From January 18th to 21st, I joined 10 other buses of Boston College students in hopes of escaping the college social scene and traveling to Mont Tremblant, Canada on a weekend trip hosted by Campus Vacations: SnowJam. The hype was unbelievable for the trip: promo posters and videos were posted on Facebook and Twitter weekly, special codes were handed out in order to receive special discounts on the trip, and it seemed like everybody was talking about the once-in-a-lifetime weekend getaway!
For those of you who are curious, here’s the cold hard truth: it truly was an awesome and unforgettable time, but it was not perfect. Being able to make a purchase from a liquor store in Canada was one of the coolest and weirdest feelings I’ve ever experienced. For once, everyone and everything around me felt mature. There was no schedule or itinerary, no orders on where to be and when to be there, no real rules other than the obvious law-based ones, and essentially we were let free in Mont Tremblant to do whatever our hearts and our wallets desired.
It truly was an amazing weekend and it was made special by the people I was surrounded by and the memories we shared. Yes, SnowJam did have amazing nightlife events, the skiing really was top-notch (despite the fact that it was pretty darn cold), and it certainly lived up to the hype that had been built up for weeks and weeks. You could spend your day walking through the village shopping, skiing or snowboarding on the mountain, or even just kicking back with friends. No matter what you did, it was all pure fun and enjoyment. Despite all that, I truly believe that what made the trip and the weekend so complete was how much fun I had with the people I was with.
Snowjam did have some negative aspects that wouldn’t be fair to not mention, the main one being expenses. The trip is very costly for a weekend. A standard 4-person hotel room is a bit over $400 for the 4 day, 3-night stay. Though the food was very good, especially the Creperie in the village, it was somewhat expensive once one realized that the prices were actually higher because of the monetary exchange rate. While it is certainly possible to balance how much you spend and when you spend it, it is hard to avoid the desire to spend in a place as beautiful and engaging as Mont Tremblant.
Another negative aspect that I have to mention was the bus ride. We had a far longer commute back and forth to Canada than we truly hoped for. Though this was very unfortunate and somewhat frustrating, it did not defer my overall feeling of the SnowJam trip. Sometimes you can’t control traffic, stoppage time, and other random chance factors that significantly slow down an estimated time of arrival.
For people questioning whether or not to go to SnowJam, I have one response: go. Seriously… go. You will have the time of your life if you go with your best friends and allow yourself to truly enjoy all that Canada has to offer. Never skied before? Go give the slopes a try. Never had genuine Canadian food? Visit a restaurant in the village. Never been able to drink in a bar legally? Get your butt to the local bar pronto. The keys to success during Snowjam are two things: control your spending and also watch how much you consume during this weekend, so you don’t spend your entire time miserably hung-over! If you do these things, you will truly enjoy the experience that comes along with it. It will be a weekend that I will remember for months and years to come because I allowed myself to try something new when I hopped on a bus for 12 hours and headed to Mont Tremblant, Canada with my best friends.
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