Palliser Lodge, Kicking Horse: The lodge itself is away from the other buildings in the resort, and so you check in at Glacier Lodge in the main part of the resort and then drive up to Palliser. Check-in was friendly and reasonably efficient, if not very proactive. And those on the desk seemed to have little idea about the timings of the resort. When asked when the rental shop shut, we were first told that it had already shut (at 15:30). Another member of staff overheard this and said that it shut at 17:00. Actually, it shuts at 16:30. I would have thought that the questions that people most commonly ask at check-in in a small winter resort involve the opening times and locations of the lift pass office, the rental shop and the lifts. Having got key cards and gone up to Palliser Lodge, we found that the key cards would not open the ski locker. So we had to walk back down to Glacier Lodge to get those changed. Having then finally got into the ski locker, it was apparent that the locking slots on the ski racks did not take two pairs of skis as we had been told at reception, just one pair. So, that involved another trip down to Glacier Lodge to get another ski lock. For me, as a Brit, the condo-style room had the same problems that I have with pretty much all Canadian properties. The beds are too soft, and the lighting is too low. Apart from not being able to see anything, the absence of master light switches at the door and by the bed is a mystery. Instead, there is always a vast array of scattered light switches and lamps that need to be turned on/off individually, with the result that leaving the room or going to bed ends up being a long, complex mission to turn off a plethora of different switches. Oh, and there are never any USB sockets. There was no housekeeping until day 4 of your stay. Since we were only there for three nights this didn’t happen. The amenities in the bathroom were basic but sufficient, and the room had a washing machine and dryer. The rental shop in the resort is not a place I ever need to go back to. Surly staff, who had zero interest in customer service, and who shoved out knackered old equipment that had not been serviced. Excuses about being too busy were pathetic – I want what I have pre-paid for and this was mid-January, without much snow and the resort was pretty empty. I had also signed waivers online, but that whole process needed to be repeated in the shop in ink. The systems in place for collecting pre-booked ski passes were also archaic. I turned up with a spreadsheet for the journey with the booking reference for my ski pass, and my ID etc. etc. But they could not help me without the original email. Quite bizarre, since as far as I could tell the email had no more information on it than I had already given (including the booking reference at the top). We stayed at this property as part of a trip along the ‘Powder Highway’ in January 2023 (although only 50% of that name was correct at the time). The cost of
