Ha, The first time I did Europe was in 19, pre covid, with a Westchester ski club, and it was right around the corner from there. Val d'Siere/Tignes one week and Le Plagne/Les Arc the next week. We could see Courchavel from a deck on the back side of Le Plagne, sipping fine wine for lunch. Yes, it's pretty frigging huge and pretty friggin beautiful, pretty much the same stuff you had in your pictures. The only downside I encountered was bad weather, and all of that above tree line stuff is pretty useless in that. Le Plagne had some trees on the Bottom, which made it the most skiable in a storm.
Did you socialize and eat meals with the ski club members? Were they all old? Ski clubs are not young. But the deals are pretty awesome. Not the best of flights (the Westchester club has encountered "Mechanical delays" more than once, and flights back are ungodly early departures) but the hotels are three star nice with half board, five course dinners. Nice. And, as you say, ski out or close to lifts.
Those people party. Val d'Siere had an open disco on the hill like the one you had. It was a production. Dancers on pedestals to Euro trash. disco pop. Everyone starts drinking there at, oh, 2, and it continues until 3 in the morning in the indoor discos in town. You'd hear them coming home. I totally understood how Covid spread so fast in those ski towns early in the pandemic.
