Summit Express Gondola — Attraction in Lutsen Township

They only get 2 stars because of the fantastic view from their site and because they are likely understaffed, but that’s the only grace they get. Their organization and process is archaic and completely lacking. They say on their website that during peak hours, guests should expect to wait a few hours for the gondola. Wrong. We waited a few hours JUST to get a paper version of a ticket we already had reserved online… then we were directed to wait in ANOTHER line that was about the same length as the one we just waited in. We waited in the second line for about 10 more minutes before just giving up. As others have said on the general Lutsen Mountain reviews, they DO NOT issue refunds, so I didn’t even bother asking. They also state on the website that guests should expect to park in their overflow lot. What they fail to mention is that the overflow lot is 1/4 mile away from their main area where you get tickets and get on the gondola. They also fail to mention there are no actual parking spaces sectioned out, so it’s just a free-for-all and everyone parks crooked and can drive any direction they want….oh, and there’s no one directing traffic (though there was someone when we left). I saw some guests parking even further (up to a half mile) down the hill and walking up. The line for the alpine slide itself was much shorter, but we still had to wait nearly 2 hours for the ticket. Additionally, while there was someone up there directing people when they could start sliding, they weren’t spacing it out right. They say people can control their speed which is true, but I was simultaneously about to run into the person in front of me while the person behind me was gaining on me (because I had to slow down to not run into the person ahead). So really I didn’t even enjoy the scenery on the slide because I was too busy trying to find the balance between not holding up who was behind me and not running into the person in front of me. They should have a check point half way down where someone stands to alert the director up top that the next person can go… that way people have a chance to enjoy what’s around them. As an added bonus, the bathrooms were absolutely disgusting. One toilet was literally overflowing with waste, another was filled with blood. The stall I went into had an ok toilet, but someone had left a bloody tampon sitting on the toilet paper dispenser along with the wrapper, applicator, and a bloody/wet piece of toilet paper.

We wasted 3.5 hours parking, standing in line, feeling rushed on the slide, and not riding the gondola. Suggestions for the future: they need to allow online ticket buyers to go directly to the purchased activities. They also need to limit the amount of tickets sold, so that those with a reservation can actually use them. They need to put actual lines in the overflow lot with arrows to direct traffic flow. They need to have more organized direction for slide riders. At the very least, if they don’t want to put any helpful processes in place, they need to issue ACTUAL REFUNDS to people who don’t get to experience what they paid for as a result of Lutsen’s...

Worst Cancellation Policy - BEWARE... First of all, while buying in-person tickets at the counter, they did not give me any hint about their worst cancellation policy. I purchased 5 tickets, worth $173 at around 1:10 PM and the person at counter did not even tell me 1) that there is a thunderstorm watch going on at their end 2) that they have a cancellation policy with no refund. At 1:24 PM. (the time it takes to walk from the ticket counter up to the gondola station), they decided to STOP gondola service due to bad weather. I came right down and asked to refund me as there was no positive sign for them to restart for the day. This was around 1:35 PM. The person at counter says NO REFUND, ONLY CREDIT, and NON-TRANSFERRABLE. Even after I mentioned that I'm from out of State and that there is no reason I would come back again to use these tickets in a year, she kept saying the same. First of all, this cancellation policy is one of the worst.

My argument is,

1. With their team having a thunderstorm watch on-going, they should have hinted the customer at counter about the watch and also about their cancellation policy (No refund and only Credit and non-transferable) so I as a customer would have taken a decision at that time. This did not happen

2. For anyone buying at the counter, the team ASSUMES that customers have read the cancellation policy. But in reality, I had no clue they had such BAD policy. So why are people at counter only focused on selling tickets but HIDING their cancellation policy by not being mentioned about it? They also gave me NO RECEIPT for the transaction nor any doc that shows me what the cancellation policy was.

3. They made an argument as if they came to know about the thunderstorm at 1:23 PM. and decided to shut down at 1:24 PM. This makes me think like a SCAM because while their team was watching for the thunderstorm their other team at counter is busy selling as much ticket as possible and efficiently hiding their Cancellation policy to their walk-in customers assuming they knew it all.

Overall, it's NOT WORTH a trip here. Get ready to lose your hard earned money to these people who only focus on selling tickets and DO NOT CARE about the...

If you’re going on a weekend you better get there before they open. The website said fall hours were 10-6, after getting there we realize the day we were there was a day they actually opened at 9. We got there at 10:45 and did not get on the gondola until 1:30. Did not imagine getting through the ticket line then the gondola line would take 3 hours. Don’t bother buying tickets online in advance as you still have to wait through the whole ticket line so that doesn’t help speed up the process at all. Even with it being crazy busy and the length of the lines they don’t fill the gondolas. We watched many party’s of 2 take the gondola. I do understand how most people would enjoy taking the gondola with just those they came with but on a day like that I think it was insane that they were not filling the gondolas to capacity to help the lines move faster even a little bit. I can imagine the time others spent in line as by the time we got in the gondola the line was twice as long as it was when we got in it. I think they really need to allow online ticket holders to skip the ticket line, fill the gondolas, and have someone there to make people aware of the time they will be waiting. We would not have wasted a huge part of our day just standing around. The view is beautiful but it was not worth the awful experience of getting into the gondola. On top of that there is no one paying attention to the line, there was a family of 5 in front of us when we approached the end of the line the rest of there group which was an additional 40 people came and jumped in line and they were allowed to skip over everyone who had been waiting for at least an hour and a half. There are literally 0 good things I could say...