All Lifts Opened at 8am This Weekend! Nice!

[da Pimp]

It was great to see those words - "All Lifts Open at 8am This Weekend". The crappy policy of K1 only at 8am is such a negative spin - charge the same, give everyone less. I am sure that the limited terrain and holiday crowd potential were the factors, but at least no one was stubborn and made us stick to the stupid new schedule.

I had a nice talk with a marketing guy a week ago who alluded that a lot of their clientele is family type with kids who cannot get out to the lodges and on the hill as early as they would like, so a later opening lets them see the better conditions that the 8am people used to see. I gagged on that rationale. Hurt the majority and create a negative situation just to make Mom & Dad "feel better" about the start of their own day? I must assume that the idea came from a non-professional and the staff meeting cool-aid was laced with acid when they voted on that. He also mentioned getting the extra time for ops to groom & prep with patrol. I asked why Killington could no longer do what they did for decades, why do you need extra time? Must be less people, less groomers available, and of course a litte less electricity and employee hours to spend. I got no real comment except "I hear your voice and understand your viewpoint" or something similar. My take on the matter is that the family story is just a poor spin to distract us from the real reason - cost cutting at the expense of customer value and satisfaction. Giving away the market advantage that they had over the competition is no way to win back the 200,000 or so customers they lost in the last 8-10 years. Oh well, I had my opinion heard and that's all I can expect. Hopefully the new Solimano approach can filter into the amateur marketing ranks. Killington ops is capable of doing great things, all they need is good policy and upper management support.

[RustyK]

Nice video from the K's Facebook page about Turkey day weekend...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilhmCdKYFag&sns=em

[Bubba]

Let's assume for a moment that a cutback in the staff and/or number of grooming machines or some other cost cutting measure is the root cause of the later opening. That's not a problem they can fix in the short time that Mike has been at the helm. I'd keep up the message that the later opening doesn't sit well with the core customer base but I'd do it in a positive tone in keeping with Mike's approach to be open, communicative and customer driven. Rome wasn't destroyed in a day and it won't be rebuilt overnight either.

[Streamtracker]

I had a nice talk with a marketing guy a week ago who alluded that a lot of their clientele is family type with kids who cannot get out to the lodges and on the hill as early as they would like, so a later opening lets them see the better conditions that the 8am people used to see.

Marketing guy must not have kids. If the opening time is 8, families will not get out until 8:30 - 9:30. If the opening time is 8:30, they will not get out until 9 - 10. Time is elastic when you have kids.

[Stormchaser]

I had a nice talk with a marketing guy a week ago who alluded that a lot of their clientele is family type with kids who cannot get out to the lodges and on the hill as early as they would like, so a later opening lets them see the better conditions that the 8am people used to see.

Marketing guy must not have kids. If the opening time is 8, families will not get out until 8:30 - 9:30. If the opening time is 8:30, they will not get out until 9 - 10. Time is elastic when you have kids.

Logically, they should then open at 7:30 to get families to the hill by 8:00 when the skiing is best.

[mlkrgr]

+1 on opening the lifts (at least K1) at 7:30 am.

[Dr. NO]

Even the older kids don't want to rush out of the house to hit the slopes, or the pool or the Ice Rink. Parents I see are constantly prodding the kids to get their things on, brush their teeth, eat the breakfast and on and on. I would have given up on them in their early years.
As for 7:30 opening, it is still dark out there from now until January at that time.

[Cutback]

Since he has been visiting at the lifts and visible on the hill early this season, I took the time at the K1 loading area to thank Mike Solimano for the 8am opening. No question he appreciated the kudo and he saw our crew was smiling and happy about it. Make an extra effort to get out early when the lifts are open at 8!

[steamboat1]

Conditions during the week are pretty good at a 9am opening. Can't see it being much better if they opened at 8am.

[Skivt2]

Assuming most people will get to the mountain at the same time as they actually do no matter the opening time, a later opening might have resulted in us not skiing at all this weekend. We quit at 10:30ish on Saturday because there were so many people it was scary. All weekend it started getting scary at snowdon at about 9:30. We started at 8:00 so we still felt OK about the day on Saturday despite having to leave so soon. If the mountain opens later it would really take away a significant portion of the "skiable" day for us.

[brownman]

Stowe Forerunner seems to be able to handle being open at 7:30am and has for quite a while.

[steamboat1]

Stowe Forerunner seems to be able to handle being open at 7:30am and has for quite a while.

Yep 7:30 weekends 8:00 weekdays. Don't think they're not charging you for that.

[da Pimp]

Sure they are charging us for that nice opening. It's embedded in the ticket or pass pricing the same way Killington does it - they charge as much as they think the market will bear. Granted there is a lot less grooming to do overnight at Stowe, but they have a smaller fleet. K always harps about getting new cats and having a huge fleet, but they never tell us when they retire or sell off old cats, and never will tell us how many cat drivers are employed year by year. I am sure the number of drivers has not gone up under POWDR. But relatively sure that drivers and available cats has gone down based on their whining about needing more time to prep the mountain and my perceived poorer groomed conditions. Since I do not see any gorgeous pristeen grooming in the morning, it is clear that they are not spending extra time overnight they are spending the minimum required to open up the next day and nothing more.

Situations like Saturday morning where a second grooming was needed after the freeze-up are understandable and I did not hear a peep from the K1 line for waiting an extra 15 minutes. If it is required by weather, hold the line. Otherwise let them run as they did for decades.

Yes, we are paying for early (on time) openings. What pisses me off is losing 6% of the day - the best conditions of the day - and the cost savings goes right into the POWDR pocket and the pricing never goes down. No idiot in their worst frame of mind actually wants or thinks that opening later is good for anything, it is all about whatever cost savings POWDR thinks they can get away with.