Sugar Mountain Ski Resort — Attraction in Sugar Mountain

We visited Sugar Mountain for the first time 27 Dec and we will never go back. My husband and I take about 4 ski trips each season but we usually go to Snowshoe, WV or out west. We were taking our niece and nephews skiing/snowboarding for the first time so we decided to go to nearby Sugar Mountain. Unfortunately, it was by far the worst ski experience we've ever had. INEFFICIENCIES You can't buy lift tickets or lessons online You can pre-register the day before for the kid's ski school but you have to go in person and stand in line for a few hours. They sold out for 27 Dec by 4 pm on 26 Dec The traffic flow in the rental area causes congestion. There's a row of kiosks between the lockers and rental area to check in but that's also the same small space everyone is walking through to get back to the lockers after picking up rental equipment There are no organized lines in the rental area. We got to the mountain when they opened and it took 2.5 hours to get rental equipment for our kids They sell the lift tickets, rental tickets & do the adjustments all at the same counter so the process is extremely slow At the ski rental equipment counter, there are 2 separate computers for lift ticket sales and rental sales so most customers are doing two separate transactions The snowboard rental equipment area only had one computer and two employees They have a 6 person chair lift and had a 30 minute lift line but they weren't filling up the chairs and were sending people 2 at a time LACK OF SAFETY CONCERNS They do not limit ticket sales and the mountain was incredibly overcrowded The ski patrol sled hill goes through the bunny slope. Within an hour, two injured people were pulled at high speed straight through the overcrowded bunny slope. They pulled a sled feet from my niece and she saw someone who had their finger sliced off and was understandably freaked out They don't have any staff on the mountain ensuring safety. The conditions were bad and people were wiping out everywhere They had snow guns blowing during night skiing in places that didn't have lights so there were spots with little to no visibility POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE The information desk is hidden around a corner in an area where you can't take equipment and they had no staff giving instructions inside the rental area at a resort full of first timers so everything was chaotic There's a separate building for buying tickets for ski school/lessons. The kid's ski school is advertised as including rental equipment so we thought we should start there for buying tickets. We lined up there as soon as they opened and after standing in line for about 10 minutes an employee walked up to the line and rudely yelled that the kid's ski school lessons were sold out (they sold out the day before during pre-registration). There were no signs stating the ski school was sold out. The employee asked if we had rental equipment yet and proceeded to act like I was an idiot because we were in line for lessons before getting rental equipment. He threw up his hands and yelled at me saying "Well it'll take you at least an hour to get rental equipment!" This was in front of the 4 kids I had with me and everyone else standing in line who made the same mistake we did not knowing the kid's ski school lessons were already sold out. They need to use signs - they could easily place a sign outside stating ski school lessons are sold out so you need to get rental equipment first and then buy group or private lessons. The employees are frustrated any time you ask them anything, likely because they are overwhelmed They have a group lesson at 12:00 but you have to buy a full day lift ticket because half day lift tickets start at 12:30, so they require a full day lift ticket for the 12:00 lesson. It feels like a money grab. -2 of my kids were in a group snowboard lesson and never went down the bunny slope and on the magic carpet lift. They stayed on a small corner for a flat patch of snow for the full hour and a half. Picture added...

Terrible Customer Service! This might be the least family-friendly ski resort on the east coast. Our latest trip was last week during MLK weekend. We fully expected it to be busy, but they really packed it in without a care for how terrible the experience would be for everyone. However, my wife and 7 year old had their passes yanked because my youngest was trying to stop at the bottom of Easy Street (a green hill) and there were hundreds of people just laying and standing around. My son kept going and went, literally, 9 feet past the fence to take his skis off. Bernard Thoma, one of the few jerks on the Ski Patrol, came over and yelled at my wife and kid and said, "GIVE ME YOUR PASSES NOW". He said that you can't ski there. That's fine, but it was pointed out to him that there were WAY too many people just hanging out at the bottom of the hill and also the lift line was almost to the fence. My wife even pointed out that people were standing and watching with just their tennis shoes on. Bernard said, " well that's not a rule". Except there is, literally, a sign where they were standing that said "No Foot Traffic Past This Point". He took the passes to the admin office and that was it. He then stopped a grown man that was doing the same exact thing, looked at his pass and then gave it back to him and said not to do it again. We know this because we saw it happen and then went and talked to the guy and he told us what Bernard said.

