Bear Mountain — Attraction in Big Bear Lake

No Safe place for your Toddler to learn, UNLESS YOU ARE RICH!! I showed up to start my 5 year old on a snowboard for the very 1st time. We arrived on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon. Our service to purchase $550 weekday season passes was GREAT. The 80's music and professional customer service was spot on. Got geared up and headed to the Magic Carpets with my 5 year old. I ask a staff member how to get into the fenced off Magic carpet area and I was inform this area is only for people who have purchase lessons. After confirming I hear the lady correct, I asked "so where am I able to take my 5 year old and start training her?" Response was, "in between the 2 lifts is a small area good for that." ARE YOU F...ING KIDDING ME? To make matters worse, Bear Mountain has 4 Magic Carpets (large beginners area). So your idea of good customer service is to have me train my 5 year old in a very busy area with a bunch of "young adults" who are smoking whatever in your parking lot? ( I saw 2 different cars smoking in your parking lot) I'm sure you feel safe with the waiver you have everyone sign. But as a small business owner, you must also provide a safe environment within your controls. I can not imagine you winning a law suit given you have 4 areas safe for new riders and not allow paid customers access them. Seriously, shame on you. I was informed that the beginner's area at Snow Summit is open to the public. So I had to kill my 5 year old's excitement, walk back to the truck, remove most of our cloths, buckle her back in, drive 5 minutes, get us dressed again, walk onto Snow Summit, and start all over again. Snow Summit must have better instructors. There the beginner's area is open to the public AND they held private lessons. Regular people work hard to afford $550 passes and everything needed to go to your mountain. You have 4 Magic Carpets areas fenced off at Bear Mountain. Could you please respond on why 1 can not be for regular people? After someone buys your expensive lessons, do you kick them out of the beginner area and make the go "in between the lifts" where there is heavy traffic? At Snow Summit, why are you selling lessons there? To be fair, shouldn't all lesson be a Bear which gives regular people more space in the beginner areas? I moved multiple times at Summit out of respect for the instructors, which...

Ok, it definitely better than the other ski resorts with a couple of hours, no doubt about that. There are a few runs that are ok when the snow is good, Geronimo for example. But of all the ski resorts I have visited in the US and Canada, this is the worst in terms of so many things. First of all, getting there is a battle, then getting through Big Bear village was 55min today.Parking and shuttle, is a nightmare. I know the resort is close to Big Bear village, but they need to invest money into this, instead of just pulling money out of it. Some of the people working there are really nice, mostly the more mature ones. Some of the younger ones really shouldn't deal with customers. The ticket booth situation is a joke. 35min to get a ticket? Something is broken! And $105 for a half day ticket? I didn't even get angry, I started laughing because it such a joke. Most younger lift operators were either total newbies who never put people on a lift before or just didn't care about their jobs. 100s of people waiting and they put 1 or 2 people on a 4 seater? But most annoying of all, the other guests. I realize that everyone has to learn at some point, I'm fine with that, I was there once too. But snowboarders were sitting everywhere, and it almost becomes an obstacle course getting down. Plenty of people smoking weed and drinking beers on the lifts, then falling all over the place afterwards. The company who owns Mammoth, owns Big Bear, why not just make it work the same. They are like night and day. I hate myself for wasting time going to Big Bear every single time I go there, should have gone to...

Safety/security issues: The chair lift speed is too fast. Multiple people falling down when exiting lift, due to high speeds.

Too crowded- high speed skiers on Geronimo merge almost hitting “learning curve” skiers. One experienced skier almost crashed into me exiting Geronimo.

Lower/free parking lot not properly de-iced/salted. I watched a man spin his wheels unable to drive up slope to exit the bear mountain parking lot. It was iced over, and there was no salt or gravel thrown on it for grip. No parking attendants around. I offered to pay $50 cash for leveled and paved “premium parking lot” but was told it was for pass members only.

Not enough lockers at equipment rental area. All lockers were sold out, when renting boots, skis, etc… I had to hide my belongings, and equipment supervisor didn’t care, said he knew of issue, and had brought it up to management to no avail.

Half day lift tickets/rentals not discounted I arrived at 2:00 pm on Saturday 1/1, and mountain closed at 4:00 p.m. For 2 people renting snowboards was charged $550 No discounted rate for half day lift tickets.

No helpful employees- Only a guy named Rob in boot rentals.

The chair lifts should be labeled with a sign on what level it is, prior to boarding. This is a safety issue. I wanted bunny slope, and chair lift took me to black diamond.

Call center doesn’t answer. I tried calling for 30+ minutes to relay these issues, and no one picked up. Wrote a...