A fun place to work if you know what you are getting into - Guest Services Vail Resorts Employee Review

3.0
28 Feb 2011
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Working on mountain. Lots of variety to the job. Young and energetic coworkers. Company is actually committed to making customers happy. Vail does a good job of giving fringe benefits to it's employees. You may not get stock options or paid vacations but you are going to get a ski pass, big discounts, and free fun activities to keep you busy. Get to meet lots of interesting people from around the country and world. Spend time out doors not cooped up in the same office all day. Have some freedom in how you do your job.

Cons

VERY poor pay. Long hours and mandatory overtime days sometimes back to back. Work all holidays, nights, and weekends with no balance for family life. Poor commitment to employee health and safety. Basically you get hired for the season and they want you there every minute of every day that they can get you. You pretty much know this going in however and your vacation/break comes when the snow melts. You are going to work very hard for very little pay compared to the cost of living in the mountains. If you have a family it can be hard being a seasonal employee because you are not going to necessary have a stable time off to enjoy where you are living. The management doesn't seem to care if people are sick or not and force people to come to work anyway, even if it means literally infecting everyone else around them.

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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