Camelback Ski Resort — Hotel in Pocono Township

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...

We stayed at the Resort for two nights, but this review is specifically about their Ski School for Kids, and the horrible experience we had with our daughter's first ever ski-lesson.

Our lesson was at 1 pm on Sunday, March the 3rd, 2024. Part 1/2 review posts for this lesson.

We’re American parents of east-Indian heritage and wanted to provide our 4-year-old daughter with better skiing skills than what we as her parents had to offer her.

Our primary instructor, whom we believe was named Bernie because she never bothered to introduce herself by name, was an elderly woman probably in her mid-50s if we had to guess.

We could tell when meeting her that she was going to be more of a tough-love, no-nonsense, type of instructor (like the type of swimming instructions that we had from our own parents, who were from a different generation).

Our daughter did fine with getting her boots into her skies and prodding along as told to do so until she got to the magic carpet conveyor belt. She was surprised/startled when the instructors (Bernie and another younger instructor) suddenly let go of her hand once she was on the belt.

Earlier that morning when we were Snow Tubing with her at CamelBack we accompanied her on the conveyor belt, so I think she was expecting Bernie who was holding her hand to get on with her as well.

When Bernie let go, our daughter frantically tried to grab either of their hands as they were trying to move back, and almost fell backwards on the belt. But they managed to prop her back up and got her to move along on the belt by herself. We could easily tell that our daughter was now visibly stressed.

The instructors failed to pre-warn the child that she was expected to travel on the belt herself, some forethought could have avoided our daughter being startled by them letting go of her hand.

From there it just got worse for our daughter, when she got off the belt she was already in tears and did not want to ski anymore. Bernie’s approach was, “There’s no crying in Ski School, so no crying OK.” This tactic completely failed with our daughter, but Bernie remained indifferent.

We think the younger girl, another instructor possibly in her 20s may have handled our daughter with a softer/gentler approach. But Bernie, instead, told her to stay with the other group of kids that were doing well enough. If you’re a senior instructor, why wouldn’t you focus your attention on the pupils that are doing well enough to benefit from your years of experience and leave the handholding of crying kids to the younger college kids; the college kids would probably do a better job of calming a child down than you can anyway.

But no, you want to be a stick in the mud and teach this crying child a lesson—I don’t care, nor want to know, why you’re crying, you just need to stop crying, OK?

Kids these days are taught to express their emotions and are encouraged to explain why they are upset. At the least, an instructor could have bothered to ask what was troubling her and let her know that the magic carpet belt was nothing to be afraid of. But all we kept hearing from a distance was, “no crying in ski school!” from Bernie.

All of this would have still been OK with us, if we did not have to put up with the words of another younger instructor at the school.

Bernie is guiding our now balling girl up to the conveyor belt for a 2nd attempt at getting her to get on smoothly when one of the other instructors, who looked like another college kid in his 20s, who was farther back in the line and closer to us, turns around to my wife and says, “she looks like she’s too young to be skiing, she probably shouldn’t be in this class.”

Meanwhile, beside him a white girl smaller than our daughter intentionally falls over to the side on her skis to land in the snow for fun, and is generally just horsing around, and the college kid says, ‘you’re such a silly-billy’, and playfully picks her up. All is well and hunky-dory between the instructor and the “silly-billy” child.

Continued in Part 2 of our review, due to...

It Genuinely hurts me to leave a 1 star review because this property has soooo much potential. We stood over the 4th of July - Let me start and end with the positives: Fantastic Location - the Poconos is genuinely a very scenic area with plenty of options for rafting, zip lining, ropes course - such an amazing location and family friendly place to visit - my wife and I were blown away with the location. As for the Camelback resort - I will say the rooms are very well laid out, spacious, and we were able to get a great buffet breakfast (albeit a bit pricey) and a great meal at dinner (more on that below). The housekeeping staff, front desk staff, and hotel manager ruined our experience which is why I am leaving the 1 star review. To start: we checked in late at 8:45pm on a Tuesday and the clerk at check in was useless - unable to answer very simple questions such as the layout of the property, unable to provide a property map (this place is HUGE!), nor did they cover the fact that they don't provide housekeeping until every 3rd day of your stay (Note we only stood 2 nights). On Day 2 at 8:30am, we had requested a sheet and 2 blankets as the room got very cold and my girls didn't want to share a bed - Front desk said no problem. We returned from a AMAZING trip of rafting on the Lehigh River at 4:30pm via Jim Thorpe Adventures - See Jerry he was amazing - only to see that our room was not serviced and no blankets. We requested these at 5:30pm and once again to our dismay nothing. At 7:30pm, I spoke with Ben the hotel manager who informed me of the hotel's policy that they do not service the room until the 3rd day of the stay but did acknowledge and apologize that their Service Level request of addressing ad hoc requests within 3 hours was not met for the blankets. They have a sign in very small print at the front desk that says the don't service the rooms which probably 10% of guests actually see - a great opportunity to cover this at check in yet our check in clerk failed to do anything of value. Ben also gave me the "since covid spiel" but I kindly reminded him that his prices are no where 2020 levels (at $400 a night) and it is reasonable to assume that a simple request for blankets would be met as well housekeeping. Ben assured me we would have our blankets within the hour - SURPRISE after going to dinner at 9:27pm still no blankets and well past my daughter's bedtime. Mind you I have to walk 10-15 mins to the front desk to ask for blankets because they do not answer the phones (did I mention the property is HUGE!) Finally a young man named Xay at the front desk (who took charge of the situation) was able to get blankets within 4 MINUTES! How does a 4 minute request go unanswered for 14 HOURS!!!! I spent an hour walking from my room to the front desk to get those blankets for 4 requests. Also the bathroom shower smelled and had mold issues (Photos attached). Last but not least, the I.D policy is horrendous - it is HIGHLY ABNORMAL to card 44 year old and 60 year old Guests - I can only assume this property served an underage guest at some point and went to an extreme policy to card everyone or no service. The problem is that this expectation is not set at check in and guests of proper age are faced with leaving the indoor water park for a 25 min walk back to the room to get their I.D - your PROPERTY IS HUGE don't make guests walk miles to get an I.D when they are of age. Some compliance guy failed to implement a proper policy so here is a pro TIP: At check in, you request an I.D - ask how many in the party are of age 21 and drink - card them at check in to provide the 21 and over bracelet to avoid this poor experience when they are in vaca mode at the pool. To Mike at Trails End Restaurant: You are absolutely stellar - the service was amazing and couldn't thank you more for the conversation. We will not stay at Camelback until they get their house in order but definitely will be back to the Poconos...