot and cold compresses, Hypervolt portable massagers, So Sound musical-massage loungers, LED face masks, VR headsets and NuCalm relaxation kits. The gym too has an impressive range of machines (plus personal trainers as needed), and there’s a yoga studio and hair and beauty salon.

Packing tips

Seasonal sports gear is kind of a no-brainer (although you can hire onsite). Bring variable layers to cope with sun and snow, the cosiest of pyjamas and anything that might keep you occupied while you’re curled up by a fire (books, tablets…).

Also

The Luggage Free service lets you send your bags and gear to the hotel ahead of time (it’s advised to book a delivery date of one or two days before arrival).

Pet‐friendly

Fully trained (and leashed) doggos under 18 pounds can stay for CHF50 a night, plus a CHF200 cleaning fee. They’re welcome everywhere except the spa and Byakko restaurant. See more pet-friendly hotels in Crans-Montana.

Children

Very welcome and sure to love the Grow With Six Senses kids’ club (when it opens in 2023) and snowy playground all around – come summer even more possibilities for adventure open up.

Best for

Can they stand on a pair of skis? Hop on a horse? Balance a kayak? They’re probably ready then.

Recommended rooms

In all room types, one child under 11 can stay on the sofa in the living area (free of charge), and most can fit a baby cot too. But if you have several little snow bunnies in tow, book the Three-Bedroom Terrace Suite.

Activities

The Grow with Six Senses club (opening in December 2023) takes a holistic approach to entertaining little ones – encouraging them to get out into nature, acquaint themselves with local culture, embrace wellness practices and get schooled on sustainability. And, kids have a spa all of their own, set aside from the main one, where they can enjoy gentle treatments. Ski lessons can be booked for little ones too.

Swimming pool

There’s a shallower (25cm deep) space where kids can splash about.

Meals

There will be a special menu for kids.

Babysitting

The hotel can help to arrange nannies and babysitters on request.

Sustainability efforts

The Six Senses group have long been advocates for cleaner, greener hospitality, and Six Senses Crans-Montana carries the torch (probably even offsetting its carbon). The building operates at 30 per cent reduced energy compared to the ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) standard, and energy’s further conserved by waste heat from the kitchens, cooling systems and pools being filtered and re-used. All rooms are cooled using VOC (volatile organic compounds) air circulation, the pools use UV filters to reduce the need for chemical treatment by 50 per cent, and all the hotel’s temperature control is run using a carbon-neutral, sustainably sourced and chemical-free wood-pellet system. And, natural materials from the local environs were used in construction. You can learn more about the hotel’s efforts – as well as picking up DIY tips and seeds to take home – at the Earth Lab onsite. Plus, 0.5 per cent of all revenue goes into a sustainability fund to benefit community projects.

Food and Drink

Photos Six Senses Crans-Montana food and drink

Top Table

Grab a table on the top-of-the-world (almost) roof terrace or Wild Cabin’s dining deck.

Dress Code

Shimmy out of your salopettes and into something slinkier/sharper for the après piste. Wild Cabin doesn’t care if you’re swathed in ski wear.

Hotel restaurant

If you happen to get so leaden with melted cheese you’re sinking into the snow, you’ll be glad to hear that the hotel plans to shake things up a bit. At silk-panelled Byakko – named for a mythical white tiger who lives in the highest mountains of the Japanese Alps – takes inspiration from the east, drawing diners together over steaming hot-pots, whole fish cooked on warm stones, smoky-sweet hoba miso (broth over a smoked magnolia leaf) and grilled marinated meats. Wild Cabin is a touch more rusticated with a terrace amid pine, fir and downy oak trees overlooking the Valais Valley. Offerings come from the wood oven, giving food a forest-y flavour to embellish the setting. And there are some classic Swiss dishes for those not yet done with dairy.

Hotel bar

The hotel will have various spaces for socialising over cocktails or a glass of Valais wine. In the lobby there’s a lounge which offers a vantage point for watching the piste goings-on above. By the pool and open-air cinema is a terrace with shaded tables where you can take smoothies and cocktails with a maximised mountain-range view. Each of the eateries will have a bar too: Byakko has exotically flavoured and sake-laced cocktails and on-theme music; and come dusk, tunes wheedle out from the Wild Cabin too, calling those with achy legs to rest them as they knock back a few colourful, floral concoctions or local wines.

Last orders

In Wild Cabin, breakfast is from 7am to 11am, lunch 12 noon to 3pm, and dinner 6pm to 10.30pm. Byakko is open Tuesday to Sunday for dinner, from 6pm to 10pm.

Room service

Get intimately acquainted with those Alpine views by dining on your terrace – food and drink can be ordered 24 hours a day and the concierge can arrange grocery deliveries too.

