Sunburst Winter Sports Park

Don’t expect the staff to return anything that you lost, especially valuables and if you find something that is not yours, DO NOT AND I MEAN DO NOT GIVE TO ANY OF THE STAFF, they will keep anything that you give them. They are ALL THIEVES. My daughter lost her phone when she was there for her school function and one of the kids from school gave the staff member the phone and now we are being told that they cannot help us. I’ve been trying to contact the so called manager and he was extremely rude when he called me back. He hung up on me because I caught him in a lie. I will contact the Better Business Bureau in regards to their bad/​horrible business practice. My rating is negative. ZERO STAR…

I’ve been going here since I was a kid. Today we went tubing with our kids. I was a bit shocked that it was $ 69 for 2 adults and 2 little kids for 2 hours.
After getting over the sticker shock we started tubing. I was surprised at how narrow the chutes have gotten in the tubing area. The used to be 30 feet wide now maybe 8 feet wide. Given how narrow the chutes are, the embankments are very steep. This wouldn’t be a problem but the embankments are made of hardened snow. They have pockets that can easily catch your feet. This isn’t too much of a problem when you’re going backwards your legs just drag behind you, rubbing the walls. But going forward your feet catch in these pockets. This is rather dangerous. After a couple near misses I had one really catch my foot and sprain my ankle. Luckily that’s all the worse it was. Afterwards I couldn’t enjoy myself. All I could think of was not hurting myself.
Then my 9 year old daughter hurt herself due to gaps in the embankments.
Sadly this will be our last time. $ 70 for 4 runs down the hill, and we came home hurt. That’s it for us.

Any place that would fire a 25 year veteran ski instructor who is an absolute gentleman doesn’t deserve my business! We miss you RICO. It’s not that nice of a place, nevermind with only 18 year old instructors working because of a free ski pass in group lessons! Don’t go! Little Switz or Granite Peak any day!!!

Descent family friendly ski area. Good for tubing with kids
Good snow boarding area for kids teens and Tweens
If you are a experience ski or looking of some time with only adults this may not be the place.

I hadn’t been there for snow tubing in years, but we went after my daughter saw them featured on Fox 6. There were still super friendly and helpful staff members, great snow tubes, and an awesome snow tubing hill! Some newer things I noticed that made me happy were the actual bathrooms (no more porto potties-​yay!), a remodeled dining/​sitting area (super cute vintage signs), and an expanded concession area. My 5 year old had the best time! They have a nice selection of snacks and beverages as well as items such as hand and toe warmers. The hot food was just ok, though. My 5-​year old didn’t complain. :-) Such a fun afternoon! One important note-​if you want to go during the week and don’t like crowds, I would call ahead to see when field trip groups might be coming (if any). Half of our time was shared with a field trip group, but after that we basically had everything to ourselves. We didn’t mind because there were so many lanes and so many concession helpers that there really was no waiting.

We went there yesterday and it was so awesome! I think its great for beginners because there are instructors everywhere and they are friendly and willing to help! This is what i loved the most about this place, they meet you after you get your ski, ask if you need a lesson, give you the lesson, then they are watching you and correcting your mistakes! If you need help they will answer all your questions and even give little personal lessons to everyone! Steve was great :) He even went to the bigger hill with me after he said I’m ready for a bigger one and i can go if i want to. Other guys were awesome too but i don’t remember all of their names. I had a lot of fun. There is a bar where you can sit and relax and watch people skiing and snowboarding, or you can sit by the bonfire outside. Cant wait to go again!

I’ve been going to sunburst for years. I have to comment on how organized the food areas were. The food was impressive compared to years ago. My family went tubing the other day. The lines went fast and the, staff was very friendly. I highly recommend taking a visit there and having some fun. :)

This hill is a complete joke. I went there with my wife, bothers and their significant others for the snow tubing. The staff was inattentive to put it nicely. Due to their lack of attention to what was going on they let a 12 or 13 year old boy walk across the bottom of the tubing area in the direct path of other tubers. The result was a bad crash. The mountain «ski patrol» was summoned to the scene and they were very unprofessional and clearly had no idea what they were doing. I should qualify that by saying 3 close relatives of mine are members of the National Ski Patrol and 2 others are volunteer EMS responders. I know what good quality, competent emergency care looks like and this was far from it. They had the injured boy up and moving around right after the crash and 20 minutes later decided to put him on a backboard. Whoops! Finally, they called for some professional help and an ambulance arrived.
Ski and tube here at your own risk. If you have an accident and get hurt you are pretty much on your own. Their staff is careless and their ski patrol is neither part of the NSP or competent in any way.