Then, we went to the admin office to see if there was anything we could do to, at least, get my 7 year olds pass back so he could keep skiing with me (we said they could keep my wife's pass). They, of course, said that they can't do anything except to let us file a complaint on a piece of paper. They handed my wife the paper and said, "fill this out outside". There was no one behind her in line, so my wife said she would just fill it out real quick and leave. One of the girls said they would grab her a clipboard. However, the other girl came up and said, "we are not going to ask you again to take this outside to fill out". INCREDIBLY disrespectful and utterly useless. Not to mention, (as noted by several other people in these google reviews) it's very likely that no one ever sees these paper complaints since we never get a response.

I went and stood where this situation happened for about 20 minutes and watched well over 30 other people do the same thing with no consequences. There were even ski patrol right there that did not stop them. Luckily, I have video of this. I even went and talked to another ski patrol and he said that safety is a concern, but they don't usually stop things unless it's a major problem especially when it's a packed day like it was.

I understand that there are areas that you can't have your skis on for everyone's safety, but there has to be consistency if you're going to make rules. Also, to not give a warning for such a small infraction is a bit ridiculous. There were even a group of snowboarders standing there when Bernard took my 7 year old's pass and they were all telling the ski patrol not to take a little kids pass. It was clearly an overreaction by a ski patrol member that has no business working in a high stress position on a overly packed day. Perhaps he just doesn't like kids or females. Who knows.

The entire operation and administration at Sugar Mountain was a complete let down. Spending as much money as a family does, one would think that there would be a certain level of customer service to enhance the experience. At minimum, the staff shouldn't be disrespectful and rude for no reason.

I highly recommend any family or individual to spend their time and money at one of the other resorts (Beech, App, or Hatley). We won't be going back here anytime soon.

PS - We already had our RFID passes from a trip there a few weeks prior and we were unable to reload them online. We had to wait in line just to reload them. If only that were the biggest issue...

Let me preface this by saying, I've been going to Sugar for 10+ years and my husband has gone with his family for 30. Over the past few years, I've seen th decline. Mainly in customer service. The language barrier between the lift operators and skiers poses a great risk, as I've experienced that risk first hand. On Wednesday evening (February 5th, 2024) the ski lift to the summit messed up at 9:51. My family and I (10 & 7 year old) were next in line to get on. We were staying at Sugar Ski and Country Club on top of Omas Meadow, so the only way to get back to our room was up. There is another lift adjacent to the summit one that could have also brought us to our room, however when we asked if we should shoot over to that one or wait.. they told us to wait. We explained to them that we were staying on top of Omas and needed the ride up and they assured us we'd be able to get on and ride up since we were staying on the mountain. So we waited, at 10:07 they started the lift back up. One Mexican dude came out and said no more skiers and the one that we had been communicating with about where we needed to go explained to him where we were staying. They let us on the lift at 10:07. We immediately got to the top and skied over to Oma's Meadow and literally almost got ran over by a snow plow. Huge bulldozer snow plow going up the mountain. We arrived to the Oma's lift to it being closed and not a soul in sight. It is clear that there was no communication with the other lifts posing a great risk to my family. We skied down and the mountain was completely closed.. everyone was gone and everything was dark. My husband found the only people there, security guards.. which one graciously started calling his wife to give us a ride. However, as nice as it was the altercation was strange.. he was waking up his wife out of her sleep to come shove all of our ski equipment and stuff in her trunk. We did not feel comfortable with that. It wasn't his responsibility, it was Sugar's to maintain the safety of their customers. If the language barrier is that big of a problem, then Mexicans who don't speak English should not be running the lifts. Part of me feels like they did it maliciously because there was no communication and we got on the lift at 10:07. Luckily, the ski guard was still there. We went to their office and my husband explained what happened. They were flabbergasted that they even let us on the lift at that time.. mind you we waiting from 9:50 to 10:07 on account of them telling us we would be able to get to our room knowing lifts close at 10.. that's why we stressed to them where we needed to go as soon as the lift stopped working. They told us to wait. Ski guard was great and helped us handle this situation. They called mountain police and he gave us a ride up to Sugar Ski and Country Club. Blessedly, this outcome didn't end with someone hurt or worse due to poor communication and eager readiness to leave their jobs. It was very clear what happened. We won't be back after...