Nashoba Valley Ski Area

You can sum up the ski lessons with my 4.5 year old with her simple quote at the end: «I don’t want to go skiing again… Ski lessons are boring»
I have very realistic expectations for ski classes with a group of 4 – 5 year olds… but the way it’s structured is totally inefficient and the result is the kids standing around cold and wondering what’s going on. In 45 minutes they should be able to get more than 6 turns going down a distance of 20 yards (especially considering there’s a magic carpet to bring them back up)
The end product is kids not having fun or excited about skiing.
Coming into this I was excited to renew and do the next session, but I’m concerned this may do more harm than good to keep my little one interested about the sport

Unpleasant experience because of the staff. Will try our best to find other places to ski.
In addition to an encounter with an unfriendly ski instructor, I overheard two staff members complaining that they didn’t get enough sleep because they had worked the night before and had to get up early to work today.
If your staff is inexperienced and not happy, your customers are not going to enjoy the experience. I noticed by reading other reviews that this is an ongoing problem.

As a holder of a college pass (great deal $ 359 loon, sugarloaf and Sunday river) loon is one of the best mountains for a «short drive». Just about two hours from Boston td mountain is fairly consistent with snow making for a mountain in the area. The workers here are great and will really accommodate you well while at the mountain. Overall great mountain but worth the drive further north if you’re spending a full weekend or week. Best day trip mountain in my opinion.

Solid service by all — desk staff — rental staff — trail staff. Snowboard lesson by Joe was awesome — he took extra time with each person (there were 4 of us). Trails weren’t but they were well kept and the lifts were quick. Definitely recommend.

This place sucks the snow was not correctly put on I could see grass if I were you I would go somewhere else. The people there are rude and I will not go back. Also the ski place is only good for beginners. The only good thing was the sledding tube was perfect for all sizes. Don’t go here I suggest you go to Cranmore instead.

I just happened to see the response to my review (a few years later). The funny (not really) thing is, that one year after my son’s accident I was hit (while walking at the bottom of the hill) in a non-​skiing area) by a totally out of control young skier, was thrown, and hit my head. Even though I was wearing a helmet, I suffered a concussion that set me back quite a bit. Again, I was not treated well by the ski patrol. The ski patrol at the scene were fine, even though it took a really long time for the sled to arrive. But, I experienced similar rudeness once inside the ski patrol. Just like with my son, they basically dismissed my accident. Ambulance ride to the hospital, head x-​rays, out of work for a month… The thing, too, is, that kid should never have been skiing that slope and he had no idea how to stop. He was with a recreation group. The slope was over crowded with kids and not enough supervision at all. I have skied all my life and even worked at Nashoba. I am appalled by Nashoba and always tell friends to avoid this hill. There are better and safer places to ski.

First time snow tubing, and it was fun! Can be a little on expensive side. Watch for snow tubing signs, since this area is separate from skiing entrance. Dress warmly, because 3 hours of tubing can be brutal. Wear water proof pants, if you can, since you will have a wet butt! Snack shack to warm up and get a bite to eat and use the restrooms. 11 lanes to go down, with lifts on both sides for the snow tubes. Pretty exhilarating and fast. A fun time for kids and adults alike.

My experience here was very good and the mountain (really a hill) lived up to my expectations. I brought my children here for snowboard lessons the week of February vacation. After 3 group lessons and one private lesson I could see marked improvement. Two thumbs up to Ryan who was the instructor for the private lesson. Ryan was patient and knew what he was doing. My apologies Ryan I totally forgot to tip you at the end of the private lesson. I’ll tip double next season.
Overall this his is a good place to bring a beginner and a very good place to teach someone to ski/​snowboard. If you’re looking for challenging terrain and long runs this isn’t the place for you. If you’re looking for something close to Boston rather than driving 2 – 3 hours North this is a good spot. I’m looking forward to heading back next season.

