The Pines Lodge, A Rockresort

“Great Experience!”

Our family of 4 had a great experience at Pines Lodge. We stayed in a spacious 2 bedroom suite with amazing views, kitchen and relaxing living room with a fireplace. We couldn’t have asked for a better place in a 3 star property. This was our first trip to BC and it is hard to figure out the lo... more

Our family of 4 had a great experience at Pines Lodge. We stayed in a spacious 2 bedroom suite with amazing views, kitchen and relaxing living room with a fireplace. We couldn’t have asked for a better place in a 3 star property. This was our first trip to BC and it is hard to figure out the logistics and layout of the property before arrival. I’ll start there since it may help others looking at Pines for the first time. I would say the Pines is *almost* ski out. After walking up a short hill out of the back gate, there is a fairly long stretch of flat skiway that is doable but a bit of work. I mainly skied with my 12 year old daughter the whole trip, and it was fairly challenging for her to get down to the lifts. Luckily, the end of the skiway has a good down slope and gets you to Strawberry lifts, but to get to the Centennial lifts you have to go over a bridge and slightly up to the lift, which was a bit more work. If you are a strong skier and can skate well, it’s doable. But after doing this twice with my daughter, we just resigned to take the Epic shuttle from Pines to Centennial Station at BC Village and it was much better for her. Skiing back in is also doable if you end up on Strawberry park side and can get onto Intertwine. There is an exit off Intertwine that makes it possible to ski right up to the Pines back gate. The Pines exit is marked green on the maps, but on the slopes it’s marked as a blue. It’s steep and narrow, but fairly short and my daughter just pizza’d down to avoid a fall. After that, there’s a steep drop under a bridge that gets you enough speed to get to pines, but depending on conditions, the path is very narrow and exposed rocks on each side due to a little lack of snow so be careful there too. If you are on the Centennial side of the mountains, getting to Intertwine through Strawberry Park, Larkspur or McCoy Park could take awhile to navigate, so if you’re short on time or energy, you can just ski down to Centennial Station pop off your skis and call a shuttle on the Epic app and be back at the Pines in minutes. Skiing or walking in boots back across the bridge and up the skiway from Centennial is a drag and I would just recommend taking the shuttle at that point. Without skis, getting to BC Villgage is an easy 10 minute walk down the skiway to Centennial but could get slippery in spots if there is ice. We had a great experience at Pines Lodge. The room was very nice, staff was friendly & helpful, valet parking was convenient (and free for 1st car!). Equipment rental inside Pines is a very nice perk, ski racks are just outside the back door, and there is boot storage on the first floor that we didn’t end up needing to use. They had a pool and hot tub which we inexplicably did not use this trip, but every time we passed it did not seem to be crowded. Our only issue the whole trip is that they kept running out of waffles, pancakes and cereal very early on 7:30-8am every time we tried the breakfast. Deal breaker for our kids. The other food was ok at best, so you might look for other options for breakfast. Overall, fantastic experience, and would definitely stay at the Pines Lodge again.

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“Nice staff. Breakfast embarrassingly bad”

The staff are eager to please. Unfortunately the excellent breakfast they served last year has been replaced with a mostly lukewarm buffet style meal. The "eggs" are just the reconstituted gruel you get at a hospital or other cafeteria. They provide only two servers for the whole restaurant so ge... more

The staff are eager to please. Unfortunately the excellent breakfast they served last year has been replaced with a mostly lukewarm buffet style meal. The "eggs" are just the reconstituted gruel you get at a hospital or other cafeteria. They provide only two servers for the whole restaurant so getting what you need and having your dirty plates cleared does not happen. I cannot believe what I paid for egg product. The quality decline from last year's food and service is a shame.

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“Not your father’s RockResort or a legendary RockResort!”

Okay…when I read The Pines is a RockResort, I thought of Little Dix Bay and many luxurious beautiful resorts that RockResorts built and managed. This isn’t it. RockResorts was bought out and changed hands a few times, so don’t get your hopes up. That said I did visit in summer, a number of t... more

Okay…when I read The Pines is a RockResort, I thought of Little Dix Bay and many luxurious beautiful resorts that RockResorts built and managed. This isn’t it. RockResorts was bought out and changed hands a few times, so don’t get your hopes up. That said I did visit in summer, a number of the reviews that are laudatory are about visits during ski season. Pluses, —the staff could not be friendlier or more accommodating. Many are skiers; they really like living in Beaver Creek. Cons— housekeeping only every three days or pay and extra charge! That seems out of keeping. HVAC was so loud, I turned it off rather than deal with the noise. Windows don’t open. Bathrooms are tired. Pool is very small as is the gym. The hotel bill for two nights was three pages long, since this enumerate every tax and fee, just a little tacky. I had a corner room, but on the second floor, ask for the third floor so your view is not the roof of the first floor. I would probably look elsewhere.

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