It's winter and we wanted to experience some great snow, like tons of snow. So we looked no further than Whistler. I mean the Olympics were held here after all so you know it's the real deal of a place to get some great snowboarding in.
Since we flew out of LAX, we parked our car at Wally Park Express. Why we like parking here 2 reasons. 1) it's literally right next to the airport. 2) they have shuttles that run every 3-5 minutes. We have never waited longer than 5 minutes to be picked up. We are on this trip with our friends who parked at the spot they were ahead of us on the freeway by 5 minutes and we were able to park, be dropped off, check our bags in, get thru security and use the bathroom before they were even reaching the security line.
We flew on Air Canada which is part of star alliance to Canada and flew home on Delta operated by their sister company Westjet. It was cheaper for us to do 2 one way tickets and we were able to get the better flight times. This is why we opted for the different airlines. We booked our flight to Canada on Air Canada's website & our returning flight on Expedia which was the cheapest.
We rented our car from Avis and booked the rental car thru Costcotravel.com. Our rental car for Thursday - Sunday was only $52 CAD (Canadian which is cheaper US).
We stayed at the Horstman House condo's. A 2 bedroom 2 bathroom condo with a full kitchen and sleeper sofa. We traveled with our friends and their 2 kids so it was very accommodating to our needs.
There was a free shuttle bus that runs from about 7:30 am till about 9:30 pm that takes you to both ski mountains. The buses run about every 5-10 minutes so you're never waiting long. If you want to head into the village for something to eat or shopping the bus is a great ride. You won't have to worry about finding a parking spot or paying for one.
An added tip. The weekend we were here January 26th - January 29th was a busy weekend as far as hotels being booked and the ones that were available being around $750-$800 per night. We found the horstmans house on vrbo.com. Our rental required a 5 night minimum night stay, (our friends stayed 4 nights) so it was still cheaper for us to book 5 nights even though we weren't there for one of the nights. Our average night price per couple was $290.00. Something to look into.
Whistler mountain vs. black comb mountain:
We started Friday on Blackcomb mountain and ended the day over in Whistler. Now this resort is HUGE! There is an endless number of lifts that take you everywhere. We even took the peak to peak gondala which is worth riding if you're not skiing or snowboarding. The views will leave you breathless. We did enjoy the blackcomb mountain side better as the whistler side had more cat track runs and as snowboarders those aren't fun.
Saturday morning we started the morning off by riding the whistler gondala up to the top of the mountains for the fresh tracks breakfast. They have a buffet style breakfast with eggs, bacon, sausage, French toast, fruit, cereal etc... while eating breakfast you get to enjoy watching the sun rise. As soon as you're done eating you get to be among the first to hit the mountain and put in your own fresh tracks hence it's called fresh tracks.
Places to eat:
Cactus club cafe - one of our favorites here in Canada. We LOVE the lettuce wraps with chicken. The sauce has a spicy peanut taste that leaves you wanting more.
Cows Whistler - this is located in the whistler village and the ice cream is delicious. We went back for seconds. The salted Carmel was just the right amount of salted Carmel. The workers were very nice especially letting us have around 7 samples each.
Teppan Village - this is a Japanese teppanyaki style restaurant where they cook your food in front of you. The prices were expected but not outrageous for this type of a place in the tourist area. With the tip we paid $120 CAD and left full and happy. We got the teriyaki chicken and the land lover entrees. The Land lover gives you a variety of steak, chicken, shrimp, mushrooms and other mixed veggies.
Mexican corner - busy place, we got here early because of what we had read on trip advisor and didn't have to wait. Surprisingly the Shirley temple was delicious. It had an orange taste added which gave it a fruity light taste. The food was just okay. We wouldn't recommend it. It was more of a hype and we missed the hype. We left still hungry. We did order appatizers and the waiter forgot them our food came and we asked about them and he said oh yea they are still cooking so we took him to forget about them. For dinner we ordered the tortilla soup which tasted like it was out of a can. The chicken fajitas were just okay. Like I said, we left hungry still.
Places to shop:
Lululemon - Canada is where it all started so a stop at the store was a must do. The store was big, bigger than most in the USA and lots of options. Options are more and also catered more towards the cold hence in the cold.
Whistler is a beautiful place. Great place for snowboarding we loved it & dare we say it's our new favorite?? Check it out.