Going snowboarding with my African american friends, we are bombarded with racial slurs and racial jokes from the children & teenagers near the terrain park.**THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME IT HAS HAPPENED**. Second off, one of the instructors went off on us because one of my buddies had never snowboarded before and was on the bunny hill. Are you serious. I’m giving Nashoba Valley 2 stars because, not gonna lie the rental staff and ski patrol were pretty helpful and friendly. Overall the experience was far from awesome, i hope they start enforcing more rules and create an environment were someone of colour can ski or snowboard without being harassed.

I received a private message from a staff member at Nashoba Valley Ski Area. I appreciate the effort they’ve extended to ensure my comments were fully addressed. It doesn’t change my experience but since they took the time to reply with a lengthy response, I’m bumping them up one star. Thanks for reaching out, Ethan F.

We took our daughter skiing at Nashoba recently and want to share our experience with other parents who are considering bringing their children there. Our day ended badly with our daughter falling and breaking her leg. She was wearing rental skis and boots from Nashoba and the doctor said that the type of break she suffered is very unusual in skiing accidents because the skis are supposed to release to avoid this type of break. Gee… maybe they shouldn’t have kids who look about twelve years old adjusting the bindings??? After she fell we rushed her into the ski patrol office where we had two obviously inexperienced kids trying to figure out how to make a splint out of cardboard. Our daughter was screaming in pain and when we asked them to call an ambulance they said we should just put her in the car and take her to the hospital. What? We should put a child with an obviously broken leg into our car and have her bump around in a makeshift splint and then wait in an ER? When we asked which hospital they recommended they said they didn’t know. Really? You work in the ski patrol and you don’t know where to take somebody with a broken leg but you won’t call an ambulance? We asked over and over for them to call an ambulance and they kept saying no. They said there were not enough ambulances on contract with Nashoba. It wasn’t until my husband took out his cell phone to call himself that they reluctantly called for us. Parents BEWARE.

Review for tubing park. Rude staff. One older staff member was screaming at people to put their feet down to stop. No where is there a sign telling people to put their feet down. This clown was walking up to people who just ended their run and getting in their faces screaming «put yourfeet down». How about putting up a sign. Another staff member was stacking tubes yelling at people not to take the tubes he was stacking but to walk down an icy path and grab an abandoned tube. There were three tubes at the bottom of the path and twenty people so we all had to walk back up the path to this screaming fool and wrestle a tube from him. For the 30 i just paid for two hours of tubing someone should be handing out tubes with a smile and a thanks for coming. Get your act together Nashoba. Maybe think about having your staff take some customer service training especially the older male staff. If they don’t want to be there working fire them. Their attitude is costing you customers.

Long wait and rude staff. I took my kids to the tubing park and we had to wait 30 min for tickets. Long wait times for lifts. Parents with younger kids beware. When you get to the top of the lift gettting off is not easy. Staff will not help and many pileups happen. Very icy and dangerous at the top. When my kids were getting trampled by other tubes, I asked the girl stafferson for «help». And she ignored me and said «I need to watch the rope» Fun for older kids. But don’t recommend for under 6.

This review is for the snow tubing area:
Overall, the experience at Nashoba was so-​so. The kids had a decent time snow tubing, although none were super enthusiastic about the experience. The staff are not well-​trained, are unfriendly, and sometimes inappropriate. I had three interactions with staff members and no one was happy and some were goofing off and not paying attention to their job. The place is filled with children under the age of 10, most seemed be around 6 – 8. There were at least three birthday parties taking place in the small «lodge» and other large groups present, making it a rather unpleasant experience. If you don’t have a strong immune system, you will likely catch the plague after spending 15 minutes in there. The one redeeming quality of the so-​called «lodge» is they have beer on draft, but if you’re with your kids and driving, you’re probably not likely to imbibe… right? I did not partake in the draft offerings since I was working and responsible for driving children, but I suppose it’s a nice perk for parents.
Some tips:
–Make sure you enter the snow tubing address into your GPS, or you will be brought to the ski area.
–Although they offer helmets for rent, they are $ 8 each and are not necessary, considering the rather low-​speed of the hill and the staff yelling at people to get out of the way as soon as you reach the bottom.
–There is food for sale (pizza french fries, etc), but bringing our own worked out just fine

