Snowbird Whistler

We’ve owned a Week 49 week share at Snowbird for 4 years.
The property is a nice one, tucked in the Blackcomb Benchlands (the area to the northeast of the Blackcomb base area). These are townhouses with underground parking. Some units have direct access from the garage to the unit, it seems many of the time shared units all have this access; it is a very nice benefit to be able to park two cars securely, then unpack directly to the unit.
One negative, stairs! Our unit has two flights of stairs, one to the first floor from the garage, the bedrooms are on the first floor (as well as a main floor entrance). There is another set of stairs to the living room and kitchen/​dining room. I don’t have a problem with stairs, but after a day on the slopes, these steep stairs can be challenging (particularly descending).
All bedrooms and baths are on the first floor. Our unit has a master bedroom with king bed and on-​suite bath. It also has a bedroom with a queen bed and another bedroom with two twin beds. These two rooms share a full bath on the same floor.
The living rooms have nice couches and 1 chair. The dining room has seating for 6.
These are nice units, fully stocked with everything you will need, towels, bedding, pillows (extra pillows and blankets, too), a fully stocked kitchen. They were built in 1989 and they are showing a bit age. The finishes are a bit dated, but not too bad. The kitchens are white porcelain tile, dated, but perfectly functional. Same with the bathrooms, they have resin faux-​marble counters that have started to discolor and crack. They’re functional, just not as attractive as they once were.
Our unit is comfortable and fairly well-​maintained. We find the beds to be comfortable with nice linens and down duvets.
We like the communal hot tub/​spa that is just a few chilly steps from our front door. It is also possible to go through the garage to get to the spa (outside between the lower 2 buildings).
The best part of these units is that they are just a short walk to Blackcomb Village (the Blackcomb base) and Whistler Village just beyond that. The trails are great, easy to navigate, and mostly lit at night. There are also free BC Transit buses we take to and from Whistler Village.

I have stayed here once before a long while back as a part of my family’s time share. This place is HUGE. You could live here for a month, there is a ton of closet space and a mudroom from the garage to put all your wet snowboarding gear.
Even thought it is in the Upper Village, the bus stop is literally right out side the property and it runs pretty often.
We stayed in room 302 and it faces the ski in and ski out path, due to spring conditions we couldn’t exactly do that. The hot tub was under maintenance unfortunately so we couldnt use that.
Looking at the pictures from the other reviewer, our unit is definitely older and hasnt been recently renovated like that one.

I stayed here on a fantastic ski trip in Whistler with 6 friends. Being used to package ski trips to Europe, we looked initially at hotels via tour operators but found that to be an expensive and inflexible option with room supplements and a lack of half board options.
We therefore explored booking our own apartment and found Allura a useful website with an excellent town map showing the location of all the accommodation and shops in the resort.
We eventually found Snowbird and booked unit 106, which turned out to be the best located of the block for access to the bus stop and hot tub. It is located in the Blackcomb Benchlands area which is about 15 minutes walk to Upper Village and 25 minutes to Whistler main resort in good conditions. However, the free and absolutely reliable Whistler bus shuttle service stops literally outside the block and runs every 10 minutes, a much better option for getting to the ski areas and to town. In fact, this fantastic bus service renders the location of your accommodation in Whistler irrelevant — I think we had less walking to and from the ski lifts than most people who stayed in hotels in the main town — 10 metres to the bus stop from our apartment and 50 metres to the lifts from the bus stop.
We found Allura to be professional and efficient with a free phone number from many countries including the UK, although you can deal with them just through the internet. You get a lot of detail about the apartments on the website and you can communicate directly with the owners of the properties, which helps to put your mind at rest when booking accommodation overseas. I found the owners of unit 106 really friendly and helpful with insider’s tips about where to buy groceries, etc. If you book accommodation with allura, you also get the additional bonus of savings on lift passes, equipment rental and a free full day ski lesson as well as discounts on lessons.
Like other accommodation in Whistler, the Snowbird block is built in wood to blend in sympathetically with the beautiful surroundings. The only problem we had was that the Snowbird sign was obscured behind a 3m snow bank when we arrived and it took us awhile driving up and down the road in the dark to find it. There is a pedestrian entrance to the upper level in the apartment while there is an entrance via the parking garage (key is mailed to you beforehand to access this) downstairs, making it easy to get your luggage in and out of the apartment on arrival and departure.
The unit inside has been newly refurbished — lovely wooden floors, under floor heating, big fireplace, first class appliances in the fully equipped kitchen including little luxuries like a dishwasher, coffee grinder and brewer, 2×37 inch plasma tellies in the living room and one bedroom, 5 CD player and huge washing machine and dryer. There are a lot of basic food staples, washing powder and detergent in the apartment for the use of guests. Linen is also included as is free wi-​fi internet access. The only omission which would have been useful for first time visitors to Whistler like ourselves would have been a little pack with some basic information about the resort but we soon picked up lots of free information leaflets.
The bedrooms slept 2, 2, and 3 respectively and there were 2 luxurious bathrooms, one with a jacuzzi bath and the other with a steam shower. There were little lovely touches like illuminated bathroom switches, which is very helpful when you’re making a visit to the bathroom in the middle of the night. There are 2 balconies, which would be great in the summer or warmer evenings for drinks. One of them overlooks the 20 person outdoor hot tub, a perfect place to soak and loosen up those tired muscles after a hard day on the slopes. The apartment we were in was very handily placed right next door to the hot tub — some other guests had to dash quite a way to and from their apartments.
It’s so nice to have your own apartment and hot tub after a long day on the slopes and I would highly recommend this apartment.