Camelback Resort — Hotel in Jackson Township

I must say that I'm quite disappointed at the 3 days vacation trips our family took in the resort this week. (August 7 to 9). I was having pretty high hopes after reading the reviews online and in hindsight should have lower my expectations a lot more.

First the positives: great locations and a lot of activities to do in the resort or near the resort. Very nice Aquatopia which seems well run with good staffs. Room was clean and spacious with good views.

The negatives: Front desk customer service, while they seem to be under staffed while there a huge line of guests congregated in the lobby. The staffs at the front desk clearly seems overwhelmed and stress and they probably could have provided better service if they are staffed correctly. The staff we dealt with is impatient and not helpful. Being the first timer here at the resort, she just quickly want to get us out of the way so she could move the line along during check in. We're left with a lot of questions after check in. I would have to say it's probably the worst check-in experience I ever have in a hotel.

Parking. The overnight guests are supposed to park in D11 parking lots, and we only stayed 2 nights, and we are having trouble finding a parking spot in D11 after 6PM coming back from dinner, I made 8 loops and eventually find 1 spot. I don't know how many are staying over night, but clearly the D11 parking lots are not big enough. I'm not the only overnight guest that were scrambling around looking for an open parking spot in D11. There are at least 4 different cars just looping around and around.

Wrist bands are not working. The wrist band stopped working on the 2nd day, after we came back from Aquatopia, very tired and want to get into our room (around noon time), we scan the wrist band and could not get into our room. Surprisingly we have 5 wrist bands, none of them are able to open the room. They were working yesterday, we have even tried to activate again in the machine by the walk way. Thankfully, the staff manager was able to open the door for us with his master key. We needed to go to the front desk to get the new wrist bands, back to my point #1, many guests with a long line waiting to get something fix that is supposed to be working. Looking at my 6 year old sitting on the floor and a 2 months old waiting to get into our room, we felt like a homeless person.

This one is entirely my overlooking it. Camelback on their advertisement and web site etc, keep advertising there are free credits for food and arcade. What they don't tell you is that if you pay full price for the stay, you can get the credits. We booked early so there is no credits. That's me for not reading the fine print.

Breakfast in Hemisphere is great in that it has quality buffet with good service. It's bad that it's more expensive than your typical buffet and I'm sure some people are under the false impression of that's included in your stay, in my previous point that you need to book with the full price package. I wish they would have adding that context in the blast advertisement. It's good business tactics but leave a very bad taste in my mouth, like we have been baited and switched. To my point #1, when we asked about the credits during our check-in process, the staff just want to get rid of us as soon as she could, without giving us any details. She could have tell us that it's not included in our package. Not until after we are charged the full price in Hemisphere that we finally was able to ask another receptionist that we know the answer.

Arcade downstairs is mostly with deceitful machines that entice you to participate in a sure cash grab game for the establishment. All the colorful neon lights takes you to a casino like setting where you are being fleeced. Other arcades I have been to is normally giving you a place to have fun, this one tries to take your money, give you virtual tickets that is worth less than a happy meal toy.

Escape room is very expensive and makes no sense. Don't even try it. You will be happier if you don't. It...

A negative review shouldn’t be a knee-jerk reaction to a single subpar experience. It can tarnish a brand or cost someone their job, sending ripple effects through the community. CBK has been a cornerstone of many wonderful memories with friends & family and I don’t take this lightly. However, I hope this can be a distress signal and an impetus for change for a better overall experience for the staff and consumer. That said, I’m very disappointed with the overall customer experience at CBK. We’re now in January and the mountain is only 20% open. The runs and lifts are crowded & dangerous. We’ve been blessed with freezing temps early which should’ve provided a head start on snowmaking, but they didn’t capitalize. This is very disheartening. It’s understandable if it’s warm and snow can’t be made, but to squander the good fortune of cold temps to get some coverage, is a missed opportunity. Fortunately, the competing mountains in PA did not fumble and have most of their skiable terrain open. Unfortunately, I opted for a season pass at CBK, so I’m out of luck. A prepaid pass should be a bond for guaranteed service in the future, but we’ve been cheated by hitching our cart to the CBK wagon with a broken axle and lame oxen. While the snowmaking is my chief complaint (I won’t mention the fiasco with the lifts, but this is well documented in other reviews) the issues go well beyond the conditions. Don’t bother calling with questions unless you’re ready to wait on hold indefinitely. The online ticket ordering system is as dysfunctional to the public as it seemingly is to their own employees. It feels like there has been a fundamental breakdown of some key elements of their operations. Yet, they have the audacity to charge obscene amounts for the privilege of parking, only for the unknowing ski family to wait in line, contend with glitchy software for their ticket and then fight in lift lines to face overcrowding on the only 4 top to bottom slopes open. This is not an assault on the employees, they are just as much the victim to what I assume to be corporate greed, neglect, or just plain buffoonery. Recently, I’ve directed 3 desperate families to the upper lodge via shuttle or moving their car as the lower lodge is a ghost town. These frustrated patrons all said the same thing to me, “We’ve been calling for help, but not getting anyone on the phone. We always parked here and never had a problem. Why aren’t these magic carpets open? Where is the snow, and why aren’t they making it? This used to be such a great place to ski, what happened?” I commiserate & try to direct them appropriately, but the saying “get in line folks” comes to mind, literally and figuratively. Fortunately, I have a relatively short trip to the mountain and a realistic expectation of what I’m about to endure when I click into my bindings, but when I look into the eyes of the mothers, fathers, and their discouraged children that spent the better part of their morning driving to CBK, I can’t help but empathize with their sacrifices in time/money only to be plagued by frustration. CBK was the benchmark for service, organization, snowmaking, grooming, and conditions in all of PA, but they’ve managed to take the fun out of skiing by failing on each of these aspects, all while driving up the price. I feel sorry for the related businesses nearby: vacation properties, restaurants, and ski shops, as they must feel the subsequent, domino-effect impact. If things don’t improve, I’d like CBK to consider offering pass holders concessions or complementary skiing at their partnered resorts. A free-market democracy affords us the right to vote with our dollar, and my vote will not be to CBK again unless I see radical improvement. I will not hold my breath. CBK - please accept this as a desperate cry for help from a long term patron wishing for improvement. I know you’re seeing the complaints via reviews and social media. Your clients, staff, and partners need YOU to do better. This should be a call to action, and when the phone...

