A Great Experience - Lift Operator Vail Resorts Employee Review

4.0
21 Jun 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Lots of potential fun at work. Great friendship making atmosphere. Beautiful town. Days off are a blast. Depending on department can have great bosses. Easy to move up in opportunities within the resort.

Cons

Employee housing is like sardines. The pay is low versus cost of living (especially equipment needed for skiing). Not a ton of help with pro deals etc on said equipment. No matter what someone tells you take your car out there even if just to run errands or ski different towns. The compensation can be decent to quite good if you find the right position and move up etc. I moved up from a Lift Op. to another position that was year round and good pay.

Explore other reviews about Vail Resorts

5.0
4 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Upper management was very helpful

Cons

Seasonal position only, wished it was year round

2.0
14 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Most people are smart, passionate, and enjoyable to work with and be around. - Fairly frequent opportunities for development and advancement through the internal job board. - Nice perks if you're into skiing or riding.

Cons

- There's an unspoken expectation to regularly work significantly more hours because the majority of employees are very passionate about the ski and ride industry, which isn't great for work life balance. There's not much down time either; you're either hustling in season or hustling to prepare for the next season. - Climate change poses a significant threat to the future of the company. The season pass model mitigates some of the impacts, but not as much as senior leadership asserts. And, since bonuses are tied to company results, you can end up working super hard all year and still end up getting half of your bonus target due to uncontrollable weather conditions. - The culture has taken a serious hit since enterprise transformation work began. Lots of people are constantly stressed out and the atmosphere in the office is depressing. - Most of the time, it feels like senior leadership makes decisions in a vacuum without consulting any of the people that would be responsible for the downstream work associated with the decision. For example, I've seen senior leaders decide on a savings target multiple times without consulting the experts, who then have to scramble to figure out how to make it work. It creates chaos and negatively impacts morale. - This organization has a wordsmithing problem. I've never worked at a company that spends such an inordinate amount of time on the framing of a message compared to the actual substance of the message.

3
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