In "line" for Epic reservations

[xwpracer]

Most Co. resorts couldn't exist without the " front rangers", don't bite the hand that feeds you!

 

[Posaune]

After my hissy fit of yesterday during which I missed my window and couldn't log on I went back today through the ski area web site and was able to get my dates instantly. I take it back, it's not so bad. The 7 days thing is for long range planning, but if I want to just ski the next week sometime I should have no trouble getting the dates. I still hate Vail, though.

 

[parkrat]

What's the actual story with reservations, for those who have done it?

I have very little interest, personally, in playing games waiting hours in line to access a website to book ski days months out, especially when we have no idea what will be happening at that point in time. Although, thinking about it, maybe it's actually better to wait and see. If all the days end up booked well in advance, then I can rightfully get upset at Vail for messing up the numbers (i.e. selling more passes than they're actually able to accommodate). But assuming that doesn't happen, I'll probably want to avoid any days that get booked up for early reservations anyway.

I don't see this as a major issue with most skiers. When I went to book, the entire season was available. Unless you want to ski MLK weekend, Washington's weekend, or the Christmas and New Years holidays, I bet you can get any days you want. The other issue would be powder days. I would rather have ski resorts have something like a golf course tee time than deal with this insanity.

Lift line woes continue at Vail following historic powder conditions

The storm that hit Vail Mountain from Thursday to Saturday was one of the top 5 on record, with 38 inches of reported over a 48 hour period. Saturday, in turn, was the busiest day of the season, according to the number of cars parked in town.

www.vaildaily.com

If COVID-19 continue to spike, you might see further restrictions on capacity, but this will ultimately be up to the Colorado governor and not Vail.

 

[Snowflake2420]

I think front rangers with Epic Passes will do ok. Of course it all comes down to the magic number of reservations, which we don't know what those will be. I see people more reliably reserving one or both weekend days and closely watching OpenSnow to try and lock in the best snow conditions, which many people already do now. It also will be interesting how aggressively VR enforces their policy of putting people in time out if they "abuse the system" by cancelling reservations or no showing.

 

[Papa307]

I'm trying to figure out my strategy for reserving days.

I typically just ski Mondays at Beaver Creek with my daughter, and like to add the preceding Sunday if my father's place is available. I don't think the Mondays are going to be an issue, but Sundays could be. So I'm thinking of reserving the first 7 non-holiday Sundays and keeping that rolling forward. Then just cancel any Sundays my dad's place gets booked.

Or, do I try to get my daughter's spring break. And then just risk losing out on a ton of skiing if the week-of system is a disaster.

 

[Ken_R]

I think front rangers with Epic Passes will do ok. Of course it all comes down to the magic number of reservations, which we don't know what those will be. I see people more reliably reserving one or both weekend days and closely watching OpenSnow to try and lock in the best snow conditions, which many people already do now. It also will be interesting how aggressively VR enforces their policy of putting people in time out if they "abuse the system" by cancelling reservations or no showing.

Yeah, so one can reserve up to seven days of one's choosing? then not show and then reserve again, not show etc until conditions are prime?

 

[Posaune]

Yeah, so one can reserve up to seven days of one's choosing? then not show and then reserve again, not show etc until conditions are prime?

I think you can do that, but if you're a local you can reserve a week out without touching the 7 days. At least that's the way I read it.

 

[MarkP]

I got into the waiting room a bit after 7am mtn time (9am eastern), assigned something in the 14000's from the random scrum at 8am. Took around 30 minutes to get into the actual reservation section. Less than 10 minutes later I had my 7 days, split between Crested Butte and Breck. That leaves 5 open days over the 12 ski-able days that I hope to fill with week-of reservations.

 

[Quandary]

I checked in the reservation system yesterday. No waiting room and no blocked days that I saw.

 

[BTaylor]

Breck opening week: the reservation system opened up at 2 pm MT today for the next 9 days of Breck week-of-reservations. I logged on at 2:30 pm and in just a few minutes was able to get all of my desired weekdays for next week.

But, boy, the Saturday/Sunday openings were already sold out at 2:30. Not a problem at all for me---my strategy this winter is to do resort skiing ONLY on weekdays. But, boy, for any Front Rangers who can only ski weekends, this looks like it might be a big challenge to frequently get open dates at Breck.

 

[raytseng]

Yeah, so one can reserve up to seven days of one's choosing? then not show and then reserve again, not show etc until conditions are prime?

Im not sure exactly the details of your plan here, but theres no nuance of "not show up part" as it affects the priority reservations. That's more of a discussion point on the close-in weekof reservations.

