Skitotal — Attraction in Las Condes

I am giving a bad review because of the bad quality of the gear and treatment of the employees/Company. My boyfriend and I used Ski Total for a 1 day tour of Valle de Nevado with hotel pick up/drop off, ski/gear rentals, transfer to the mountain and hotel drop off. We are from the US and have a certain level of expectation of customer service. Here are the facts of our experience.

I lost our Ski Total contract & lift ticket vouchers while trying on boots that morning. Therefore, we were required to purchase new lift ticket vouchers at Ski Total. My boyfriends boot strap broke after our first run on the mountain. He had to rent new boots from the mountain, which took over 1.5 hours from our day. Ski Total said they would refund the rental.

When we got back to Santiago, we were thrilled to learn they found our lift tickets. One of the employees was really angry at the guy who had it. He seemed to be the only one sympathetic for us.

Here is why I am rating Ski Total 2 stars: My boyfriend was to be reimbursed for the amount he paid to rent the boots on the mountain, but still was required to pay the full amount to SkiTotal for the faulty boots he’d rented from them (10.500 pesos). Even though it took nearly 2 hours out of his already short ski day, they refused to refund these.

We were not to be reimbursed for the 98,000 pesos we paid for the 2 new lift tickets we purchased. The vouchers included in the package we bought were valued at 94,000 pesos, which we were reimbursed for. The employees were not going to fully reimburse us for the tickets since it was my fault we lost them. My question: why couldn’t we have purchased the new ones at the 94,000 pesos (47,000 pesos/ticket)? The staff was extremely rude towards us and was appalled we even asked for this.

Okay, so we know it was my fault for losing the tickets, but were astonished by the lack of sympathy from the employees. It was only a 4,000 peso difference. We thought this would help with the lack of the discounts for the need to rent new boots on the mountain. Not only were we not provided this, we were being yelled at simultaneously by the two staff processing the refund. This was after the 5 staff returning the equipment were all loudly talking about whether or not we should get reimbursed.

The equipment we were provided was not great. My boyfriends boots obviously were not in riding condition, his board had several gashes in it and was well beyond its lifetime, and the zipper on my jacket kept falling down (however my skis were in good shape).The hotel pick up was later than the 6:45AM-7AM pick up time stated. We didn’t get to the the first lift until 11:30AM.

We would not recommend this place if you have expectations of customer service and high quality (or just...

Don't get injured ..

Let me first start by saying I would consider myself an expert skier and snowboarder. I ski around 25 days a season in North America and have skied 30+ years. 6 of us went to Chile to ski in August - some snowboarders and some skiers.

The check in process was fine and there was someone who was able to speak English to help with our broken Spanish.

Those of us with skis all ordered the 'high performance' ski set. The skis were older, narrow, had no edges, were dry of wax, and were not what we would consider high performance or 'demo' gear in the US (pretty sure the same gear with or without the high performance mark up). They were going to send us on our way, but a couple requested a quick hand wax and sharpen (+10min/ea) - very sub par when done. We knew the conditions on the mountain were not going to be great, but edges are especially important when icy - everyone wished we had better edges (or better yet, our own gear).

The ski boots, OMG, absolute crap. Most of the reason I wanted to write this review, was to warn people to check your gear yourself. For those that don't know what you're looking for, be skeptical. One of us had boots where the heal was so worn down it would pop out of the ski binding, while in complete control. This is very dangerous on an icy mountain, with other people around, and is very likely you will hurt yourself or someone else, badly. This is completely unacceptable! Every ski shop should check this (and the rest of the gear) and replace soles as needed and at least once a season - these boots probably never had it done. The other boots were also not great. This is so dangerous and we are very lucky we didn't get hurt.

Next, the snowboards. Also no edges or wax and older crap boards. Some also requested a quick hand wax and sharpen (+10min/ea) and also sub par results when complete. The bindings were loose on all boards - due to the weirdest attachment mechanism I've ever seen, which was some twist thingy; not screws like a normal binding - we could not tighten them enough to eliminate the wiggle and even brought them in between ski days when replacing crap ski boots, and the shop guys could not eliminate the wiggle too. The boots and bindings themselves were crap too , but they did the job.

So, maybe we are spoiled in America, but check your gear very thoroughly, request a tune on the way our the door, and double check the gear yourself since the shop obviously doesn't do it; otherwise you will be at risk of hurting yourself or others. Maybe better yet, try another shop around town that knows what they are doing and has better gear .. or even better still, bring...

Decided to take a trip to Valle Nevado with ski total. They spoke English which helped a lot. The transportation was just fine. The only thing that was really disappointing was their rental gear. I rented out a snowboard and bindings through them (had my own boots). The equipment seemed to be working just fine for my first run, but when I decided to go to the top peak of Valle Nevado, I found that my bindings broke. Let me re-emphasis, my bindings broke on a double black diamond right before I was about to go down. I really wish they would check their equipment before they rent it out. It could have been real bad if I was going down and it failed on me. It was the middle of the day so I was pretty much finished once that happened since I didn't have the money to rent new equipment at the resort. When I went back to explain what happened, they didn't want to give me a refund. I didn't even use their boots or their equipment for the full day. Oh well though, I guess. Please check your equipment if you plan to rent through them. Better yet, I would go early, use their transportation service, and rent at the resort itself. At least then, you can always go to the shop to get it repaired or replaced...