Embarc Whistler - Whistler Village

This was our first stay at a Club Intrawest property. We used our Hilton Vacation Club points to trade in for a 3 night stay (Thursday to Sunday in mid March. I had no problem booking this 1 bedroom unit only a month prior. We arrived late in the evening and had a little difficulty finding the front entrance to the property as it was not well marked. However, the check-in process was easy and the front desk support was super friendly and helpful. There is free parking in the underground garage accessible with a room key, although the parking spaces are tight and a bit tricky to get a regular sized SUV into, especially since everyone else also had similar cars. Our room was fairly spacious with a decent sized kitchen (electric stove, dishwasher, full size fridge/freezer, with a stacked washer/dryer right off the kitchen . There were plates/bowls/cups for about 6 people and the basic cooking supplies. What was lacking were any condiments (except for salt/pepper , cooking spray or cooking oil, spices, etc so that you have to purchase this or bring it yourself. It made a short stay not worth the hassle of cooking. There are, however BBQ grills on property (I have no idea if charcoal or propane , although we did not use them. The bathroom was large with a jacuzzi tub and sink connected directly to the master bedroom (useful for us for hanging our wet ski gear and swim suits and a smaller room with toilet, standup shower and second sink connecting through the master bedroom or hallway. The king sized bed was a little firm and saggy although not terrible but the pillow were flat and standard sized. The two sofas in the family room both folded out into twin sized sleepers, which were perfect for our two kids. We had to move one sideways to get them both open. I didn't find any major maintenance issues. Location was convenient (only the Fairmont was closer but walk was more like 10-15 minutes if you have to carry ski gear. The onsite convenience store had most things we needed, but it is very pricey. I enjoyed small extras such as hot cocoa in the lobby and hot cider in the afternoons. The hot tub and pool were nice and the kids loved the water slide! The arcade had a nice selection of 80's and 90's style games (free! and air hockey and foozeball table. Overall, I was satisfied with this property and would definitely consider a stay here again.

I stayed here at a discounted rate because I did the timeshare presentation. Came out to about $110 a night during peak season. I honestly wouldn 't pay more than that to stay here in a studio. Here is my list of pro and cons: Cons: Dark hallways and a real 90s vibe throughout the space. I hear they are doing a renovation in 2017 and am sure they 'll fix this. The studio rooms are depressingly small, dark, and no better than a mid-priced hotel. Expect a mini fridge, microwave and toaster crammed into a closet called a kitchenette. (Note: the 1 bedroom and 2 bedroom units are totally different, roomy with real kitchens) You 'll get lost in these two attached buildings with no connection except a bridge on lvl 3. Every hallway is winding one direction or another. Every amenity is in a different nook and corner. You can never find your way back because the signs are so poorly placed, lit and designed. Do I sound old? This building made me feel old. The upper village doesn 't offer much to do, in comparison to the main village stroll a 10 min walk away. You 'll probably walk to the main village each day for a bite, a drink or to shop. So what 's the advantage of being in the upper village? Only the proximity to the ski slope itself. But if you 're not skiing, no real advantage at all. The time share presentation will suck. Just know that the person is mostly telling you sales BS about how this location is the most desirable time share, and you 'll always be able to vacation anywhere you want, and this 35k+ investment will save you SO much money and blah blah blah. We just nodded and smiled. When they asked why we didn 't buy we only said it 's not for us and the poor young sales guy couldn 't come up with a reply. I didn 't care for the mattress. I 'm not usually picky but this one was a spring mattress and the whole thing shook if you made a move. I even woke up once thinking I felt an earthquake. I point this out because the sales guy showed us a fancy memory foam bed and pretended that all beds here were that nice. Lies! Pros: The front desk staff is stellar. Friendly, chatty, helpful and just genuinely seemed to care. This place is good for families. There is an arcade room, a small grocery in the building, free DVDs and lots of kid 's movies, a movie theatre w occasional free popcorn, and a pool. That 's what kids need, yeah? Amenities here are pretty good. I loved that there was an adult only lounge, pool, sauna and hot tub. It was a peaceful break and never crowded. I don 't think most people could find it though (see my rant about getting lost and poor signage above). The bathtub in each room is huge. Nice for soaking. And last but not least, after checkout you can stay and enjoy the amenities, lounges, saunas, etc. until 10pm. The wifi password is DAY. That was helpful as we stayed in Whistler until the evening. Bottom line: It 's dark, dated, but family friendly and full of fairly good amenities. You have everything you need to entertain yourself for a day in the building... except for good lighting to see anything around you.

