Boreal Mountain California — Attraction in Truckee

One star because I can't give less. I recently went to Boreal/Woodward for a day of snowboarding with my daughter. I had not been to Boreal for years but always had good experiences. I am not sure for how long but they have made a switch to online sales which is great but in this case, I found it not as efficient as one would think. Unfortunately, I did not realize this until we arrived. At first when we drove in we were directed to take a side road to purchase tickets before entering the main parking lot. We abided along with several other visitors who were parked or wandering the road looking for a signal to make the purchase. I had some success in getting to the website but the signal in this area was pretty poor to complete the necessary steps to make a purchase. After being unsuccessful for 10 minutes, I asked the traffic director if I could go in to hopefully make an in-person purchase in the park thinking they would have a standard walk-up and purchase option.

When I entered the main building, I stood in a line that appeared to be where you would make the purchase for rental items and lift tickets. After waiting in line for 15-20 minutes, I got to the counter to find out all sales were online. It would have been nice to see some signage directing customers to this valuable information before wasting time in line.

I then went ahead to make the purchase online. I had asked the person at the counter if they had wifi available and was told that there were some spots upstairs that I might have luck with. It turns out they might have wifi but this was not made clear but the clerk I spoke to. This is where a kiosk or a few kiosks might have helped make the process of purchasing a ticket easier. After finally finding a stable connection, I was able to make the purchase. The process did require a lot of information. I understand that some information is needed for rentals but it seemed excessive for a lift ticket. Once I completed the purchase I had to return to the same line and wait to be directed to the next step. I was told to pick up the cards from a machine near the desk. Again having more signage could have saved time. I thought things were rolling from this point until the card dispenser only provided half of my order. I spoke to the attendant behind the counter who was unable to provide the pass and directed me to customer service. When I walked over to customer service, I was faced with another long line. It was very frustrating and so inefficient. I was not the only one as I could overhear other guests were just as frustrated with the process. Customer service was able to fix the problem but the clerk did share that this was an ongoing problem that they were dealing with. This had added insult to injury. If you are dealing with a machine that is incorrectly working maybe it could have been looked into to avoid an ongoing issue. After this, I felt back on track headed to get my daughter her rental equipment. By the time I got there, they did not have her correct size shoe so we went with a little bigger. With all sales final and such a process for the purchase perhaps their purchasing system could notify guests if items were or were not going to be before purchase. We ended up getting through the rental line fairly quickly and the people behind the counter seemed helpful. Don’t get me wrong, purchasing online or via the internet is a great way to streamline and get what you need faster however, the park is not set up appropriately with wifi, depnable self service kiosks, signage to guide customers through the process, or possible protocols to keep the process quick and efficient so customers can get in and out to play quickly. We spent almost 2 hours to get set up. My advice is to buy online before you go and be...

Life-threatening experience for beginners!!!!!! We got on the California cruiser lift at about 4:55pm and the lift stopped when we were still up there for almost an hour. It was my first day of riding a lift as a begginer. We waited and waited, but no one came to talk to or rescue us. After roughly 45 minutes of waiting, because I was shivering too much due to the coldness, we looked for the phone number on the website and made phone calls. We tried 3 times until someone finally picked up the phone. The lady on the line was not aware at all that some of us were stuck on the lift and she sounded very surprised. We realized that maybe no one was aware of the problem and no one was even fixing anything after this long waiting time!!!! She immediately started to call internal lines to inform people and arrange the dispatches. We waited for another ten minutes in the cold. We were finally rescued at 6pm. Again, no one explained anything to us until we walked to the tickets section and asked for a senior manager with first name Mat. Mat explained, apologized, and treated us with hot chocolate. We finally understood what’s going on.

Here are the issues: 1) The lift was new and had no mechanical problem; 2) This accident was pure internal communication/management problem; 3) When the lift stopped, no one came to check if there were still people up there; 4) according to Mat, a normal waiting time should be no more than 15 minutes. An hour of waiting time is totally unacceptable; 5) Zero communication to the clients after the incident happens. We saw a group of workers riding a snow motorcycle up and down, but they just ignored us up there as we did not exist. 6) No apologies until we asked for.

This is a very disappointing and surprising event for an experienced ski ranch like this. We saw 4 toddler ages kids behind us on the lift and they had waited for an hour with us. I can’t imagine my families being up there in the cold for an hour, can...

The facilities seem nice, and nothing bad to say about the mountain itself. However, I am having a negative experience with tubing, from ticket purchases, to actually tubing with my kids. I feel like I was scammed out of 177$ after I-80 was closed and I had to turn around. I initially asked for the tickets to be changed for a later date, and the email reply stated that there would be a 20$ fee to get vouchers for new tickets. Next, the website displayed a message that the mountain was closing for the night, and would be closed for my initial tubing time slot, so naturally, I figured I could get a refund, since I would have lost my ticket even if I had driven to the resort. Still have not received a voucher, or a refund.

Had to shell out 177$ more, to take my kids the following day (thought maybe a refund would come later). Make it to the resort. No help was available with the kiosks, kiosks would not scan my barcode for 5 minutes. Finally, get my tickets, and go to the tubing location. The tubing employee states that my ticket is for a different time, even though my confirmation email stated otherwise. After waiting for 15 minutes, and the employee fervently telling me that I was wrong, I showed my confirmation email showing that I had arrived at the correct time.

Now I'm on the tubing hill. The employees, although well-meaning, have no sense of leadership or authority, leading to unsafe situations. The hilltop workers clearly lacked a system of communication with the bottom of the hill leading to unsafe situations (how about a green light/red light system?). Several times someone went down the hill while the bottom was still not clear, risking a collision. I would not let my younger kids tube here unattended, because an accident seemed highly likely given the circumstances that were present when...