Location

Photos Six Senses Crans-Montana location
Address
Six Senses Crans-Montana
Route des Téléphériques 60
Crans-Montana
3963
Switzerland

The Cry d’Er gondola in Crans (right next to Montana), is the lift to the best skiing in the area, and Six Senses Crans-Montana is just above it. French Switzerland’s Valais Alps (from Mont Blanc to the Matterhorn) give peak views all around.

Planes

Sion Airport is the closest, just a 30-minute drive away from the resort, but it’s a little limited in routes, with arrivals from just Palma (seasonally), St-Tropez, Rome Fiumicino, Calvi and Figari. Otherwise fly into Geneva Airport (around a two-hour drive away); transfers are CHF600 each way and will take you round the rim of picturesque Lake Geneva. Milan Malpensa and Zurich airports are both around a three-hour drive away too.

Trains

Handily, there’s a direct train from Geneva Airport to Sierre station, from which you can ride the funicular to the resort. The journey takes around two hours, but it’ll fly by as you sit agog at the lacustrine and Alpine views. Or ask the hotel to pick you up (CHF150 one-way).

Automobiles

This is one of a few ski resorts where you don’t need a car to get around, so swap your wheels for skis, snowboots and gondolas. But, there is a car park onsite and valet parking for those driving in.

Worth getting out of bed for

Crans and Montana are two skis-in-a-pod resorts sitting side by side 1,500 metres above the Rhône Valley. The hotel itself is on the Crans side, just above the Cry d’Er gondola giving you ski-in, ski-out access to some of Switzerland’s most popular ‘champagne skiing’ trails. To take full advantage, visit the dedicated ski concierge, who can arrange lessons, lift passes, gear storage and even help you wax out any dinks or dry wet clothes post-piste. Between the two resorts, there are 140 kilometres of slopes for skiing and snowboarding at all levels, plus cross-country skiing across the mighty Plaine Morte glacier plateau. The Snowpark is an icy playground with an Olympic-sized half-pipe (plus some less-gnarly things to ride and glide over); groups can mush a pack of huskies on a dog-sled ride from the Crans-Montana station through Narnia-esque scenery; and the bold can try climbing up sheer frosted rock faces. And Snow Island is ideal for families, with snow-tubing, electric snowmobiles and a giant airbag to bash into. However, the region isn’t always this frosty (in fact it gets 300 days of sunshine a year), and when white melts into green there’s still many many things to see and do. Hike up the – sometimes vertiginous and rickety – pathways winding around the Grand bisse du Lens, then steady your nerves tasting the excellent wines (perhaps a fruity Chasselas, silky Cornalin or citrussy Petite Arvine), which have made Valais world-renowned. Horse riding is taken as seriously here in summer as skiing is in winter – as is golf – there are ranches where lessons and tours can be organised for the former, and three championship mountainous courses (Severiano Ballesteros, Jack Nicklaus and Crans-sur-Sierre) for the latter. There’s more mountaineering and paragliding for those with a head for heights – if not, take to the water, pedalo-ing, wake-boarding or waterskiing across Lake Grenon. Back at the hotel, spend some time getting back to sorts in the spa and biohack recovery lounge after an all-action hero day; make your own all-natural lotions, potions, shampoos, scrubs and more at the Alchemy Bar; get some environmentally friendly tips at the Earth Lab; and cosy up under a blanket on a bean-bag to watch a film alfresco on the roof terrace. 

Local restaurants

Alpine cuisine isn’t just the potatoes, mountain cheeses and bacon that keeps skiers and climbers rosy-cheeked – although there’s nothing more comforting to tuck into after a day on the slopes. Upscale – often vertiginously so – eateries, many Michelin-starred, put the abundance of summer-gleaned farm produce to use and lean heavily on Gallic decadence (foie gras, buttery steaks, escargots…). Fellow Smithster Hotel Chetzeron, a former gondola station, sits more than 2,000 metres up and makes the most of this position with huge window walls. Sit on the terrace and fill up on goat’s cheese tartelettes, beef in a raspberry balsamic and lemon sables. Restaurant Le Mont Blanc also offers the head-in-the-clouds experience and has very descriptive dish names: ‘fond memories of a family dinner’ (lamb, bottarga, curry herbs); ‘topless at the beach’ (veal breast, sage, courgette, pepper and black garlic); the ‘mouth full of chocolate’ (rich Bolivian chocolate with bourbon pepper). La Rôtisserie is more traditional, with foie gras and apricot chutney, sole Meunière, veal and beef in various sauces; and if you’re craving something from the Italian side of the Alps, head to Viva Voce for lemon-ricotta- and courgette-stuffed ravioli and truffle-y mafaldine, fresh fish dishes and singing-with-spirit rum babas. And, at some point you need to dip something in melted cheese – being the Swiss Alps, there are many iterations of their beloved signature dish to be found, but why not enjoy it while ascending over the peaks. Fondue in the Sky whisks you 2,000 metres up in the ​​Roc d'Orsay-Villars gondola for a feast of Vaudois charcuterie, bread, wine and the dippy delight itself. 

