If you are interested in taking your family skiing for the first time, but have no idea where to start, this post is for you. When people think of skiing, most immediately think: Colorado. And I am 100% sure it’s the most beautiful place to be, with the best resorts and slopes any skier could ask for. But I also know the idea of taking a flight to Colorado, driving 2-3 hours through the mountains to get to your resort, in the cold, with the kids, can be very intimidating. Especially for the first time and having no clue what you are getting yourself into. That’s why we decided to head to the Northeast for our first family ski trip and it was one of the best experiences we’ve ever had. Here’s our first family ski trip review.
Location
My birthday and son’s birthday are both in February and since it’s a colder month, we thought skiing would be the perfect birthday present for both of us. When we were thinking through locations, we knew Colorado was the known locale, but as we researched we got majorly overwhelmed. The long weekend trip we wanted to take started to sound a lot less fun with all the travel and the time difference. So we decided to start looking in the Northeast, mostly because of the timezone. We asked around to some family up north, and heard about Jiminy Peak in Massachusetts. When we looked into it, we knew it was the perfect place for us. We flew into the Albany International Airport on a direct flight, and rented a car. The drive was 55 minutes to get to the resort.
The Resort
Jiminy Peak was the perfect ski-in, ski-out resort for beginners. It had everything we needed right there on site. Our room had a small kitchen, so we could cook meals for the family. The ability to ski right up to the front door of our hotel was also incredible, especially for us beginners. We were not very efficient at taking on and off our gear, so I honestly couldn’t imagine having to drive anywhere to ski. There is an amazing restaurant on site as well. One of my favorite aspects was that the ski school, which is on site, also lets you keep the gear for the weekend included in the cost. That was one of our biggest concerns when planning our trip was how we were going to learn and where we were going to rent the gear, but Jiminy Peak made that so easy for us.
First Family Ski Trip Review – The Itinerary
Friday
Since we didn’t have school or work off during this time, we decided to go for a long weekend. But we made the best of it, and it was definitely enough time to do everything we wanted. We flew in on a Thursday afternoon around 4:30pm, and when we arrived, the kids immediately started playing in the snow.
The next morning, it was time for our ski lessons! They fitted us with our skiis (by the way, we did not learn to ski with sticks, which we were all shocked about) and then we were ready to go!
The kids caught on in their lesson so quickly! I was very impressed. It was all that rollerblading at home.
Having the rental car was also really convenient, because we took a trip first thing in the morning to the store to grab some essentials for breakfast and lunch so we didn’t have to eat out every meal.
That night, we decided to check out the restaurant, John Harvard’s, so we didn’t have to cook for dinner, and it was actually really good.
Saturday
Saturday was more skiing, as we got the hang of it. Rylee and I stayed on the bunny slope, but Brett and Reece decided to venture off to the next level slope and loved it. Pretty much after that, it’s all they wanted to do. It was terrifying, but also fun (I guess).
At the resort, they also had night skiing after it shuts down to the public, only for resort guests. We had the entire mountain to ourselves and it was really cool to ski at night. The kids and Brett went on repeat, but after a couple times, I was ready for some après-ski.
That night we had dinner plans at the restaurant onsite to celebrate our birthdays. It was that good we wanted to go back again.
And wanna know what we did after dinner?
More skiing.
Sunday
Sunday we explored the property some more, off the slopes.
The weather started getting really bad sometime between Saturday night and Sunday morning, and they shut everything down due to severe cold. When we finally emerged from the room, even the water in the creek was frozen solid!
After lunch, we ventured off site to a nearby mountain, Bousquet Mountain, for some craft beer and tubing. This was probably my favorite event!
We were early for our tubing res, so we grabbed a brew and sat out on the veranda, watching all the skiers come down the mountain. The sun was out and it was so beautiful for being winter, we could have stayed out there all day.
Tubing was the most fun thing I have ever done. If you’ve ever asked yourself, “But how do you get back up the mountain after?” here’s your answer:
Conveyor belt ramp. It’s like Disney on ice! So much fun.
We had checked out that morning and had the car packed up so we could head straight to the airport after. Our flight was at 6pm, so we got home pretty late that night.
But I have to say, my kids do not stop talking about this trip. They still to this day say it was their favorite vacation and their favorite place to go. If you read through their interviews from the past couple years, that is why Massachusetts is their favorite place to visit.
First Family Ski Trip Review
So I’d say that our first family ski trip was pretty successful. It was stress-free, thanks to Jiminy Peak Mountain Resort and we have a very special place in our hearts for it. We would 100% go back there again to ski. There is still more for us to explore there since we didn’t do many of the slopes, but I think going back to the same place would really help our comfort level and having an even more incredible experience there.
