Ski Industry "Debundling"

[Brownski]

I honestly see both sides. These hills need to lure you up there somehow and many many people are motivated by price. Would it be better/more honest if all of the additional costs were listed up front? Sure. Is that realistic? No. How much more would you be willing to pay up front for a promise not to pay for parking? My guess is not much more. It’s also not true that all these other things were “bundled” to begin with. Nobody said “if you buy a lift ticket, you can pile your shit under a table all day.” It’s just a tradition that we could do it. Lockers have always been extra. If I had my own ski area, I’d provide lots of cubbies and hooks for bags but if I found that my competitors were lowballing my pass prices and I had to charge less to get people to show up, I would have to look for ways to make up the margin elsewhere. On the other hand, nobody likes rolling up to a place where they’ve never been asked to pay for parking and then have to go into their pocket for $20-$40. That sucks.

My advice for Sno is to buy a decent backpack for his shoes and lunch and do as much of his dressing at the car as possible. Ski with a backpack from now on. Lots of people do. But, yes, it does suck when you think you’re spending X and then have to fork over X+Y.

 

[Ripitz]

Many Resorts (including some on the Indy Pass) are charging an extra $5 for an RFID card- what do you all think? Nobody ever asked me to pay for a wicket.

I just gave Catamount $15 for new ones when I couldn’t find our old ones. Got home and realized the cards we bought at Berkshire East work the same. So we paid for them three times. Oh well, I consider it a donation, they can’t even stay open. Also bought an Indy Pass for the Peanut for the last three years when all of the places we’ve been to kids 6 and under ski free. Ski areas are dying. Without our support they will be gone sooner than later. I couldn’t care less about nickels and dimes.

 

[Tjf1967]

The RFID cards are reusable from season to season, so the next time you go, you won't have to pay for a new card. It also means you can reload online and avoid the ticket window entirely. I'm also unaware of any resort charging more than 5 dollars for one. I guess I've never seen a problem with it.


Yes, Solitude has a tiny parking lot.

It's possible for two things to be true at the same time:

1. Parking at certain resorts is a scarce resource and unfortunately needs to be rationed in some way.
2. "Gotcha" moments with surprise fees might look good to the bean counters upstairs, but leaves a bad taste in anyone's mouth who got charged, and should be avoided.

In Solitude's case, they opted to prioritize carpools for parking, and incentivize solo travelers to take the bus. Fair enough. But then they also slap those who took the bus with a 20 dollar fee for the lockers. They have no other option since they don't have a car to boot up in. In my opinion, that's far more vexing than the parking fees.

I would prefer to not replace the joy of skiing with the stress and frustration of air travel, but apparently that's a controversial opinion around here.

Fair

 

[snoloco]

This might be more appropriate for the impact of the epic pass thread, but one inherent issue with mega passes is that it's a very homogenous pricing structure. In other words, it's difficult for member resorts to price themselves appropriately. They can have varying access on different tiers of the pass, but that's it.

In Stowe's case, in the pre-Vail days, they had one of the most expensive passes in the Northeast. They also rarely if ever sold cheap tickets. As such, their carrying capacity was not all that high. It didn't need to be, because demand wasn't that high given how expensive it was to go. When Vail bought it and put it on the Epic Pass, it cut the pass price by more than half, suddenly making it accessible to a much larger customer base. This had the expected result of completely overwhelming their carrying capacity, in the form of major traffic backups, and having to turn away vehicles when parking was full, which happened every weekend. Paid parking has the effect of compensating for that. You can go to Crotched, Sunapee, Attitash, Wildcat, Hunter, or Okemo in the northeast with your Epic Pass, no strings attached. But at Stowe, it's effectively a 30 dollar surcharge every time you go.

I'm not convinced that paid parking actually helps Stowe's traffic problems though. Many will simply pay up because demand was so out of whack with their carrying capacity in the first place. The biggest contributor to traffic backups is when parking fills up and people don't want to turn around. Paid parking doesn't stop that, because it does not guarantee parking. To eliminate turning people away, you need parking reservations that guarantee parking.

