Ascutney Mountain Resort Reviews

• Overall Rating 2
• Family Friendly 2
• Downhill Terrain 1
• Terrain Park 1
• Nightlife 1

Pros: They are in the process of building

Cons: Nothing is up and running except the website

Recommended Skill Level: Beginner
Recommended For: Empty Nesters
Date Visited: Jan, 2009

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Full review

The reviews about Ascutney are true.

This place is in the middle of a remodel and although the rooms were newer and clean there are no family activities open right now except the arcade. This place has enormous potential. The resort is missing the boat on the little things that make the rooms nice. For example if you have a dishwasher provide the soap. The condos have fireplaces but they only want you to use the duraflame logs, which is fine if there is place to either purchase our if they provide you with more than one a day.

Becareful of room description online ours was not as described and the front desk did not have the ability to change our room as it was 8:00PM and the administration was gone for the day. It took us over an hour to check in and due to the way they have there room booking set up our issue was unresolved and one of the kids had to sleep on a cot that we brought.

They did have some very helpful people at the front desk, but they did not have the capability to fix our need for a larger room. The manager would have shifted us to a new room for an addittional $120 a night, pretty steep price for a resort that is in the middle of reconstruction. (The website says that some things may not be available during this time, but it doesn't say that the majority of things will not be available.)

The skating pond is a nice touch if they had some light so it could be used after 4.

The sledding hill barely warrants mentioning as it is a small hill behind the main building and you have to rent the tubes at the tune of $5 per hour, not that it's lit or marked as such.

Although the Bennington Building has been remodeled the building is cold and the windows feel like they are open as you walk passed, the thermostat was set at 65 when we showed up. and we couldn't get the room above 68, which isn't bad unless your the one sleeping on the window side of the room.

The mountain looks very promising however they had only one trial for skiing beyond the bunny slopes. They say they have 14 trials open, but 6 are the learning center and the other 8 combine to give you a single trial(not top to bottom) of skiing. We ended up going to OKEMO about 20 miles away for the same price, they had 94 trials open.

Maybe Orange Lake will turn things around, but unless you put some money into the mountain, people are going to choose to go elsewhere. Maybe we will try in a few years, but not unless the reviews start turning around.

Sorry Ascutney look into the little things, granite counter tops don't bring people in, the atmosphere and the events do. Invest into some snow making and customer service, people will overlook the rest of the annoyances if they feel its worth coming for the atmosphere and skiing. When you only have one trial open even during vacation time you have to compensate the skiiers and riders, who is going to pay $60+ for one trial when you don't have to?

Good luck in the future maybe we will try again in a few years.