I just spent three days skiing in Whistler Blackcomb. This is my first time skiing in North America. The experience has been amazing: great snow conditions, nice people and good service. I can't wait to come here again.

Here are some observations compared to European resorts (I've skied/snowboarded in Sweden, France and Austria):

• General

• More snowboarders here than Europe.
• Slopes are in general wider.
• Slopes are not as long as big European resorts.
• The snow condition was amazing for the three days I skied. It's wetter, maybe because it's near the coast. Many pistes are not groomed though.

• Lifts

• Easy pistes at almost every lift. Unlike some lifts in Europe only have blacks and reds going down. This is easier for beginners to manage.
• Queues at lifts can be quite long. There was 30cm fresh snow on my last day skiing and the queues were huge. They also delayed the opening of lifts, which a local lady in front of me in the queue said it was due to poor management. I ended up waiting for an hour for one of the lifts. No queues for the other two days.

• Ski pass

• Scan your ski pass once at the foot of the mountain and no need to scan at each lift.
• You can use an app for your ski pass. The idea is it'll scan through your jacket but for the 3 days I skied it never worked. They always had to manually scan it with me opening the app. The app is slow too.

• Details I liked:

• On some posts close to the end of chair lifts, there are useful indications for directions.
• Toilet baskets in each individual toilet to put your gloves and phones.
• Drinking fountains in lodges/restrooms.
• Pistes are marked with different colours on different sides. The more dangerous side is often marked with orange poles.
• Glacier creek lodge women's restrooms have free tampons.
• The chairs in some food courts have a basket and hook under to put gloves and helmet.
• No queue at toilets and they are always clean.

• Service: very friendly staff everywhere.