There were other ways for Vail to deal with overcrowding at Stowe. Alterra at Crystal and Boyne at Snoqualmie took major actions to reduce overcrowding at their resorts. Alterra removed unlimited access to Crystal from the Ikon Pass, and charges well over 1000 dollars for a pass that grants unlimited access. They also required parking reservations (free for passholders) and offered a 77 mile coach bus ride for free. Snoqualmie severely limits pass sales and being an Ikon partner, they also require Ikon reservations. Vail could've done any of those things at Stowe, but other than charging 30 dollars for parking, they have essentially told Epic Pass holders that they can come whenever they want with no restrictions. I'm not sure they actually care about reducing traffic, but they saw a way to extract a whole lot more money out of their passholders and jumped on it.

While Stowe's overcrowding might explain why they have paid parking, it doesn't explain why Mount Snow does. Mount Snow had a very different past than Stowe. They had cheap passes for many years, both under ASC and Peak Resorts. They were also known to sell cheap tickets pretty often. On Founders Day each December, they'd sell 12 dollar lift tickets. As such, Mount Snow has a far higher carrying capacity than Stowe, and rarely ran out of parking. "Park-outs" would only occur a few times a year on the busiest days. Charging for parking there is a much more egregious cash grab in my opinion.

 

[Andy_ROC]

Explain?

I am not a fan of air travel at all.

Yup airline travel is a necessary evil. I hate it but love where it takes me. If I won the lottery a NetJet card would be one of my priority purchases.

 

[raisingarizona]

One Alterra resort, Solitude, is unfortunately one of the worst offenders of nickel-and-diming their guests.

It's mandatory paid parking in all their lots, based on vehicle occupancy. The only way you can get it for free is to be a 4+ carpool.

1: $35
2: $25
3: $10
4+: Free

If you don't have enough people to get free parking, then you can avoid paying by taking the UTA Ski Bus, only to be slapped with a 12 to 20 dollar fee for the lockers when you arrive.

They claimed that "we're just trying to get people to carpool or use the bus, not make money with paid parking", but their actions regarding the lockers suggest otherwise. Whether you drive or take the bus, you get hosed either way. The only ways to avoid paying for either are to be a 4+ carpool, or boot up before taking the bus and plan to not need anything out of your bag the entire day. Both are not feasible for the majority of skiers. Management knows this, which is why these policies are in place.

Any resort saying they're not attempting to make money with paid parking is lying though their teeth.

All these nickel-and-diming schemes are also meant to disproportionately punish solo travelers, which is a problem when you're single and don't have many friends.

You should have seen Solitude back in the 90’s early 2000’s.

If it was snowing you could ski fresh turns all day long and roll right on to empty chairs!

 

[tirolski]

Skiing is a recreational activity, something that should be fun, but if you have to game out how to avoid getting charged these nuisance fees, then that takes a lot of the enjoyment out of it. That's kind of what you do when flying and is part of why most people don't particularly like air travel.

Airlines used to let ya smoke cigs, serve a decent meal with drinks on the plane and let ya walk right up to the gate to get on.

Now it’s, go thru a maze, take off your shoes, empty yer pockets, spin the dice yer plane doesn’t get cancelled and then ya might get thrown a bag of “free” crackers on the plane if yer lucky enough to takeoff.

Trains work better than planes too.
These too might just be the good old days.

 

[Ripitz]

You should have seen Solitude back in the 90’s early 2000’s.

If it was snowing you could ski fresh turns all day long and roll right on to empty chairs!

This is the Solitude I always heard about.

If you’re smooth like James you’ve got a friend with a condo at the base.

 

[snoloco]

The one day I skied at Solitude, parking was completely full, yet lift lines were short to non-existent. Parking is their limiting factor there, as it is for all the Cottonwoods resorts. They could all handle more skiers, but the resorts generally do a poor job managing parking, and UTA does an even worse job at providing sufficient bus service. They slashed service in half this year, and it can be hard to even get on a bus now as they are often full.

 

[tirolski]

You should have seen Solitude back in the 90’s early 2000’s.

If it was snowing you could ski fresh turns all day long and roll right on to empty chairs!

Was around there in the summer back then for a week for a science meeting.
Folks called Park City "Sin City" cause they served liquor.
The golfing was fantastic. So were the cart girls.
USA’s women ski team was there too.
Folks were building huge houses around the golf courses.
Put a lot of miles and dust on the little red Toyota rental car driving on the dirt roads in the Wasatch.