I’ve been tubing here before — a few years ago and that’s fun but more for families. I recently decided to try the ski area here and I wasn’t too impressed. Although their black diamond is decently steep, there are not a lot of runs at all. When I went here, there was essentially only 3 runs (not including terrain park). You can reach all 3 runs from the main lift. The main lift dumps you off into the center hill which they claim is three different runs according to whether you go down the center right or left. If you choose not to go that hill you have only two non-​terrain-​park options, a blue that leads into a green, and a blue that actually is pretty long and curvy. For the price that they charge in lift ticket $ 40 without any deals, and the amount of runs this place almost seems not worth it. Also, it kind of pissed me off that they claimed on their website (updated that morning) that all lifts would be open and only half were.
To compare the two area hills:
Distance From Mke: Little Switz 35 mins Sunburst 40 mins
Number of Runs: Little Switz has several more runs than Sunburst
Distance of Runs: Sunburst seems to have longer runs Little Switz
Lift ticket Price: Both $ 40 on weekend but Little Switz has great weekday deals
Ease of Lift Entrance/​Exit: Sunburst is a lot nicer in regards to area to depart the lift
Bar /​Restaurant = Switz has better food, Sunburst has better beer selection
Overall = I’d probably choose Little Switz over Sunburst for the price alone.

Tubing is fun. The hills are not gigantic. They have magic carpets and it is kid friendly. The only complaint I have is that they charge full rate for toddlers as they do for adults. Kids should be discounted or free. Other than that, it’s a nice little hill for family fun in Wisconsin. Don’t expect Colorado mountains.

Love this place! The staff is very friendly and will help you in every way possible! We had such a ball here! Even when the lessons are given the staff is patient and really do work with you. I will definitely be going back. Prices are great along with great staff… couldnt ask for anything better! Not to mention, its not that far away from Chicago!

I’ve been desperately looking for a reason to not hate winter. Skiing has been suggested to me as a potential reason more than once, but for one reason or another I’d never been able to go skiing before. As fate would have it, my boyfriend and one of his friends are going to Aspen next month and wanted to take a trip to a local hill before hitting the big mountains. My boyfriend has skied a few times in the past but wanted a refresher lesson and his friend, like me, had never skied before. I decided this was a perfect time to tag along and decide if skiing would redeem winter for me.
Sunburst has a fantastic deal on Friday and Saturday nights were you can get a lift ticket, equipment rental and lesson for $ 40. This is available from 4 pm until 10 pm when the park closes. We opted to take advantage of this deal on a Saturday and set out for the approximately two and a half hour trip from Lakeview (with a stop at the Mars Cheese Castle along the way, of course.)
We got to Sunburst right as a Living Social group of hundreds of people was arriving, so I think we probably experience a more crowded facility than is typical. We waiting in line to grab our boots and took them back to the benches to put them on (no one explained to us how to do this). The lockers were all full, so we had no choice but to leave our shoes on top of a bank of lockers and hope for the best. Then it was out to grab our skis (there was some confusion as to whether or not we needed poles). Admittedly, the equipment gathering step seemed a little chaotic, but I do think that was due to the influx of Living Social people. Fortunately it was all uphill from here.
One of the Sunburst instructors grabbed us and put us into a lesson group. I admit I didn’t expect much of the lessons — I thought it would be some cheap 30 minute intro and we’d be on our own, but the lessons were actually broken down into 6 stations, each led by a different instructor. Each station taught a skillset in progression of difficulty. I got stuck on turns (Station 4)…like, for hours. I just could not get it, but the instructors were great about keeping me calm and attempting to help me figure it out. As the day wore on, it was time for lessons to end. Despite this, one of the instructors took me over to the tow line area and kept working with me one on one. I would never have expected that level of individual attention with my super cheap package. The employees at Sunburst really do seem to love skiing and want you to have fun and learn.
After some practice time on my own, I was exhausted and my shins were killing me so I decided to return my equipment (quick and problem free), reclaim my (fortunately non-​stolen) shoes, and hit the bar. Sunburst has both an outdoor snack shop and an indoor restaurant/​bar area. The bartenders were, like most other employees we encountered, ridiculously nice. After some much needed re-​hydration, it was time to head for home.
So, is this Aspen? No, of course not, it’s Wisconsin… but I couldn’t have asked for a friendlier, less intimidating introduction to skiing. Look for me on the slopes! (And clear out of my way, because I’m still not great at turns…)