Local bars

Le Constellation has a DJ, a 2am finish and shots, but also a fine selection of wines from Valais and Corsica and a sociable terrace; and Monki’s parties a touch harder with rainbow neons and dancing till late.

Reviews

Photos Six Senses Crans-Montana reviews
Caroline Kent

Anonymous review

By Caroline Kent, Stationery star

From the moment we emerge into Geneva’s rarefied air, we know we’re in for an easeful few days. Collecting our hire car (upgraded to something gloriously superfluous to our needs), we can’t shake the feeling we’ve unwittingly stumbled into a thick cloud of good fortune. It’s an impression not dispelled by the blue-skied drive along the length of Lac Lausanne – a journey framed on all sides by Toblerone mountains – towards our destination, the newly opened Six Senses in Crans-Montana.

After two final, steep bends, we curl gently downwards and into a metal-clad chasm, not unlike a Bond villain’s lair, which darkly delivers us into an underground car park, before we’re whisked into the warmth of the first of the hotel’s two reception spaces. It’s a slick mixture of contemporary wood and stone, but still gives off James Bond vibes (assuming James also had a penchant for cuckoo clocks and giant cow bells). 

Assured that everything will be taken care of, we abandon our worldly possessions and find ourselves standing in front of said gigantic bells, each engraved with one of the six (bear with me) senses. Rafaella, our lovely guest experience manager, invites us to close our eyes and focus on what we want from our time here, and then to ring the corresponding bell. Mr Smith and I both chime for Intuition, but Taste (or gluttony) may have been more appropriate, as it turns out…

Our room is a chic confection of raw wooden panelling and textured grey walls, cream bouclé sofas and an unspeakably comfortable bed. From a love seat on our terraced balcony, we can watch our own live version of Ski Sunday as people whizz down the slope just below us. As a novice skier, I cross my fingers and make a silent resolution to glide past our balcony before the trip is out.

Much revived from the journey but in need of ski kit, we’re ushered down to meet the charming Pierre, keeper of the treasure, who sorts us out with pristine boots and helmets, sweetly upgrading my skis to a flashy silver pair in honour of my birthday the following day.

We awake to a blizzard beyond the balcony: happy birthday to me. I open my presents in bed before Mr Smith has to drag me from its cosy confines to breakfast, ahead of a 9.30am date with our ski instructor. Every single person we meet en route wishes me a happy birthday and the entire restaurant staff sing as they bring in a candle-topped chocolate cake (yes, for breakfast). We fortify ourselves for a morning on the slopes with the hotel’s noxiously healthy Volcano Shot, then compensate with pain perdu and a merciless raid of the consummate rainbow of fresh temptations that is the breakfast buffet.

A supremely slick car takes us to the main ski lift in the centre of town, where we meet Michel, a veteran of the Swiss ski team in the era of Eddie the Eagle (‘une catastrophe’ is his damning verdict) who, despite the white-out conditions, manages to have me skiing red runs by lunchtime. 

A car is waiting to take us from the mountain base to a Michelin-starred lunch at LeMontBlanc. Another recommendation organised for us by the hotel team, its extraordinary location makes it a very special place to eat, but Mr Smith notes a penchant for purées and foams over our three-course set lunch that leaves us pining for the hearty Alpine plates we devoured last night at Six Senses’ Wild Cabin.

Whisked by another black-windowed car back to our happy place, it’s time for my next birthday treat – a salt scrub in the sanctuary of the Six Senses Spa. After this sensorial delight, Mr Smith and I spend a brilliantly bizarre hour in the Bio Hack room, a space bathed in a peachy glow from its walls of Himalayan rock salt, where we’re guided through a confounding choice of health-enhancing gadgets.
 
The Six Senses elves have been busy in our absence: we return to find framed photographs from our morning’s skiing standing beside a chilled bottle of champagne and assorted sweet treats; but the icing on the proverbial cake is an adorable miniature snowman on our balcony table. Mr Smith looks a touch concerned at the high birthday-spoiling bar that’s being set here.

No time to dwell, we’ve an appointment with a snowcat to meet: tonight we’re dining at (Smith-approved) Hotel Chetzeron, at 2,000 metres, and accessible in winter only with suitably brutish caterpillar-tracks. It’s a truly unforgettable way to get to/from dinner, particularly as on the return journey we were invited to sit in the cab with the driver and watch as he navigates precipitous drops in blizzard conditions (no, you’re nervous…). 

Six Senses Crans-Montana is an undeniably luxurious place where every comfort is considered, and sustainability is the seventh commandment, but it’s the magical elves who work there who’ve made our time so memorable, taking great care before and during our trip to ensure it exceeds expectations. I suspect – though science may quibble – that they even orchestrated the miraculous snow. We arrived as two frazzled parents, and leave as two deeply relaxed and reinvigorated Smiths, only requiring a tiny realignment of expectations when we remember we have to drive ourselves home…

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