"How do I register to become a NEW member of Blizzard Ski and Board School for the current season?"
Registering is easy for a new member of the school. This is true for returning members as well. The ribbon on the top of the website has choices for Member Registration as well as for Weekly Trip Reservation. Select "signup/login," "Membership," or "Weekly Trip," from the ribbon, it will walk you through the process. Weekly Trip Reservations are made from the "Weekly Trip" dropdown page. You are not considered a member until you have received your membership credentials. Membership for the 2024-2025 season is $160. The weekly trip fee is $175 per trip, per person. The trip fee does not include the cost of rentals which must be taken care of outside of our membership.
“How do I create a Web Account so I can sign up for a weekly Blizzard trip?”
Follow the instructions above to sign up for an account. Once that account is established and paid for, you will continue to use that username and password to sign up for the weekly trips. If you forget your password, you can have a new one sent to the email address we have on file by clicking the “Lost your Password?” button under the Member Log In. The system will never lock you out. One thing to remember is that usernames (preferably your email) is always lowercase. iPhones tend to capitalize the first letter - you'll need to override that.
“How do I (a member) sign up for the weekly ski trips?”
On the ribbon at the top of the home page, choose “Weekly Trip.” As long as you are a current Member trying to sign up for the upcoming week’s trip and it is a weekday prior to 6:00 PM on Wednesday, you can sign up for that week’s trip online. Sign up begins on Monday at 7 AM of the week of the trip. Sign up online closes at 6:00 PM on Wednesday, so you will not be able to sign up after that time except on a waitlist basis. You cannot sign up for any trip before the week of the trip.
Choose your bus location from the drop down menu on the Route Selector page. Ensure that you have the right pick up point before you proceed. On the same page you can sign up any or all members (from your family) for that week’s trip. Each page has a button that will return you to the previous page or back to the beginning where you can start another section. The final part of the process for sign up to the weekly ski trips links to the PayPal website for payment. You DO NOT need to have a PayPal account to use it for payment. You can choose to pay the Blizzard Ski Club with a credit card, a debit card, your bank account, an e-check or your PayPal account (if you have one.) To complete the PayPal payment you must go through all of their steps. There will be a receipt from PayPal and a button to return you to the BlizzardSkiClub.com website. Do not leave PayPal before you have completed the transaction and been returned Blizzard. You must have a receipt of completion. If you do not reach the receipt page, start over and re-register until you do.
“What happens if I miss the Wednesday's deadline for sign up, can I still have my child attend?”
We have created a "No Reservation" waitlist. To be added to this waitlist, you must go through the payment process which adds a $50 "No Reservation" fee to your payment. If there is a seat available at your preferred stop (or any other convenient stop, grab it). If you selected a stop other than the one you wanted, I will put you on a waitlist for the preferred stop. There is no guarantee of seat availability at your preferred stop if it was not in stock at your time of purchase. You can show up on the day of the trip, but parents must stay with their child at the bus stop until a seat vacancy is determined. But, it does put you on the bus list and gives you priority over other members who might show up on the day of the trip. If there is no room on a bus and you have paid the "No Reservation" fee ahead of time, the full amount will be refunded.
While I would like to say that everyone is always welcome, we do need to have a system that helps us order the right number of buses and know how many adults to have available. This means establishing a cut-off time. Wednesday at 6:00 PM gives us enough time to either order more buses or release buses that will not be used.
The one exception to this policy is for members whose stops are other than River Forest, Hyde Park, Winnemac Park or Lincoln Park. The secondary stops on those routes cannot be added after the Wednesday 6 PM deadline. If no other member has already signed up from that secondary stop i.e. Oak Brook, Schaumburg, Lake Zurich, Half Day Rd., Old Orchard, or Park Ridge, then we cannot add that stop for a late-registering member. This only applies if you are the first one being added to that stop where it had no one else originally. The bus companies are paid by the number of stops as well the destination and time. Once we tell them the route, that's the route for the trip.
“What happens if I miss a Saturday/Sunday for which I have a reservation? Will my money be refunded?”
The weekly trip reservation fee less a $50 “No Show” fee will be refunded as long as we receive notification of the absence prior to midnight on Thursday evening before the trip. Refunds are processed as soon as the bus rosters are reconciled following the missed trip. Cancellations are accepted until Wednesday evening at 6 PM CT without penalty through an email to blizzardskiclub@gmail.com After that time, the $50 “No Show” fee will apply regardless of the circumstances until Thursday midnight before the trip. If we receive no notice of cancellation by Thursday midnight, the entire trip fee will be forfeited. We do not hold over monies from week to week, so all missed reservations will be reimbursed typically by the following Tuesday less any applicable "No Show" fee.
"Does Blizzard ever Cancel a Trip?"
Blizzard weekly trips are seldom canceled. At the beginning of the season and the end of the season we have canceled for lack of snow, but we have never canceled for rain or snow storms during the height of the season. If we should cancel or you have a question as to whether we are canceling a trip please check the website on the morning of the trip. If Wilmot or Alpine is not open, we will not have a trip. Twice in 2021 it was too cold to ski and we did cancel the trip.
"Can I pick up my kid and their friends from Wilmot or Alpine?"
