VAIL SUCKS

[deadheadskier]

Vail makes us pay for seasonal children's lessons NINE months in advance.

It's like $1,600 a kid, so imagine if you had 3 or 4 kids, you're laying out thousands of dollars almost a year ahead of time. And you have no choice but to do this, because they really limit it, because Vail doesn't want to be teaching local kids in the first place, they want to be raping tourist parents at $250 an hour for kiddie lessons. For those not already in the program, it's like logging in to TicketMaster back-in-the-day at 10am for U2 or Rolling Stones tickets.

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I think this is more an industry thing than a Vail Sucks thing.

Gunstock makes us buy the kids programs in March. You can go on a no interest payment plan, but most of the Devo programs sell out right away.

It's a 9 week program, but the holiday weeks are all off. You do the weekend before Xmas as an intro and staging by ability. Then 8 weeks after the Xmas holidays excluding MLK and the two weekends around Mass vacation week. I actually like that the holidays are off so we can travel elsewhere. The reason for it though is so they can have all instructors available for the more profitable ala carte lessons. Fine by me if that factors into keeping the seasonal costs down. $650 a kid isn't so bad for 18 hours of coaching for the season.

There is likely a shortage of ski instructors in general across the industry. It's a function of cheap passes available, low wages and high housing costs near the ski areas.

Vail still sucks though

 

[thetrailboss]

Vail makes us pay for seasonal children's lessons NINE months in advance.

It's like $1,600 a kid, so imagine if you had 3 or 4 kids, you're laying out thousands of dollars almost a year ahead of time. And you have no choice but to do this, because they really limit it, because Vail doesn't want to be teaching local kids in the first place, they want to be raping tourist parents at $250 an hour for kiddie lessons. For those not already in the program, it's like logging in to TicketMaster back-in-the-day at 10am for U2 or Rolling Stones tickets.

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Snowbird does the same thing. It used to be a great value and a great program, but they lost their awesome instructors and it now sucks.

 

[thetrailboss]

I think this is more an industry thing than a Vail Sucks thing.

Gunstock makes us buy the kids programs in March. You can go on a no interest payment plan, but most of the Devo programs sell out right away.

It's a 9 week program, but the holiday weeks are all off. You do the weekend before Xmas as an intro and staging by ability. Then 8 weeks after the Xmas holidays excluding MLK and the two weekends around Mass vacation week. I actually like that the holidays are off so we can travel elsewhere. The reason for it though is so they can have all instructors available for the more profitable ala carte lessons. Fine by me if that factors into keeping the seasonal costs down. $650 a kid isn't so bad for 18 hours of coaching for the season.

There is likely a shortage of ski instructors in general across the industry. It's a function of cheap passes available, low wages and high housing costs near the ski areas.

Vail still sucks though

Yeah, I have to agree that this is now a common thing in the industry--paying so early in advanced. I am not a fan of it. When I first moved out to Utah the renewal period for Snowbird was from May until the end of September. Now it is compressed into like a one-month period between April and May.

And as much as I like Boyne, they have now become the worst offender at Brighton. We had literally a 10 day period to renew passes in early April to get a discount.

If I had to guess, Vail probably started this trend. Or at least everyone will blame them for it (as they adopt it).

 

[AdironRider]

I find most programs sell out, even at tiny mountains, so it makes little sense to have some super long registration period as it just results in pissed off customers that procrastinate and can't get in. This is really a customer service issue in the sense of preventing bad customer experience for those that wait. The net cost to the consumer is the same so that doesn't really matter. If for some reason they don't sell out, the mountain can open it up at a later date, but that is very rare IME.

Besides, if you are a season long program customer, you are pretty used to buying passes, etc and everything else associated with your ski season in the spring now anyways. I'd rather just do it all at once than have to remember to buy passes in March, then ski school at some other date.

In terms of the 10 day window to renew season passes at a significant discount, cry me a river, but seems par for this thread to complain about a business doing things to make the business stronger (hint, selling everything on sale isn't a great business model). Most mountains offer a payment plan or some version of loan program if you are that strapped (like Indy with their payment plan for example).

