Westin Blue Mountain Review: Ontario, Canada Ski Resort

The Westin Trillium House, located at the base of Ontario’s largest ski resort, Blue Mountain, is the perfect winter destination for people who love to ski and live in either Toronto, Detroit or Upstate New York. It offers all the charm and feel of the ski villages in Colorado and Utah without the need to get on a plane to get there.

Westin Blue Mountain Location:

Located on Canada’s Georgian Bay, within a two-hour drive of Toronto (4 hours from Buffalo and 5 hours from Detroit) is Ontario Canada’s top ski destination, Blue Mountain. The closest airport is Toronto, but most of the people who ski here are within driving distance. If you are going to need to get on a plane to ski, don’t come here, fly to Colorado or Utah, but if you are within a 4-5 hour drive this is as good as it gets.

The Rooms:

The Westin Blue Mountain is one of those “Condo-Hotels” where people actually own a lot of the rooms and rent them out through the hotel. What is nice about this arrangement is the high percentage of “suites” in the hotel.

I like it because you can get the best of both worlds – the multi-room features of a condo with all the benefits of a hotel (most importantly daily maid service, fresh linens, and a comfy “heavenly bed“!).

The Westin Trillium has typical Studio hotel rooms as well as 1,2 and 3-bedroom suites. We stayed in 2 bedroom suite which had two bedrooms, two full baths, a full kitchen, a sitting room, and a dining table. It was perfect for a family of four.

Amenities:

There were a ton of amenities and activities for everyone. Naturally, the ski slopes are right out your door and that is really the number one attraction. Ski Lockers are provided so you don’t have to worry about “lugging” your ski equipment through the lobby and elevator, just lock them up in the locker and walk right to the ski lift.

The group we were with had a mix of skiers, snowboarders, and non-skiers. We had a baby and five kids ranging from 4-11 years old. There was plenty to do for everyone…. skiing, skating, swimming, shopping, etc…

During our 3 day trip in February, we got about 18 inches of fresh snow on the first day, which made for great skiing the rest of the weekend. The mountain provides a nice mix of green, blue, and black diamond runs along with a great terrain park for the snowboarders. High-Speed chairs get you to the top of the mountain quickly and the lines move very fast, so you are not wasting a ton of time at the base of the lift.

There are a couple of options for swimming including the year-round outdoor heated pool and hot tubs or a place connected to the hotel called Plunge! Aquatic Centre, which is an all-season aquatic center with indoor and outdoor pools. There is a kiddie pool with a little slide and waterfalls for the little kids, an indoor/outdoor pool with an outdoor water slide, a hot tub, and a 12-foot diving pool with a rope swing.

If you are a skater, they have a great setup for that too. There is a pond called “Mill Pond” in between the Westin and the Ski Village that is set up for ice skating. It provides a huge skating area (probably the size of 4 traditional ice rinks) and is resurfaced every day with the makeshift Zamboni that they have. It is a beautiful setting to do some skating, providing all the tradition of old-time pond skating, with the smooth surface of an indoor ice rink. In the summer you can rent a paddle boat or fish for trout in the pond.

Other activities available include snowmobiling tours, Toboggan tours, Sleigh Rides and an Alpine Coaster called the Ridge Runner Mountain Coaster. We didn’t go on it, but the Coaster looked like a lot of fun. You are in a “driver-controlled” sled where you control your own speed traveling down the mountain on a winding roller coaster track (with access to a manual brake), at speeds of up to 42 km/h.

There are plenty of things to do in the summer as well like rock climbing, golf, gondola rides, and the beach of Georgian Bay. We have only been here in the winter, so that is the focus of this review.

Random Thoughts and Recommendations:

The Blue Mountain Village has over 20 restaurants and cafes. Here are some recommendations for dining and drinking:

• Royal Majesty Espresso Bar and Bakery – On every trip, I go on I like to find the place that has the best espresso in town, (Starbucks will never be on that list). I knew I found a good one when I saw that this place serves intelligentsia Coffee. I believe intelligentsia has some sort of training program where any coffee shop has to be certified to provide their coffee, so you always know you are going to get a great espresso or cappuccino. I wouldn’t say they make them as good as intelligentsia does, but I was very happy to see this place and would recommend anyone come here for their morning fix.
• Rusty’s at Blue – This is the place to go for Apres Ski and into the night. It is located at the base of the mountain, just a few steps away from the SilverBullet chair. The food was great and the atmosphere was lively.
• Firehall Pizza Co. – Great Fire Roasted Gourmet Pizza, Salad, and Pasta. This is a great place to take a break for lunch.
• Oliver & Bonacini – I normally don’t eat dinner in the restaurant of the hotel I am staying at (this is the restaurant in the Westin). However, we did eat here and it was probably the best restaurant of all in the Blue Mountain Village. The atmosphere is sleek, stylish, and sophisticated and the food was outstanding.
• MJ Brynes Irish Pub – My recommendation here is to avoid this place. After a 5-hour drive, we did not feel like a long wait and noticed that this place was wide open (obvious mistake #1) so we went in. It might be ok for late-night drinking, but as far as dinner goes it was the worst – smelled like a college frat house (i.e. beer-soaked floors), the lighting was very dark and the food was horrible. This was the only negative experience we had on the trip.

Tim White

Tim White is the founder of milepro.com, a luxury travel resource featured in CNBC, Travel & Leisure, and other major media outlets. With over 2 million miles flown and 30+ years of business travel experience, he holds Hyatt Globalist, Marriott Lifetime Titanium, and Hilton Diamond status — and has spent years decoding the world of luxury hotel programs, preferred partner benefits, and miles & points optimization so you don’t have to.