Deer Valley Resort — Hotel in Park City

I overheard a gentlemen at lunch say " there is no bad day at deer valley". With nice groomed trails and low crowds, I could see his perspective if I was an experienced skier. However, as an adult learning how to skii, the incompetence of the staff makes me strongly disagree with this gentlemen. We picked deer valley, because they renown themselves as the best place to learn how to skii, and a place that is great for beginners. We thought, this would be great so we went all in and booked travel to deer valley and hotel accomodations on site. We stayed at the lodges and although we had a few normal hiccups they were great. The issue we had however is with the staff at the rental shop and skii school. Let's first start with the rental shop. Being a first time skier, I assumed we would be fitted correctly and just not rushed. I told the lady fitting me that my nail and toes were hurting in the boot and she said it was normal and pushed me on to the next guy for ski's. Luckily when I complained to him about my issue, he took it upon himself to fix the issue for me. Luckily for me someone listened. Unfortunately that luck stopped when it comes to my fiance. Her boots also hurt and they didn't let her walk around or anything in them. So next day arrives and we show up early to skii school, all excited to start skiing ( the reason we came here). To be blunt, out instructor was horrible. She didn't explain things, she yelled alot, and even when I fell she just yelled my name and said " that's dangerous", which I think is odvious falling is dangerous and of course I didn't want to fall! I would be willing to overlook all that if it wasn't for her disregard for my fiance's health and safety. My fiance complained multiple times that her boots were leaving her in horrible pain when doing anything. The instructor just kept telling her it's normal and moved on. My fiance tried to even tell her that she couldn't do the instructions she was given because it hurt so bad and she didn't care. All she cared about was keep doing the lesson. Now there was only 3 of us in the class, she could of taken time to help or asked someone to take the other person that want part of our party as she helped us, but didn't. With 20 minutes left of the class my fiance was in tears so we left early to see if we can get a new boot. At the boot rental, the individual took 5 minutes and gave us the same boot. What we found out was, she had the wrong size boot all along and they were not even buckled ( which the instructor knew and said it was fine). Talking to locals later, we found out that wearing a boot like this is extremely dangerous. Because the boots were so tight my fiance had bruises around her ankles that were so bad, we couldn't ski again the whole trip ( making us coming to deer valley pointless). It's unfortunate that one person( ski instructor) who you are supposed to trust didn't listen and ruined our Trip. A few additional notes: after discussion with the ski class manager, he did refund the skii school which was appreciated, but it doesn't make up for the fact we didn't get to skii. Also, I want to state that a majority of the staff was great, it was just the unfortunate few that can ruin a trip. If you know how to skii, deer valley may be for you. If you are leaning how to skii, and still want to go to deer valley, it would be in your best interest to understand how skii boots should fit before you go and if you get Roxanne ( Roxy) as your instructor, kindly ask for...

Love skiing here until I was skiing at Deer Valley on Wednesday and I had a ski accident. I called Patrol as my gear was broken, then was taken down in a toboggan to the Sultan chairlift. The lead lift operator took me by snowmobile to the mid mountain area of the Silverlake Lodge. He said “have a good day,” and I asked him “wait, How do I get back to my car at Snow Park?” He told me, “go take a bus”. I told him my hand Is starting to hurt and he just took off. I made my way to the bus stop, didn’t know which bus to take so I called customer service. I was directed to Chance in the Guest services department. I told him I didn’t know what bus to take, and that one of them comes in an hour and 10 minutes and I’m in pain. He told me you can have one of your friends go pick you up, or you can make your way to the Silverlake Lodge and see Ski Patrol. He also told me “well why didn’t you tell Ski Patrol you were hurt”, and I replied that “sometimes pain takes a little while to set in and now that I am in pain what are you gonna do for me?”

I told him that was unacceptable, and having worked at three ski resorts, we never leave a customer hanging like that, especially when they’re in pain. He ended the phone call, I had to ask the bus drivers how to get back to my car. It wasn’t until about 45 minutes later, he finally called me back with a solution of picking me up in a deer valley truck. By that point I was already transferring buses to get back to my car with a hurt hand and hurting shoulder.

As I stated, I have worked at 3 ski resorts here in Utah as a Lift operator over the last 9yrs. Anytime we have a guest that has broken equipment or feels injured, we make sure they get back to their vehicle safely. To ditch a guest mid mountain is unacceptable. Telling a customer to ruin their friend’s day and have them come pick you up puts the responsibility on your friends when the responsibility is up to the staff of Deer Valley to get you back to your car safely.

There needs to be procedures in place that are well known for your staff, and you need to explore other options that I will list below as well.

#1 If the public bus is the only procedure this late in the season to get a guest down, there needs to be a written protocol of what buses get you back to your starting point.

#2 an alternative that every resort uses for broken equipment is loaner skis to get them back to their car.

#3 another alternative is to snowmobile them to the Lift and download them. This is the easiest solution and you are more than capable of doing this at a ski resort as I do this all the time for my customers.

#4 there should be the option of having a vehicle to come pick you up when an incident like this happens. It should not take almost an hour to think of this solution, it should be well established beforehand.

For a resort that prides itself on customer service, I was absolutely shocked by the way this was miss handled. Guest safety should be the number one priority of any ski resort, even if it is the last week...

I skied here with my family on a bluebird Thursday in March. Very disappointed! Silver Lake Express lift was closed at the base and we had to wait 25 minutes to get up on Carpenter Express first thing. Took a while to traverse and get over to the terrain and “steeps” via other lifts. Once there, Empire Express was loading at half capacity because one section of the lift was low, and very close to touching the snow. Why didn’t mountain operations dig out that section with a snow-cat machine? They had 24-hours prior to the last snowfall. There was a 15 minute wait on Empire all day, which is where most of the fun terrain was.

At the end of the day, we took Homestake lift to get back to the base. This was a ~25 minute wait, as most people were bottlenecked there. However, the liftie in charge of managing the line sent 4 ski school groups at a time before us normal folks alternated. Then, one individual ski schooler came by without a group, cut to the front of the ski school line, didn’t alternate, and said “I have to meet up with someone.” I have to meet up with someone too, man! Sorry you can’t manage your ski day and get to places on time. That doesn’t give you the right to cut everyone. I taught ski school for 10 years and the ski school line is supposed to alternate! Additionally, Homestake should be a gondola or six pack, the way it bottlenecks. But it seems like Deer Valley just went crazy in the 2000s making everything a detachable quad, and hasn’t updated any lift since. Not like they don’t have the money…

Can’t believe I’m saying these things, as really, these are all not the biggest deal. But as a skier who grew up on a mountain where the focus was on the ski experience, I was expecting a lot more from the skiing at Deer Valley. The ski experience just seemed mis-managed; lifts closed, lifts operating at half capacity, lifts not updated since the 2000s (considering bottlenecks), ski school mis-managing their groups and cutting lines, etc. Food and amenities were great. Go here with your mom, dad,...