Northstar Mountain Resort — Hotel in Truckee

For context, this was the first American resort I went to, so not sure how it compares to other Tahoe or American resorts.

The fact is that I found this resort to have fun and nice slopes, but to be extremely overpriced. The day pass is $180 ($130 of you go as the buddy of someone with a season pass), which I found to be an astronomic price, especially considering that the infrastructure is very old and inefficient: None of the lifts have heated seats; Almost none of them have foot rests or overhead covers; There's huge lines everywhere; and The access to the resort is itself always a pain: you sit up to 2h in traffic to then have to park your car far away and wait in yet another long line in the cold to hop on a 10-min bus ride to reach the lifts.

Overall the experience is frustrating and although I had a lot of fun going down some of the slopes, I felt I spent more time waiting, commuting and queuing than actually riding a board down the mountain.

If you are thinking of going often, the season pass is a much much better deal (especially if you have your own gear and rent a house for the season) and on the third weekend you're already saving money in relation to day passes, but as an occasional skier i don't find it to be good value money.

Final tip: if need to rent gear, do it before heading to Tahoe, in a shop like sports basement, since a full weekend rental at such a shop is cheaper than a one-day rental at the Northstar...

Very disappointed. BE WARNED! There is no longer free parking as in the past. They kept this hidden until after the season pass renewals and sales ended then they announced that they will be charging for parking (Very Shady). So now you have to park at the very bottom and wait 10-20 minutes for a shuttle to bus you up. Which take about 5-10 minutes. So a total of 30 minutes to just get up the resort. (And then remember you have to do this to get back to your car so you have just wasted 1+ hours of your day just getting to the resort.) Then you have to walk 5 minutes to get to the gondola and then take that for another 5 minutes to the actual lifts! So much time just to get to the actual ski area. I would NOT have gotten a season pass if I had known this. I definitely would have gone somewhere else!

Then on top of that they charge a ton for their food and beer and they do not apply a season pass holder discount. (MT Rose offer $5 Microbrews to season pass holders while this place charges almost 15 BUCKS for a beer!!!).

Thank you for making this season way less fun, Northstar. As for the rest of the resort I can only assume they nickel and dime you for everything else. I won't be able to do a review on anything else because I definitely won't be spending anymore money at...

I’m a first time snowboarder and went to Northstar for the first time this past weekend. I have to say I had the most amazing time. While the food is ridiculously high in price, my overall experience was top notch.

My instructor for my snowboard lesson was Jon Anderson. This guy knows his stuff and is extremely personable. I went from falling over all the time to actually doing well!!! I highly recommend him and hope he’s there when I return.

Some tips: *If you’re a first-timer, get lessons before doing the slopes. *Be prepared for the unreasonably priced food. *Parking is free if you don’t mind a long bus ride (else it’s $20 or $40 depending on how close you want to be...