Cardrona Sneeuwverwachting

Cardrona is my favourite of the Queenstown/Wanaka ski fields. Great for kids to learn at with extremely good kids ski school and good learner runs (beginners magic carpet now has a covered half 'Tunell' to protect from bad weather). Staff: friendly, views: spectacular and nice generous runs; not long (longest is 4kms) but interesting. Food is, like all NZ fields, average at best; 'fuel stops' is a good description but they are all similar, unfortunately. Lifts are ok, 1st quad is slow but others fine. It's a small field on world standards. Don't expect a resort, it's not. Mountain accm is minimal, booked out early and only 'functional'. Long dirt road to get to base facilities and if self driving, car parking normally involves either a shuttle or a walk to facilities. Definitely no ski concierges or good quality mountain restaurants to enhance the skiing experience! Runs are above tree line so no skiing between trees but it's stunning scenery. Rental equipment is adequate, not great. Price wise, it's not cheap; close to $100 for an adult lift pass. We ski a lot in Europe and North America where you get the big & small resorts, the long runs, normally almost guaranteed snow (depending on time of year), massively varied terrain, fast lifts, gondolas, funiculars, heated seats, amazing service (US) and in Europe those gorgeous mountain restaurants. NZ and Australia simply can't compare to those resorts, we don't have the size, the developed terrain or the facilities but getting to Europe or North America to ski is time consuming and expensive and taking the kids to learn probably means taking out a second mortgage so unattractive to us. Our kids learnt at Coronet, Cardrona & Remarkables and loved every minute of it. We're confident if they can ski well in NZ they can ski almost anywhere in the world as our terrain is interesting and can be demanding. If you're spending time in Queenstown/Wanaka my pick is Cardrona.