Mount Snow Ski & Snowboard School — Attraction in Dover

Here is the best and most honest review you will read about the Mt. Snow Ski & Snowboard School. This place needs to get it together. The levels of classes depend on your experience so purchase your lesson accordingly. I had never snowboarded before, so I took part in the $99 Learn to Ride First Timers group program. The price includes rentals for your bindings, board, boots and lift ticket to the Discovery lift.. (it does not include your helmet) It takes place in the Discovery Center of the park, which is off to the right of the main lifts. The lessons should be about 3 hours long. The First Timer lesson starts behind the receptionist desk indoors and spends its time teaching you how to put on your gear (from boots to board). We then learned how to maneuver around with one foot out of the bindings. This is called skating. But I wish we stopped there. We spent about 1 1/2 hours going down a small grade with a foot out of the binding. This helps teach you nothing. I was so frustrated I couldn't control myself with 2 feet strapped in by the end of the day. I almost gave up. I thought about it overnight and wound up coming back the next day for the Learn to Ride for Beginners at the $106 cost. This still includes your rental gear aside from the helmet. Be careful - this terminology (First Timers vs Beginners) confuses the front desk, receptionist, and some of the instructors. This Beginner class meets outside behind the building. There are different levels, yellow and green. I still don't know which color I was assigned, but I worked with Bob and it turned out I was the only one in the class. He worked with me and really paid attention to my form. He corrected me, he helped me, and he really gave some expert advice that got me up and going down the bunny hills on my own. I was ecstatic and am forever thankful for what he did for me. His patience and guidance were key to getting me to understanding the snowboarding concept. I think the success I had was based on the tailored nature of the lesson. I definitely would recommend a private lesson over the class, unless you can find a class with a low registration count. 3-4 may even be too many people. Overall, Mt. Snow should look into renaming some of its group courses so people aren't confused or lost. They could then put up clearer signage so students know where to go. Overall, big shout out to Bob. I'm super excited to keep practicing with the skills...

Mt. Snow (& Stratton, which is about a 15 minute drive away from Mt. Snow) was where I continued to train/learn how to race after first learning to Ski/PeeWee League race at Haystack (where I'd also learned to actually ⛷️) over a period of two Winters when I was a kid growing up. My parent's house was in South Newfane, which is VERY close by to both Haystack/Mt. Snow.

In Southern Vermont, Mt. Snow and Stratton have the BEST Ski & Snowboard Schools available to people skiing these mountains. Each 🗻 individually has an impressive school and racing training program, but collectively it's world-class. Mt. Snow & Stratton also helped me obtain membership in the Vermont Alpine Racing Association (VARA) which allowed me to continue to gain racing experience as I got older at other Vermont Mountains as I transitioned from PeeWee to a Junior League racer.

After training in Vermont for about five years, I went abroad and skied/raced in Scotland, Switzerland, Italy, France & Austria for three years from 1984-1987. Racing in Europe was EXTREMELY exciting and it was only because I trained in Vermont that I was able to compete at that level.

When I came back from living/racing in Europe, I continued Junior League racing in Vermont for VARA, and competed at mountains all over the state, plus in upstate NY, MA, NH & ME. This allowed me to then compete at the National Level in Aspen & Lake Tahoe during my high school years.

During college (I went to college in New England also down in Western Massachusetts), I founded and Head Coached my college's first downhill Alpine ⛷️ team, and led them to four annual USCSA Eastern & Mideastern Conference Championships where we placed very highly as a collegiate team. We also competed and placed very high up in the USCSA Regional races as well. And held our own at invitationals against the Amherst, UMass, Middlebury, Dartmouth, UVM, UNH, UM & New England College 🎿 teams as well.

ALL of these accomplishments would NEVER have been possible if it hadn't been for all that early training I'd had @ Haystack, Mt. Snow & Stratton. The BEST 🏔️'s in...

For the price, the all day class experience was ridiculous. Writing this review for my cousin's experience. We signed my 13 year old cousin up for his first ski lesson, something we've all done as kids and he was so excited. It was much more expensive than we expected but figured time with a professional, it was worth it. We chose the 7-14 kids all day ski class. He was in class with a bunch of 7 year olds, which is fine because we knew the age range. But the entire class revolved around their abilities and what they wanted to do. He spent the entire day going around cones, never going on a ski lift (we literally bought a ski lift ticket required for the class) and barely even skiing at all. By the time my entire family has left full day ski lessons in the past, we were up the mountain. And we've taken lessons at multiple mountains as kids. We're also part of a local ski club and nobody could believe he did not get up into the mountain at 13 years old in an all day lesson. We reached out trying to get some type of refund or explanation and we haven't heard a single thing back. It's been 4 days with no phone call or email response. The instructor was also very very young, could even be a minor himself. We can't tell if he was struggling to take care of the younger kids or if this is normal for Mount Snow ski lessons. For $325 with the requirement of a kid's lift ticket to take the class, this is truly ridiculous. He is an athletic kid who was bored to tears all day. Hoping Mount Snow rectifies this and offers another lesson with a real ski professional, or a refund. I wouldn't take my kid to a lesson at this mountain if I knew this was the quality of lesson they would...