Has anyone else had a rotten experience at Valle Nevado?

[carrflor]

Valle Nevado stinks. Has anyone else had similar experiences with these people and their third-rate area?


To tell the story, here's a copy of the as-yet unanswered letter I submitted by hand to the Valle Nevado management.


September 4, 2012

Valle Nevado
Avenida Vitacura 5250 #304,
Vitacura, Santiago – Chile

Ricardo Margulis, General Manager
Andres Marangonic, Ski School Manager

RE: Our day at Valle Nevado, Tuesday September 4, 2012

Gentlemen, thanks for your attention.

My wife and I are currently living in Sao Paulo. Our assignment ends this month of September. While we were in South America, we wanted to ski in Chile. We arranged to have two of our grown children meet us in Santiago, for two days of skiing.

We are avid skiers from the Rockies, but our home is now near Washington, DC. We have skied all over the US, and also in Europe. We were so excited about finally being able to ski in Chile; it had been a dream of ours for years.

It was no small sacrifice to have our kids fly down from the States, and for us to arrange a vacation during the last month of our fiscal year, and to fly over from Brazil. Considering those sacrifices, professional and economic, I often worried that we were doing the right thing.

After a lot of preparation, including renting a car, renting ski gear for our family in Santiago, and taking the long winding road up to Valle Nevado, we finally made it. We all love the mountains, and the views and high altitude were exhilarating. We bought our tickets and made our way down to the area near the ski school, and started putting our skis on.

Then, one of your ski school instructors, a young woman who I found out later is named Zelinda, accused our daughter of taking her ski poles. Having walked down to the staging area with my daughter, I was pretty sure that the poles my daughter had were the ones that she had carried with her. My son, my daughter and I insisted that Zelinda must have been mistaken, but Zelinda was quite adamant that my daughter’s rented poles belonged to her. She called my daughter a liar, and insinuated, if she didn’t say it outright, that my daughter was a thief.

Many angry words were exchanged after that, and I’m not proud of losing my temper. As far as I was concerned, Zelinda could have the poles, if it was so important. I left my daughter and son in the staging area and went to the ski shop buy some poles.

When I should have been skiing, I stood in line at the store for the better part of an hour, but I finally got the poles. On my way back to ski, I found my daughter, who said that another instructor had come by and informed everyone that indeed, the poles did not belong to Zelinda. However, my daughter was so upset by the shock of such rude treatment she was no longer interested in skiing.

I got a refund for the poles, and returned to the staging area to get ready to ski. I ran into Zelinda and asked for an apology, which she owed us, considering we never had her poles in the first place. She refused, saying that I was the one that needed to apologize. More heated words were exchanged. Then a male instructor came over, (later I learned his name was Javier), and I tried to explain our side of the story to him. I said … “y esta”… (referring to Zelinda, who hid her nametag from me, I didn’t know her name at that time.) Immediately, instead of listening to my side of the story, Javier started to lecture me on the impropriety of using “esta” instead of some other pronoun.

I realized at then that a serious analysis of the situation was pointless. Javier and Zelinda were not interested in hearing my version of events, they were more interested in saving their pride. So I left and went skiing.

Later I caught up with my son and we took a few runs together. After about an hour of skiing, my son told me the lingering memory of unpleasant events with Zelinda and Javier had wrecked his day, he wasn’t enjoying himself and wanted to leave the resort.

So we went down, and took our skis off again near the ski school staging area. I saw Javier and Zelinda standing together. I approached them so that I could see their nametags. My intention was to report the incident to management. Instead, Javier wanted to bring someone named Andy over to discuss it, but after Javier’s earlier cynicism, I did not see any further discussion as potentially fruitful. So I told him I was going to write to management, and his parting words were “Usted es un maleducado!”. He said it, over and over.

My son apparently didn’t like his grandparents insulted in this way, and responded to Javier inappropriately, (and if my son wasn’t a grown adult, he’d probably be punished by me for what he said to Javier.)

In summary, there was bad behavior and language exchanged in both directions. This unfortunate event brought out the worst in everyone.

After all our efforts and expense to get to Chile and Valley Nevado, and after purchasing tickets, one of us did not ski at all, and two of us for only an hour or so.

(By the way, on the way home we stopped at the rental store, and sure enough, the poles were indeed those we had rented. Zelinda was dead wrong for accusing our daughter of stealing her ski poles).