Better yet, why not come up on the bus with them and become a Blizzard Supervisor! If you are picking up your child or anyone else's child from Wilmot or Alpine, we need two things. One, is a note that is given to the Bus Captain of the originating bus, from each parent on the morning of the trip. Second, you need to be at the Blizzard area prior to our departure at 3:10 PM so we can ensure that you have coordinated with your child and whoever is leaving with you. Please arrange to meet your kid(s) at the Blizzard desk prior to 2:45 PM, share your ID with us, and sign out the departing members. This is a liability issue for us and we will hold up the departure of the entire club if someone is missing, delayed, or has been taken without our knowledge.
“Why do I have to pay extra for a late reservation if you know you have room on the bus?”
The key is that we didn’t know we had room on the bus. On Wednesday we calculate how many people have reserved seats. Only then do we know how many buses to order. If we are close to the number of seats for two buses, it is not in our best financial interest to order a third bus. Since we have to pre-order the buses we have to establish a cutoff date and time that enables us to accommodate all those who have registered within the guidelines. Once the ability to reserve a seat closes, we are now into a waitlist scenario. The numbers ebb and flow with the number of “no shows” the number of “no reservations.” There have been weeks when I have stood the entire way up and back to accommodate the excess number of attendees. Luckily we have never been in a situation where we could fit everyone on two buses when we had ordered three. So, out of fairness, we treat everyone equally. The rule is, you log on and make a reservation by 6 PM on Wednesday. If you do not show up nor have canceled prior to that time, you pay a “no show fee.” If you show up without a reservation, you pay a “no reservation” fee. And I am not exempt, I have paid “no show” fees when my daughter decided at the last minute that she was not going because of homework, or friends, or she just didn’t feel like it – at 8 PM on Friday night.
"I can't Log In. What's Wrong?"
If you can't remember your password, you can reset your own password using your email of record.
“I lost my Blizzard tag, how do I replace it (and why is it important to have it?)”
The Blizzard tag documents that you are a member of the Blizzard Ski and Snowboard Club. It has detailed information about you and your ability on the slopes. In case of an injury, it lets the Ski Patrol immediately identify you as a member of Blizzard, your age, your ability level and most importantly, your insurance information. Emergency contact information is also on the card. This is equivalent to your driver’s license if you were older than 16. We require that each member have the tag with them at all times and be able to produce it to any member of the Blizzard or ski area staff upon request.
At lesson time this card is used to ensure that you are assigned to the appropriate group and is used to track attendance at lessons. Blizzard uses special non-commercial punches on the cards to show progress through the levels and attendance each week at lessons. Parents can check the cards for lesson attendance information.
To replace a lost or destroyed card, you must alert a Supervisor at the Blizzard desk (or call/email during the week) who will request a replacement on your behalf. As the cards are manually produced we will only replace them once for a $10 charge. The best way to NOT lose a card (or leave it at home) is to place it in your ski or board boot at the end of each Saturday so it will be ready for the following week. During the trip day, the safest place is around your neck.
“I sponsored a new member. How do I use my credit?"
Congratulations on referring a new member to Blizzard. We appreciate your word-of-mouth endorsement of the club. We have asked new members to provide us with their referrer. I will credit back an amount (as yet to be determined) to your PayPal account in January. It is that simple. (This will not be available for the current season)
"What's an EPIC Pass?"
As a part of the Vail corporation, Wilmot now falls under their pass system. Vail purchased Wilmot to create an enthusiasm for winter sports in the more urban regions and draw skiers and boarders to the Rockies (and their resorts.) There are multiple ways you can pre-purchase lift tickets for all the Vail Resorts through the EPIC pass system. Having an Epic Local Pass, which so far is a similar price as a season pass for Wilmot, means you can also go to all the other resorts (as long as you avoid their blackout days) for the same low price. We will be accommodating those members who purchase a full Epic Pass, an Epic Local pass or a Wilmot pass with a separate weekly fee structure. We cannot do the same for any multi-day pass purchases. DO NOT BUY ANY OTHER PASS TYPE THAN A WILMOT SEASON PASS, A FULL EPIC PASS, OR AN EPIC LOCAL PASS. It is too difficult for us to track 3 through 7 day passes manually. Blizzard's lift ticket rate at Wilmot is better than any other lift ticket rate they offer. It does not make sense to buy an Epic Pass if the only skiing and boarding you will be doing is with Blizzard. It makes perfect sense to purchase an Epic Local Pass if you are intending to ski with Blizzard more than 5 times and also go out west. Look for the pass from this link: Epic Season Passes
Alpine is not part of a larger system, but also has a season pass that can be purchased. Similar to Wilmot, we will rebate $30 of the lift ticket price we incur back to the pass holder each time they attend with their pass.
"What happened to the ability to Bring Guests?"
After years of allowing guests to attend with members on two Blizzard Saturdays, we suspended guests starting with the 2011-2012 and future seasons while we try to come up with a better way to accommodate our growing membership. To insure an individual guest for any given Saturday involves a great deal of time and effort in the back office. An Insurance Waiver needs to be submitted and logged and we need to calculate the number of available seats prior to ordering the buses. We have accepted guests only to have angry members who were denied the ability to go due to lack of seats. In the past few weeks we have sold out of capacity even for our larger membership which would have caused us to decline guests anyway, so we decided not to have any and alleviate that particular problem. Maybe we will resume in the future, but for now, NO GUESTS.