Blue Mountain Double Down vs. 5x7 Passes. Time to ski!

Now that dragon boat is officially over, it's time to turn my attention to getting lazy and fat(er) other awesome things...

Lift tickets aren't cheap these days - a single day/night lift ticket at Blue will run you golf style money at $68 + TAX. That's a lot unless you got Game style cash lying around - I'm sorry, I forgot black people don't ski. Anyway, to most people the 5x7 seems like a pretty tempting deal because it's about $100 less if you get it early bird (~$180), but think about the limitations and the days/times when you can actually use the thing. A couple Double Downs are roughly the same price and have no limitations.

My totally awesome ski crew have converted to the Double Down passes in recent years after a fair bit of beer consideration. See if you can follow along with this reasoning/math and judge for yourself...

If you're like us, odds are that you will probably not drive up 2 hours after work on a weekday to ski 2-3 hours, then drive 2 hours back in the middle of the night all tired. Same goes for the weekend - we would never roll up at Blue around 5pm to hit the slopes in the frigid darkness because we actually like our apres ski/shooting the shit about the day rather than drive straight home. Also, odds are if you're gonna take time off to ski at Blue during a weekday you're probably lame and suck. Then there's the whole not being able to use them during the holidays as well.

For us a typical ski day includes rolling up to the carpool anywhere between 8-10am, grabbing quick breakfast/lunch in Collingwood, getting a good day of skiing in and then rolling out for dinner whenever our mangled bodies tell us to. There's no rush during the day and plenty of time to take breaks in the chalet.

Also, ask yourself this: how many times will you actually go skiing for the year?

We will usually get the max 4 passes (~$180) then ski Mt. St. Louis/Moonstone and/or squeeze in a cheap Tremblant weekend trip. That's enough for us considering we usually do a week long trip somewhere out of province as well.

For a quick weeknight stretch (if I'm up to it) I personally will hit up Glen Eden for the $20 special since its only 20 mins away for me.

Here's the breakdown:

5x7 PASS
- 5 days a week, Monday through Friday, from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm (excluding Monday, December 20, 2010 through Friday, December 31, 2010).
- 7 nights a week from 4:30 pm to 10:00 pm (starting December 16, 2010).

DOUBLE DOWN PASSES
- Entitles you to 2 day/night lift tickets, valid any time during the 2010/2011 season.
- You can get max 2 per person.
- Transferrable - it's basically a card with 2 credits and anyone holding the card can use it.

	SPRING RENEWAL (Until April 30, 2010 Prices + 5% GST)	EARLY BIRD (May 1 - Nov. 1, 2010 Prices + 13% HST)	REGULAR (Nov. 2 - Dec. 16, 2010 Prices + 13% HST)
5x7 PASS	$169	$179	$279
DOUBLE DOWN	$79	$89	$99

Think about it, take a second, and I'll see you on the slopes.