We went there with a big group of people on a Saturday. The prices were great. Lines were short. The bar was plentiful. The tubing area was AMAZING. :)
On top of everything the staff was fantastic. Everyone was extremely helpful.
I would highly suggest this spot.

I have never been skiing before so when I purchased a package to come to Sunburst with some friends I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to at least learn how to ski and experience it. Since I have never been to any ski resort ever I did not have anything to compare this too. My package included ski rentals and boots and I had to rent out a helmet and getting the rentals was not too much of a hassle considering the amount of people the staff had to deal with. It was super helpful that they had somebody walking around showing newbies like me how to put on the ski boots.
Since I was a newbie I took the basics class and they did it in three stages which I found helpful. The lessons seemed kinda fast but I was able to get enough information and experience from it to learn the basics of skiing. They started us out on a small hill and then built us up to bigger ones. The good news is I only fell one time! I was able to be good enough to be able to go down the medium hill so I was very proud of myself that I was able to do that.
The resort has a cafeteria and bar and because this was a special day the place was swamped with people. The food was just your typical cafeteria style food nothing special but they did have a nice selection of beers on tap.
Since we were a special party we had access at night to the tubing runs and I have to say that was the most fun I had at the resort. The tube runs were fast and long and they were saying you hit speeds of almost 45 mph and it felt like it.
Overall I felt this was a good place to learn how to ski without any pressure from a resort filled with skiing pros. Since its not so far from Chicago this would be a nice weekend getaway to get some skiing or tubing in.

I like Sunburst, for what it is. I recognize it isn’t the best hill, but it is kept up pretty well and the snow is often of good quality, even though it does get pretty icy some days. About 45 minutes from Milwaukee, it is easily the closest hill, and is pretty cost effective.

The runs aren’t the longest, but if you go on a weekday you basically have the entire park to yourself. It’s a nice local hill only about 45 minutes or so away from Milwaukee. A great place to go to stay sharp in between those trips to Colorado, the U.P., Wausau, and northern Michigan.

My boyfriend and I went tubing here this past weekend. After putting our belongings in my car, I proceeded to lock my keys in the car. Frustrated, I went to the ticket counter and the woman selling tickets could not have been more helpful. She called the maintenance people and then the sheriff when we didn’t have a number for a locksmith. The sheriff came and took care of the situation.
Within regards to the tubing, what fun! I loved the different lifts you could take up the hills. The staff was pleasant and helpful. The one thing that was hard was if people hadn’t gotten out of the way and didn’t listen to the staff, there was a chance you could run into people.
The best secret we didn’t know about until going there was the sleds that they had for the smaller hill. When we saw people going down the hill laughing and screaming we knew we had to try them. They were difficult to steer but we had a blast going down the hill.
All in all its a great day trip from downtown Milwaukee.

Don’t go expecting Whistler/​Colorado/​Utah caliber skiing/​boarding. However, you can expect clean and well maintained hills. It is quite small, probably one of the smallest places in the area. However, for anybody who lives in the Milwaukee area and north, it is a great option.
There is a great tubing area. I’ve never done it, but it looks like a blast. And there are areas that cater to the snowboarders that want to do jumps and tricks. So, there is something for everybody.
There are events during the summer as well, like mountain bike races and a motorcycle hillclimb.

Well run and clean. Friendly, helpful staff and Ski Patrollers. And, tubing is a blast. Go see for yourself, you’ll have a fun time!

Small place and I liked it. It’s nothing like in the Rockies, but what do you expect? I usually have a good time out here, but I prefer Alpine Valley.