HUGE wait and children running around and fighting everywhere. Yes, kids will be kids, but they were throwing snow at strangers, adults, and punching one another. Supervision needed! The staff could not have cared less about this or anything it seemed like. Yes, it’s cold. But we’re paying $ 30 for 3 hours to slide down a hill as much as we can, but we got 3 times in an hour and a half because there was only 2 people working at the top and you could then only use two of the slopes. Why not 4? I’m sure one person can watch one on each side to be sure there are no accidents. Also, there was an accident, so they were not paying attention.

I was pleasantly surprised about my time at Nashoba, but a few things did bug me.
I signed up to do a 6 week lesson program for skiing. Because the hill is quite small, the area was always very crowded on weekends. If you’re interested in lessons, I would suggest going on Mondays and Tuesdays, as the area is empty and there’s plenty of room to practice.
Furthermore, some instructors are very young — 16−18…much too young to really explain the physics of skiing. On the other hand, some of the instructors are GREAT! I can personally recommend Lara and Leo, as they were fabulous. Joan, the head instructor lady is also very understanding and is open to resolving issues.
Customer service can be majorly improved. Rentals and Ticketing booth is run by teenagers. You’ll have to really engage them and ask the right questions to get any information out of them.
Oh yeah sometimes I also smelled pot coming from the chairlift booths. Hot boxing?
As I am a beginner skiier, I would come back here for practicing.

We took our family there this week. granted it was school vacation and crowded. Once we got inside we were amazed at what little space there was to change and store personal belongings. The cafeteria and rental areas are TINY. My wife asked one employee if there was additional seating and she said «nope, it’s the same as it was in 1972. Isn’t it charming?» …what??? We realize she was saying this kind of sarcastic but this place could use some major upgrades. For the same price as larger mountains this place is lacking. Not to mention all of their runs are similar and very steep. Not great for people looking to hone their skills. My 9 year old wouldn’t go on the big hills but was bored on the bunny hills. They should really make something in between with all that space.
Lastly on two occasions there were a group of 4 – 5 kids skiing through the woods from the top of the Nashoba trail that came flying out on to the middle of the trail once almost taking out my oldest daughter. We found this trail, on this day to be dangerous and we did not see any real presence of Nashoba staff monitoring things. My daughter and I decided to stay off this trail.

This review is for the fact that a customer service rep added a note to my review essentially telling me that Nashoba is the pinnacle of snow tubing in New England and, if I didn’t like my experience at Nashoba then I probably should give up snow tubing and try skiing instead. Gee… biased much?

So the mountain is very small, I get that. But my biggest bugaboo about this place is that damn kitchen. Holy. 6 dollars for a burger that has been sitting under a light all day and 4 dollars for a piece of pizza that was probably made in the early 80’s and they’re still serving it. This food was downright terrible and I left early from skiing because I couldn’t handle it. What a ripoff.

First of all, this ski area would never be on my list of slopes to go to. It is what it is. For what it is, I can’t complain.
The only reason I came here is because my friends just moved into the neighborhood so it was a good place to hang with them right after a nor’easter.
I got my afternoon ticket at the ticket booth. Ya, not much customer service. but I got my ticket with no hassle. Maybe she did say thank you and I didn’t hear it. Who knows!
The trails were pretty decent. Some of the blacks had patches of ice. It was a good place to warm up and practice to start off the season. For once, I can say — I boarded on black diamond! woohoo! And I didn’t’ pee my pants!
The runs were short — if you wanted to fly down it, it probably can be done in less than a minute. Considering that there are kids and I just wanted to practice my carving, it was a long enough trail to do so. With no lines at all lifts, we went up and down a gazillion of times and had a good time practicing.
Even though I can drive to Blue Hills in less 5 minutes, I rather come here to practice. Nashoba is at least 100x better than Blue Hills! I don’t think Blue Hills own any grooming machines!