Whistler Blackcomb — Attraction in Whistler Resort Municipality

Important Review for Non-Skiers Considering a Visit

If you're someone who doesn't ski and are planning to visit Whistler for sightseeing—especially during the winter—this review is for you. One word of advice: don’t. There is nothing up there for non-skiers in winter.

We're new to Canada—just a year in—and based in Vancouver. Naturally, we’d heard a lot about Whistler and the famous Peak 2 Peak Gondola, so we decided to explore it over the Easter weekend. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a mistake. Let me walk you through our experience, which might help you make a better decision.

We arrived at Whistler around 9 AM and went straight to the ticket window at the Whistler Mountain Gondola. The adult ticket was $150 each—if you're going as a family, book online in advance to save a bit (around $50 for a family of 4–6).

From the moment you arrive, you'll notice the place is geared almost entirely toward skiers. In line, you’ll see everyone with full ski gear, and if you're not skiing, you’ll probably feel like an outsider. But we were still excited for the gondola ride and the mountaintop views.

The gondola ride itself was smooth, and the views going up were indeed beautiful. But once we got to the top, the excitement quickly faded. The sunlight was extremely harsh reflecting off the snow—if you forget sunglasses, you’ll barely be able to open your eyes. Everything is dazzling white, which can be overwhelming and disorienting.

Once you're at the top, you'll realize there’s nothing much to do unless you’re skiing. The entire area is dominated by skiers zooming past, and it’s hard to even find a safe spot to stand—especially if you have kids with you. Seating options are almost non-existent except for a small restaurant area, which gets packed quickly.

After wrapping up at Whistler Mountain, we took the Peak 2 Peak Gondola to Blackcomb Mountain. That 10-minute ride was genuinely stunning, probably the highlight of the whole trip. But once you’re on Blackcomb, it’s the same story—more skiers, no space for sightseeing or relaxing, and no dedicated areas for non-skiing tourists.

In short, if you don’t ski, avoid visiting in winter. There’s very little for you to do, and it feels like the entire setup is built with only skiers in mind. I can’t comment on the summer experience, but I’d be cautious if the sunlight is still intense and there’s limited...

Such a huge disappointment!! Went there in March 2025 with my family and can tell that Whistler Blackcomb ski resort is not worth the money asked for. Ski pass is at an outrageous price, between 2.5 and 3 times more than a pass in one of the top French/Swiss ski resorts (318 cad$ /205€) . But if only it would have been a world class experience, it would have been with this money. But what you really find in Whistler Blackcomb: a resort with the same average kilometres of slopes than a nice resort in Europe, only 25 ski lifts to climb (vs 65 to 80 lifts for the same size in France/Switzerland), hence the queues and waiting time (20 to 30 minutes), I have never seen since my childhood (40 years ago), some chair lifts was quite recent, but quite slow as well, for the rest of the chair lifts it was old chair lifts, very slow and only 4 seats. If a ski resort has only 25 lifts, at least they should be 6 to 8 seats and fast ones, after snowfall the upper part of the resort never opened before 10.45am due to avalanche control in progress (vs in FR/SWISS the staff is already working on avalanche control from 6am to open the full resort at the standard opening time), with all the upper part closing at 3pm there is not so much time ski time left, chair lifts constantly stopping mainly due to inexperienced staff operating it, unable to manage the skiers properly, most of the operators of lifts not even smiling or saying hello, like if their experience was probably as bad as our, WB ski rental with the same outrageous price, ending up with skis and boots definitely used. No ski rental shop would dare renting such skis and boots in France or Switzerland in this state and at this price, Many more to say, but to sum up: Vail Resorts isn’t investing in its resort, but keep the prices at a world class level for a resort playing at a regional level. If Vail has some ambition, it should come to Europe to take few exemples to come back with in North America. From my side it was my first and last experience with skiing in North America, such big disappointment, a big waste of money, a very poor experience. Is this true that Whistler Blackcomb ranked #1 Ski Resort in North America?? Shocking. I can’t imagine what it may be to ski in the 10th resort...

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...