I'm going to lay it out how I see it. My only intent here is to try to help clear up any misconceptions so you don't mess up your season. If this is unneeded advice feel free to disregard.

The priority reservations is this timebased priority access of 7days in far future anywhere in the season and not close in. Once that comes up whether you show up or not or not, you get those 7days back to your pocket to reserve again. So not showing or showing up as of now doesn't give you neither extra benefit nor penalty.

However, as the days roll past dec8 we're now in the season and dates are all chosen by all the other passholders and opened up to day tix purchasers too. there is no guarentee that there are free future dates for you to now claim with your returned priority chits if you decided not to use your original picks. Especially after the 8th when they open this up to the public to buy tickets the caps might start hitting.

You get back your reservation days to reuse, but they are less valuable the 2nd time through.
So you better pick the days now that you truly don't want to miss (or your first days if everyday is the same), they don't "save" anything for you if you decide to not show up or cancel your ressy.
Their biggest value is the early access to reserve before dec8 when the general public potentially fills in everything else with single tickets purchases.

In skiing terms, this is now like 2nd tracks run after everyone else claimed what they want to do in their first tracks run by dec 8. If you choose to not take your first track run and just loop back down, that's on you, they arent going to roll back time and reset the whole slope just because you changed your mind, you are stuck with only the scraps to repick from what is left.

Finally the weekof closein reservations is like twice picked over scraps. If theres extra capacity its a bit of a free for all to claim any unused slots. Yes you can just do rolling picks and pick every closein day no penalty announced at this point if that really is what you want to do. If there is space on the mtn you should feel free to go and they welcome you. This has less to do with the priority ressys and 7days which is future reservations.

 

[mtngirl]

When I made my reservations I read all the terms and conditions, etc as I wanted to see if they covered whether the reservation was guarenteed or not. I couldn't find anything but when I finally read the confirmation emails yesterday it was spelled out clear as day. I can't imagine a family spending thousands to fly to Colorado to ski and then have their reservation cancelled because Vail has to further restrict the number of people on the mountain. So much uncertainty this season.

 

[tball]

But, boy, the Saturday/Sunday openings were already sold out at 2:30. Not a problem at all for me---my strategy this winter is to do resort skiing ONLY on weekdays. But, boy, for any Front Rangers who can only ski weekends, this looks like it might be a big challenge to frequently get open dates at Breck.

Wow, so weekends at Breck are gone already? How about Vail and Keystone?

 

[amlemus]

The reservation process has been fairly smooth for my household. We're in a work from home scenario so that helps a lot. I'm curious to see how it behaves on 12/8 when everything opens up.

 

[weatherman]

Wow, so weekends at Breck are gone already? How about Vail and Keystone?

No, not all weekends. Just this coming opening weekend. All other dates either haven't opened up for reservations or have space remaining.

 

[Quandary]

Yeah, so one can reserve up to seven days of one's choosing? then not show and then reserve again, not show etc until conditions are prime?

Vail has said if you follow this technique and simply don't show up there will be consequence with respect to your ability to use the reservation system. You would need to "release" your reservation within the required parameters to not be "punished". I would also assume that if you play this game enough Vail will eventually bounce you from the reservation system as well.

 

[raytseng]

i would predict though just based on my gut feelings on vail operations, you would get a warning first to cut it out, before the punishment actually comes down

They probably want to minimize talk about punishment as much as possible, and instead trying to keep the stoke positive and plead with people to give respect to get respect and were all in it together, blah blah blah. even though internally they probably have the punishment policy all drafted up and ready to go

 

[SSSdave]

After reading the Vail email info about what this reservation stuff was about given my circumstances, it was clear I didn't need to get involved early. As a flexible retired person living 200+ highway miles from skiing just midweek days, I would just need to do so the day before driving up unless it was a fresh snow storm situation. Did note on the board there seemed to be a hole open for manipulation and abuse as there didn't seem to be any penalty for reserving and then not showing up, however some here have related Vail has since addressed something there. Since one can cancel reservations up to the previous day and can reserve on the day one skis, the process seems straightforward and reasonable. Allowing destination skiers and those with pricy lodging commitments to reserve ahead of time is a reasonable plan.

 

[SummitGuy]

The reservations page says:

"The ability to change or cancel reservations will become available on November 17.

So today is the day ... I looked around and cannot find any related feature on their WEB pages.
Am I missing it, does anyone know how to do it?
The estimated chat room wait times are in the 6 hrs range

 

[doc]

@SummitGuy: go the FAQs; they tell you how to go to your confirmation email to change or cancel existing reservations for "Core Season" priority reservations on and after 11/17.