Banff Customer Reviews

Great ski resort, lovely town and awesome scenery. We stayed in a lodge just outside of town and skied at both Sunshine Village and Lake Louise. Again everyone was so friendly and polite, there were virtually no queues for the lifts and the pistes were very quiet. As intermediate skiers I don't feel we really got the most from the Banff ski area, if we had been expert skiers we could have had a ball, but we still really enjoyed the variety of runs. We had excellent snow conditions for April, it was unseasonably cold, which was great - I am not sure we would have had such a great skiing experience under normal spring weather conditions (although then there would have been more sitting in the sun taking in the views going on). Driving from Banff to Sunshine was very easy, only 15 to 20 minutes and to Lake Louise was longer, 45 minutes, but just along the highway. We did drive in some snow, had it been heavy snow we would have felt more nervous about driving and would probably have taken the ski bus to the resorts. We loved the hot tubs and hot springs and the free entry to the Whyte museum on our day off was an added bonus. There's so much to do around Banff as well as skiing, we could easily have spent longer, it was the perfect mix of activities, social and relaxation. We did walk up the Johnston Canyon which was amazing, the creek was so pretty and the frozen waterfall incredible. We did this on our own, just hired crampons in the town and drove to the car park - I think it would be useful to give customers the confidence to plan such trips on their own, with the right information it is very easy and saves so much money rather than joining a tour.

We stayed in Lake Louise for a couple of nights soaking up breathtaking scenery of the of surrounding frozen lakes including the famous Lake Louise, Lake Emerald and natural bridge is worth a visit too! We spent the last 5 nights of our trip in Banff. We enjoyed our visit to Johnson Canyon Trail, the frozen waterfalls are stunning. It turned out to be quite a fun hike as we were sliding all over the place, I would highly recommend ice cleats otherwise you will be spending all your time just negotiating the ice! We took a trip on the Banff Gondola to top of Sulphur mountain, we were lucky to have a clear day and the mountain ranges were breath taking, this is a must do in Banff. Following this we enjoyed a soak the Banff upper hot springs which is practically next door to Gondola. We booked a day snowmobiling tour, we got picked up from our hotel early in the morning and taken to Golden, this was an awesome day with a bbq included for lunch, so well organized and great fun. Our last day we skied at Sunshine resort, sadly the sun wasn't shining but still a great day. We really enjoyed our stay in Banff and definitely want to go back.

Banff is a great place to stay, plenty to do and a good selection of restaurants. Skiing wise Lake Louise was our preferred option although it does take 40 minutes to get there. Some really nice runs here and definitely worth a visit for a few days to a week. Personally we didn't really like Sunshine, very exposed and bitterly cold - I wouldn't like to ski here in poor visibility! There were some nice runs, especially on the Goat's Eye area of the mountain and we had a good day here, however a lot of the runs were very short. Would do another day in future but probably no more than this.