I am no expert when it comes to sports. Especially winter sports. We don't see much snow in Hawaii.
Our experience at Coronet Peak exceeded expectations. We arrived at 7:45 am to beat the rush as we knew we needed to register. Turns out, the systems were down and we'd be unable to register until they came back up. So we asked the staff and they were extremely helpful in allowing us to grab our rentals first and gear up before 1. the systems came up and 2. the large group of kids began lining up for their ski rentals. The rental area employees were also able to open a little early for us again on another day to beat the rush of the kids. I cannot express the amount of gratitude we have for them taking that extra step.
One of the members from our group stayed behind to hold our spot in line as he already brought his personal snowboard and boots. Though as we returned from grabbing our rentals and putting on our boots, a lot of newcomers were extremely unhappy that we "cut" in line, which is understandable in their situation, but still a little hostile.
Soon after taking a few hard spills on the mountain, I realized that my two day snowboarding skills accumulated over a 5 year span was no longer going to cut it here. I went to the customer service desk to see if I could trade one day of rental/lift for a lesson. They normally do not allow refunds so the clerk needed to double check. Needless to say, they were able to exceed expectations again and go ahead with the lessons.
I joined some of my other friends in the afternoon lesson with Niko instead of joining a random adult class. Having the time to practice with a bit of guidance was actually very helpful. We signed up for another lesson the following day just to get us up to a comfortable level. I ran the coronet express up to the blue line peak at the top by the time we completed our trip. Not bad for a beginner.
Overall, the service here is impeccable. Lessons are highly recommended even at the slightly steep price. They even hand out chocolate fish at the end of the day which is kind of cool. read more