Last weekend kicked off the 2015 Australian snow season.
Perisher Snow season 2015
Travel bunny because snow bunny for the weekend and stayed in Jindabyne at the Station Resort, a Perisher resort property.
It’s about an 8 minute drive from Jindabyne town and about a 30-40 minute drive to Perisher resort.
There are a lot of facilities on site, including a pub that offers breakfast and dinner options. Dinner shuts by 8:30pm so not a good option if you are going night skiing. Their hot buffet breakfast is available for $15 per adult from 6:30am. You can pre-book or pay on arrival and get it for $13 per adult. Dinner is $24 if you pre-book.
They also have an equipment hire store on site: Snowsports (part of Perisher). This was not open for the first weekend, but it’s the same company as the store at Bullocks Flat (for SkiTube) and at Perisher itself. They offered a 50% discount (on onsite rate not online rate) if I booked and paid in advance. However a friend could reserve for the same rate. They seemed inconsistent with the information they provided. It was great being able to pick up the gear on the snow as it saved lugging it around and you could resolve any issues on site, while on the snow.
We got a $199 Scoopon that included 2 days lift pass and 2 nights accommodation. A great deal, so look out for it it comes up again.
The rooms were basic and comfortable. Sleeps up to 6 people. But depending on how many people in your room they gave you different sized rooms. Between our 4 rooms we had a few different configurations. For ours we got 3 singles and a double bed for 4 people.
The Station Double bed
The Station, 3 single beds
The bathroom was more like a hostel shower and toilet. Minimal room to change etc. They did have an eco-friendly sign requesting that we reuse towels, the toilet paper was ‘earth friendly” as was the soap they provided.
There was enough cupboard space for luggage. However there were not enough coat hangers and no real drying area for the wet clothes and equipment after skiing.
The room also had a small bar fridge, kettle, tea bags and instant coffee with paper single use cups.
Rooms were warm and the beds were basic but comfortable. The pillows are quite thin.
I would rate it as a 2-3 star motel room.
Great budget accommodation especially if you can get a good deal. Reception is open until 2am to allow those late night arrivals. Customer service is good, but inconsistent. It is difficult to sometimes get through on their phone lines which are only open 9am- 5pm Monday to Friday.