The Ridge

My wife and I have enjoyed many stays at the Ridge properties in the past, but this stay was so awful that it seems they've fallen under mismanagement. SLEEPLESS NIGHTS: We've stayed at the Ridge Crest previously, so we knew to expect low-budget amenities, but we were not prepared for room 1714. This room is directly beneath the building main entrance, so you hear people coming and going at all hours, with no sound-dampening in between. Imagine people stomping snow off their boots right above your bed at 5:30am. Luggage carts sounded like train cars overhead, and made the entire room shake. I am NOT a light sleeper, but I had three terrible nights in this room. UNSAFE CONDITIONS, NEGLIGENT STAFF: There was a significant build-up of black ice outside of the Ridge View, preventing safe access to parking and the shuttle. We reported it and asked that they put down salt, gravel, or traction carpeting, but nothing was done. Two days later, my wife fell hard on the ice while trying to catch the shuttle -- meanwhile, the shuttle drove off and left her there. We again reported it, and again nothing was done to provide a safe path to the shuttle. UNRELIABLE SHUTTLE SERVICE: The shuttle service is not able to adapt to handle weekend crowds or poor weather. The ride into town--a 15 min drive--took us an hour each way, since it was overcrowded and we had to wait for additional vehicles. We were stranded in town when they canceled the service for the rest of the day due to snow, even though the snow had stopped and the roads were plowed. The ski shuttle is better, but they will never give you an estimate of when the bus will arrive and we watched many drive right by us without stopping at the Ridge Crest and Ridge View. Other issues compounded: - Old, chewed gum in our shower, and other cleanliness issues - No hot water one morning - Several broken lamps, lamp shades, and dead bulbs in our Ridge View room - The TV wasn't working when we arrived - The in-room safe stopped working twice - The common areas in the Ridge View were unheated, making them unusable One bright spot: Manager Lisa recognized our frustration with the noise issues in the Ridge Crest and moved us to the Ridge View for the rest of our stay. The Ridge View room had much nicer furnishings, a beautiful fireplace, and a lovely view with peekaboo views of the lake. Unfortunately, we continued to encounter maintenance issues, as mentioned above. TL;DR: One of our shuttle drivers put it best when he quipped, "when people ask me how many people work here, I tell them only about half of them." Read less

Great amenities and all free when staying there. Spa, heated pools, indoor pools, multiple hot tubs, indoor and outdoor tennis courts, miniature golf, movie theater, fitness center, free child care, racquet ball, fitness center, playground, BBQ pits, driving range net, and restaurant on site..... so many. Very friendly staff. There 7 buildings at the Ridge Tahoe resort. All of them have different floor plans, but all units are very spacious. This mgmt. also has two properties, Ridge View and Ridge Crest that are outside of the main Ridge Tahoe campus. I don't like Ridge View and Ridge Crest. The resort is not 5 stars and the prices reflect that. Units are very spacious. Read less

The staff we have met so far have been Outstanding: Aaron in guest services, Louis in Maintenance, Michael and David at the “Bear Trap Lounge” - Phenomenal. Antonio and all the gentlemen at the Bistro. Overall, Outstanding Service. This is a 5 star. It is family friendly from tadpole to bull frog. The other guests are part of what makes this place so fantastic. Highly recommend. Location Location Location. Top of the Mountain. Views Views Views. Read less

Horrible facility which is badly taken care of. My family is an owner of a timeshare here and quite honestly for the past few years every time we have come the service gets worse and worse. There is rust in all areas of the jacuzzi, it is very dirty, no one cleaned our room when we requested it, the laundry unit is completely rusted and also ripped my clothes because it has exposed metal, we had to call multiple times every time we wanted towels replaced, there was no shampoo or lotion provided, the elevator broke several times during our visit, and the whole place just has a very dated feel. Each year they increase maintenance costs so it is pretty expensive. Also, how can I forget the fire alarm that went off 3 times in 2 days and no communication about that was going on. There was obviously no fire and it was late at night when my kids were sleeping :( Majorly disappointed. The only nice thing about this stay was the very sweet shuttle driver. Read less

We got a great deal on this resort as a shoulder season (Dec. 9-16) getaway through Interval International. After reading reviews dating back a couple years I was a little nervous about some of the negatives mentioned in reviews. I’m happy to say none of them amounted to much. I do think summer could be quite miserable if there was a hot spell w/o air conditioning in the rooms. However for December that was not a problem. We had a two bedroom and kept the heat turned completely off (thermostat at 55°F) even with outside temperatures of freezing in the morning and in the low 40’s in the day time we were comfortable. We have no problem with a room temperature in the 60s tough. Pros. Room was huge. We had a two bedroom in the Cascade building. This configuration amounts to a 1 bedroom with a studio lock off as the 2nd bedroom. We spent all our time in the 1 bedroom side and stored some stuff (snowboards) in the studio side. The studio was just that, with a mini fridge small sink, and king bed / living area all in one. It did have a big bathroom. The 1 bedroom side was like a nice sized apartment. Big Kitchen, oven, microwave, cook top, massive fridge, great cookware. Gas “fireplace” worked well to dry wet snowboard clothing. Both rooms had fantastic king size sleep number beds. Parking garage is awesome for winter. Cascade building had more than a dozen luggage carts which was great. Other items on the plus side: Free parking. No Resort fee. No timeshare pressure. Great views. Nice Gym. Nice locker room with free lockers. Two closets in the one bedroom so a total of 3 closets. Big safes (we did not use.) Lots of dresser storage and kitchen storage. We did not eat one meal out. Hint Channel 12 is a good local Lake Tahoe (ski) channel. Cons. There are a few cons. I do not think they add up to removing a full star, if I could give 4.5 then yes it is 4.5 stars within its category. The knife set for the kitchen is serrated chef block type which are just okay compared to a knife set with smooth blades and a sharpening stone, but they have to cater to the lowest common denominator here - people who cannot properly sharpen a knife. So if you are going to be cutting a lot of veggies etc, bring your own knife if that sort of thing matters. It would be nice if the resort were designed so you could stay inside various buildings to walk from the Cascade building to the main Club House (pool, gym). There is even a segment with no sidewalk unless you cut over to the Plaza building using the elevated walkway. It is still a cold walk outside at times (or windy). 500kb throttling of the WIFI is a bit restrictive, but was good enough for cruising the web. At least it is free. As some other reviews noted the rooms are a bit dark at night even with all the lights on. I think if they would get rid of the fluorescent pig tail lights from the early 2000’s(?) and start using brighter LEDs lights it would help. Overall the gym is nice, but they have these ridiculous TVs for the ellipticals etc. with no remotes and earphone jacks on the side. Not user friendly. Finally there is a nice chair in the living room of the one bedroom unit, but the little rug protectors on the bottom of the legs of the chairs are missing leaving basically a jagged sharp nail that is sticking down and completely mangeling the carpet if you slide the chair around. Note to management, you are going to end up with completely destroyed carpets if they do not get maintenance on this issue post haste. I would be surprised if the Cascade building was more than 30% full. However some people did manage to let their kids run wild and even pull the fire alarm...seriously people! I would be happy to return. Read less