Family Skiing Heaven (almost) (Ski Resorts in the USA in general)

Member Name: TinkerTailor

Product:	Ski Resorts in the USA in general
Date:	25/01/01 (560 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great child care, friendly staff, picturesque

Disadvantages: Lack of eating/drinking establishments

Considering skiing with young members of the family? Can't go far wrong with Smugglers.

Smugglers Notch is a pretty small resort in Vermont. It's nearest airport is Burlington, NY which is about an hour's hop on an ickle plane from New Jersey/New York, which in turn is about 8 hours from London. Not too bad a journey for children.

There are a few basic features any ski resort needs to be successful - snow (of course), lifts, food/entertainment and (important for us) good childrens facilities. On most of these, Smugglers is a winner. We skied there the year before last - our first trip skiing in the US with children - and it was a great success.

Snow/Lifts

Smugglers is not an exceptionally high resort but you always stand a reasonable chance of good snow. However it's in the north east so doesn't get anywhere the near the huge dumps you get in Colorado and can be a tad cooler as well. Having said that we went in March and it was definitely getting to end of the season so the snow was not wonderful by the end of the week.

Although there is a relatively limited set of lifts (if I recall correctly, I think it's eight), there's actually a large number of runs, mostly through trees that link and cross allowing you to take plenty of different routes without repeating yourself. Lift queues were always acceptable (and often non-existent) and even if you were waiting, the lift staff were extraordinarly friendly. Quite an eye-opener for someone used to the standard of service (not) offered in europe.

One of the best features is that the resort is linked to Stowe which is a much bigger resort and has a high speed gondola to take you to the top. I believe there are buses to get there, but much more fun is to take the lift to the top at Smugglers then walk/push across the frozen lake to ski down into Stowe. Obviously, you need to check the weather conditions before setting out!

Overall a go
od resort for beginners/intermediates although maybe a little limited for advanced. The scenary makes up for a lot though - skiing through trees is much more fun than the wide open motorways of some resorts.

Food/Entertainment

The major downside of the resort though is that there is only really three places to go eat. All serve very good food and, except one part of one restaurant (a welcome retreat from children!), are very child friendly. You won't find many bars or restaurants on the mountain and there isn't a bar at the bottom of the main slope where everyone congregates for a beer at the end of the last run down (always one of the high spots in my skiing day!). Accomodation is all in condos/apartments, and a lot of the americans do their own cooking.

There is a good swimming pool under cover (good to use at the end of the day as the lifts close quite early) and a neighbouring outdoor ice rink which was closed when we were there (getting too warm)

Childrens Facilities

The key reason for choosing Smugglers was that is has repeatedly won the "Family Resort of the year" award. The whole site is owned by a single company and makes organization very easy. There are kindergartens for little 'uns and ski school and clubs for the slightly older children. Several nights during the week evening entertainment (show or movie) is provided to allow the adults a couple of quiet hours in the bar.

At the end of each day, Mogul Mouse (the resort mascot) meets everyone in the town square for hot chocolate.


Summary

A few companies go to Smugglers. I think we used Ski the American Dream, but you can organize it yourself. Accomodation, ski packages, childrens packages are all available in job lots, so it takes some of the worries about organizing stuff away. They have an excellent web site and you can call and 0800 number in the UK to talk directly to them. They will even send you a fre
e video to see the resort for yourself.

Overall, I'd recommend Smugglers for family skiers who perhaps aren't keen on throwing themselves down icy cliff triple-diamond blacks. There's enough skiing fun for all and the welcome is extremely warm. Unfortunately, the night life is very limited and that's the reason I can't rate it a 5 star resort.

Would we go back - frankly, no. The following year we went to Steamboat (opinion yet to be written) which had the nightlife and more skiing, but I would still recommend Smugglers for the first timer.

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