A very nice water park attached to a very shabby, poorly-maintained, and overpriced hotel. Also, there's skiing.

The Ski Mountain Ticketing is a pain in the arse at Camelback, full stop. There are a few kiosks at the hotel, but depending on how you purchased your lift ticket, they will be useless to you, and if you need to change/extend your ticket you'll need to trek up to the lodge customer service area, where you're guaranteed to find a substantial line and wait. The folks manning customer service at the lodge have always been lovely and quick to fix whatever issues we had, but it's clear that they're undermanned. The trails themselves are... adequate. Several lifts to choose from and a good variety of difficulty, but some portion of those lifts and trails are always closed, meaning the amount of usable mountain is always substantially less than advertised. Trail conditions are minimum viable. If you're out in the first couple hours, you'll find a satisfying groomed surface. If you're not an early bird, the skim coat of groomed snow will be scrubbed off many of the corners, and you'll be puckering and scraping over those well-worn spots.

Aquatopia This really is the gem of the Camelback experience, and it's obvious that management pours the lion's share of the overhead into keeping it that way. There is an impressive array of attractions under the dome, and everything is clean and tidy. The collection of water slides alone can easily eat up an entire Après-ski session, and the kiddos are always wrung out for an easy bedtime.

Resort Hotel This is where things get ugly. Twice now we've had upper floor accommodations for a party of 6, with a "full" kitchen and 2 bedrooms plus loft bedding for the kids. We bring a bunch of food with the expectation of cooking for ourselves during our stay. The kitchen is where our story begins...

The kitchens are laid out and furnished with zero thought and zero intention to accommodate their use. This year, our kitchen had: A fridge whose door opened toward the perpendicular wall instead of the side where every single person would be standing when opening it A dishwasher that should have been scrapped about 10 years ago. The top rack was broken on the right side, and you couldn't put anything in it unless you had dishes in the rack below to rest it on A burned-out light bulb over the stove Cabinets to the left and right of the dishwasher that were so worn out/misaligned that the drawer fronts rubbed against the dishwasher door, so every time you opened the dishwasher, you also opened a couple of drawers. Slow-draining sink Way too few utensils, plates, mugs, etc A clapped-out electric range that took 10 minutes to come up to any kind of usable cooking temperature A thimbleful of dish soap the bottom drawer on the range looked like it had been kicked in and left to hang there

Next up, the rooms! Several things which definitely put a sour taste in your mouth considering what they're charging you. All three sleeping areas had chests of drawers which were so worn out and out-of-level that their drawers opened themselves. Not just an anomaly - every single chest. We put a couple of hangers under the front feet of the one in the loft, just so the kids wouldn't trip over the drawers if they had to make their way to a bathroom during the night. The main bed in the loft had a mattress that wouldn't be fit even for an enemy. We had to layer blankets on top just to make it passable for our 5 year old (~45 lbs). The trundle bed which pulled out from underneath had a far more comfortable mattress on it. The shower curtains hang out over the floor instead of inside the shower pan, guaranteeing a wet floor.

Google says I'm over my character limit, so I'll leave it at that. This mountain has been bought by KSL Capital Partners, a private equity firm, and it's clear that they're cutting as many corners as possible until people stop coming. Day trip the waterpark. Stay (and ski) somewhere else. Maybe not Blue Mountain, because KSL...