I do not really like writing negative comments, however I thought I have to do the right thing by letting people know about this place. 2 years ago I decided to try the passport membership for 3500 CAD for about 230 club points. I requested to extend the time so I can actually use it. So they extended the end date for my passport to June 30 2017 from June 30 2016. Everything seemed okay for about an year. However I realized this place is way over priced for what is worth. Paying 300-400 dollar for a single bedroom during regular season is quite expensive. Four seasons price is similar yet they are 5 stars and it's a way better hotel IMO. To make things worse I can't reserve rooms half of the time I wanted to go. I ended up going to pan pacific, fairmont instead despite I had intrawest pass and paid half the intrawest points worth. Things got worse and worse. Diamond resort took over, it's name Embark now. My original contract is, I can stay one night during the weekdays and two nights during weekends and three nights during holiday weekends. Now Embark/Diamond won't honor this contract and wanted me to stay minimum two nights. To make it even worse it's even harder to book a over priced room. During past 3 months I tried booking 3 times. Min 1 month in advanced. Even though weekends are not in holiday weekends I still couldn't book the dates I wanted. Since intrawest became embark, I had to talk to rep for at least 1 to 2 hours every time I tried to book. They didn't want to honor my contract and keep on telling me my passport expired. Every time they had to pull the hard copy of my contract to confirm. I understand if it happened once, but I had to go though this every time I call. Even today, I tried to book a date, and they are telling me they can't secure it because this is my last points and I have to go through presentation, however they don't have any person to do presentation during the time I wanted to book. I was told that it will take 3-5 business days after requesting for presentation person on the day I want to arrive. I can't secure the room until they hear from Embark presentation office. I was very upset and told the rep, why Diamond does not honor my contract and force me to stay 2 nights minimum instead of 1 from my original contract during weekdays, yet I have to honor their contract policy of attending the presentation. She talk to someone, came back and told me my pass expired this May 15th. Wow, really? I had to go through this every time I call waste 1-2 hours every time and still they have not corrected this. The rep pretty much said I can't book anymore. I told her she needs to talk to her supervisor about this. She came back and told me my pass expires on May 31st now from May 15th. Really? However the contact I have in front of me says June 30 2017? She told me they will pull the hard copy and confirm again for the 20th time, and let me know in 1 to 2 business days. So they have failed to book most of the rooms I tried to book, and now I have to wait another day or two to get the confirmation, and still have to wait 3-5 business days for presentation centre to respond the requst. Bottom Line. Expensive Hard to book Do not honor your contract Waste your time Doesn't care about YOU. All the Reviews are from people who bought the time share and they need to represent their asset by giving review. Don't get fooled. Most of the reviews are from share holders who had their membership for long time and paid only fraction of what you would need to pay if you do buy it. One More thing. When I attended presentation 2 years ago, they promised to give me 200 gift card for just trying out their presentation. Guess what? Even though I bought the passport worth 3500CAD they did not honor this and told me I can't receive it because my wife didn't speak English that well. It was foolish of me not to question about the free gift until I sign the contract. These guys are snakes. Few days later I was talking about this to my boss at work he told me that he got his 200 dollar gift when he didn't even bought the passport. I told him that my wife doesn't speak English that well and presentation was meaningless for her therefore they can't give away the free gift. He told me I got ripped off because his wife doesn't speak English and in fact she didn't even attend the presentation because she told them she wouldn't understand it anyway even though she went. I called the office and they said they will send me the gift card. 3 months passed I still didn't get the gift card. I called few times and they did send it and arrived within 3 business days. Now I am trying to book ski lesson for my daughter with the card. Guess what?? They no longer accept whistler gift card that was issued to me by intrawest because blackomb is sold to US company. You serious? This whole transition from intrawest to US resort company may seems okay for lo

SCAM ALERT! Not sure about the property. Looks nice in the photos. Unfortunately, we won't be visiting due to the deceptive timeshare scam that was pulled on my family at the Portland Ski and Snowboard show. After grinding on me for over 15 minutes, we were promised 3 days of lodging in Whistler for only $150 if we promised to take the 90 minute timeshare tour AFTER a day of skiing on our trip. When we called to book our vacation, we were told the program required a tour at 10:30AM or 1:00PM, NOT after skiing. Obviously, I'm not wasting one of 3 days of skiing with my family for a timeshare tour. When pressed about the promised after-ski presentation, we were told we should have gotten it in writing. Oh, and our $150 fee is non-refundable. Follow up: The manager at the resort read my similar review on Trip Advisor and contacted us offering a refund of the $150 fee noted above. We accepted. At least we are not out $150, but trust is a hard thing to replace when conducting business in another country. We are now gladly paying market room rates to avoid any timeshare stress.

I had the most horrible experience with this business today. My family and I were enjoying a nice afternoon experiencing the family section of whistler north and were approached by a nice woman asking us if we wanted to tour Club Intrawest. We told her that we had already done that 3 years ago and owned a timeshare with Trading Places. She said that she had people in the same situation who toured Club Intrawest all of the time. She said that we would get a $150 gift card for the tour. I thought about it, walked with my wife, and agreed to go. I was very upfront about the fact that I was not going to buy as we already had a timeshare. That was a very enjoyable experience...it was downhill from there... Once we arrived...the nice staff took our 5 kids to the arcade (they were great) and then we were introduced to Rob...the salesman. We sat down and he spent about 5 minutes asking us some details about who we were. Once he realized that we were not going to be buying that day he literally said, I don 't want to waste 90 minutes of my day but if you want to go through this, I can. He then proceeded to tell me and my wife that what we were doing was ethically wrong. He asked my wife how she would feel if she did her job and then was told by her clients that they never intended on paying her. He tried to soften what he was saying by letting us know that it wasn 't our fault...but then kept flipping his argument around to blame us...it took all of 10 minutes of this for me to be done. I told him that I wasn 't interested in wasting his time or my time and that I was going to go...to which he replied, That would be best but I don 't want you to think that I am trying to get you to leave. I was done by that point. My wife and I got up collected our kids and were on our way out when the sales manager found outside with the $150 gift card we were promised and tried his best to smooth things over. To be fair he was a nice guy and said that the way that Rob treated us was wrong. We ran into the original woman who asked us if we wanted to go on the tour and she asked us why we were done so soon. I told her the story and she was mad to say that least. I really did feel sorry for her....at the same time, I have never been made to feel that low by a salesman ever...even when buying a car. Stay away if you 're in the Whistler area...It 's not worth the $150 gift card.