 

[drjeff]

It's an industry wide thing where they try and balance figuring out how many instructors/coaches they will have returning for past participants and children of staff and how many they can (hopefully) hire and how that equates to more of a public rollout in the Fall when newbies into seasonal programs tend to buy.

The folks who run seasonal programs are on basically a year round search for coaches/instructors and often within their programs develop a "Coach in Training" type program for Highschool aged young adults who are aging out/interesting out of seasonal program participation and may have interest in learning to be a coach.

I can almost guarantee I'll hear about this when I am on a golf trip in Ireland next week where 2 of the crew I am going with are one of the head coaches of Mount Snow’s "Coach in Training" program and another in our group is one of the co heads of their seasonal Development program.. Heck they recruited (more like told ) my youngest kid that he was going to be one of the 1st 2 Highschool aged folks through the Coach in training program going on 5 years ago now, and he's now got is USSSA level 100 alpine competition coaching certification and was an assistant coach for the U12 race program this past Winter and the other in his class now has her PSIA Level 1 certification and is an assistant coach in the development program this past Winter, both of whom are finishing up their sophomore years in college at schools in the Boston area.

Seasonal programs often have a greater demand than supply of coaches and coach recruitment and retention is basically a year round endeavor for the program leaders

 

[bigbob]

Yeah, I have to agree that this is now a common thing in the industry--paying so early in advanced. I am not a fan of it. When I first moved out to Utah the renewal period for Snowbird was from May until the end of September. Now it is compressed into like a one-month period between April and May.

And as much as I like Boyne, they have now become the worst offender at Brighton. We had literally a 10 day period to renew passes in early April to get a discount.

If I had to guess, Vail probably started this trend. Or at least everyone will blame them for it (as they adopt it).

Boyne refers to it as the flash sale for the New England pass back east. Best prices for next year. I do the no interest 6 pay, why noy use someone else's money for free.

 

[Hastur]

Vail makes us pay for seasonal children's lessons NINE months in advance.

It's like $1,600 a kid, so imagine if you had 3 or 4 kids, you're laying out thousands of dollars almost a year ahead of time. And you have no choice but to do this, because they really limit it, because Vail doesn't want to be teaching local kids in the first place, they want to be raping tourist parents at $250 an hour for kiddie lessons. For those not already in the program, it's like logging in to TicketMaster back-in-the-day at 10am for U2 or Rolling Stones tickets.

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Claiming local status already.

nice.

 

[AdironRider]

He claimed it basically the day he showed up, like only the best ones do.

 

[deadheadskier]

The folks who run seasonal programs are on basically a year round search for coaches/instructors and often within their programs develop a "Coach in Training" type program for Highschool aged young adults who are aging out/interesting out of seasonal program participation and may have interest in learning to be a coach.

This is how Gunstock does it. There are 18 kids in the program my kids do and three coaches. One of the coaches is an adult, two are HS aged kids and often they were kids that participated in the programs as students themselves. I could see this being my kids first job when they age out of the program at 15.

They also have a generous season pass benefit. First year the coach gets their own pass plus one more. Each additional year you coach you get another pass up to a total of 3 additional passes. I randomly rode a chair this winter with a guy whose daughter was a HS senior and as it was her third year coaching, his entire family of 4 got free passes.

 

[drjeff]

This is how Gunstock does it. There are 18 kids in the program my kids do and three coaches. One of the coaches is an adult, two are HS aged kids and often they were kids that participated in the programs as students themselves. I could see this being my kids first job when they age out of the program at 15.

They also have a generous season pass benefit. First year the coach gets their own pass plus one more. Each additional year you coach you get another pass up to a total of 3 additional passes. I randomly rode a chair this winter with a guy whose daughter was a HS senior and as it was her third year coaching, his entire family of 4 got free passes.

Can't disagree as now me as part of the race crew (who helps both the competition and Development programs at Mount Snow) and my son as an alpine comp coach, that the benefits (and family cost savings) would be as enticing as they are, let alone the commraderie of the crews of people we work with are