In addition to getting things off my chest, there is a reason I’m taking the time to write you about it. As those responsible for the success of your organization, I’m assuming you’d like to know about incidents that affect visitors to your resort.

As I mentioned before, we’ve been planning this trip for a long time and have traveled many miles and spent a lot of money to get here. We’re on vacation and we want to leave the world’s troubles behind for the short time we have.

Instead, our first encounter with the Valle Nevado organization is to have my innocent and sensitive daughter falsely accused of theft by arrogant ski instructors, who are not even capable of the minimal courtesy of an apology when the truth is discovered. Instead of enjoying a pleasant afternoon in a beautiful location, we end up with heaps of bitterness and regret.

I’d like to hope that we can forget this exceedingly unpleasant event and remember only the exhilaration and awe of your beautiful resort. But frankly, I think you can appreciate why I’m not inclined to risk another visit to Valle Nevado in particular, and Chile in general.

If you care about the impression people take home after visiting your resort, teach your employees to respect visitors and to appreciate that visitors are the lifeblood of the resort. Maybe when there is confusion, instead of jumping to the worst of conclusions, your employees could be trained to give the paying customer the benefit of the doubt.

Very truly yours,

[Hugh Conway]

Chinga tu madre, pendejo. Viva Valle Nevado! Viva Chile!

[powdork]

Later I caught up with my son and we took a few runs together. After about an hour of skiing, my son told me the lingering memory of unpleasant events with Zelinda and Javier had wrecked his day, he wasn’t enjoying himself and wanted to leave the resort.

your son is a gaping vag. sorry.

[toast2266]

Send Blurred in. He'll take care of Zelinda with his garden hose.

[Lone Star]

cliff notes:
Valle Nevado and all of Chile are teh suck because I let two dickbags get my goat.

[jSki]

your son is a gaping vag. sorry.

Indeed. I would think living in Sao Paulo would give you thicker skin to deal with situations like this and not let it ruin your day.

[Lamothe]

Jesus Christ . You both yelled at each other . You insulted each other and then both sides were bitter, fair enough. obviously you have your pride so let them have theirs. The fact the the WHOLE day was ruined is ridiculous. Stop being so butthurt about something so small and enjoy your day. The fact that you actually said you won't visit Chile again because of that little situation sets the tone of your whole letter. Your a whinny baby and so are your kids. Yes it was unpleasant and uncalled for but move on with your vacation and don't let that hinder your world travel destinations. How do you live your life being so sensitive . serious question

[iscariot]

Careful everyone.

You might ruin the OP's time here on TGR and, after writing a douchy letter the Todd and Steve, he may never come back to TGR, or perhaps even the entire western hemisphere.

[doughboyshredder]

Your letter says more about you and your inability to deal with adversity than anything.

[Lamothe]

Careful everyone.

You might ruin the OP's time here on TGR and, after writing a douchy letter the Todd and Steve, he may never come back to TGR, or perhaps even the entire western hemisphere.

Actually , in his case ( and if we are lucky ) the entire intertubz

[raisingarizona13]

You let yourself ruin your day. Quit yer crying, there are d-bags everywhere. You sound like a fucking baby.

[butterscotch]

Neal Stephenson, is that you?

[moonlightdbag]

no one really ends letters with "very truly yours", least not around here....i smell some sorta ruse.

[irul&ublo]

To summarize the lengthy original post....

[soylent green]

Neal Stephenson, is that you?

I don't get it. Wordy like Crytonomicon and gets stuck on a point?

[The Dude]

JONG!!!!

[BraddA]

[AK47bp]

Haha. As I read your letter all I could think of was what a whiney bitch you were.

Glad to see everyone else thinks the same thing.

[biff chalupa]

Apparently you couldn't find any Midol in Valle Nevado, but whose fault is that? Pack smarter next time.

[ashmgee]

Let me get this strait. You think they are going to respond to your letter?
And if they did, then what?

You come off like a tourist whiner, and because you lost your cool you are no better than the ski schoolers. I've met many bitter ski school employees. They are bitter because they get payed poorly to babysit your kids.

[meatspicy]

hahah this is aweome

was this the reaction you were hoping for, you whiny bitch?

[Benny Profane]

Please post this in another of our forums called the "Padded Room". There is an ongoing thread in there titled "First World Problems". It will be perfect there.

[k2skier112]

You probably spent thousands of dollars for a ski trip, and $30 ruins your vacation...priceless...

[Name Redacted]

Fucking americans

[Benny Profane]

Does esta mean " that bitch"?