Like me, if you can't ski to save your life but love the snow then this is the place for you and your family. From Canberra it's an easy day trip and the scenery on the way is to die for! the snow this year is substantial and with the recent release of the kids movie Frozen, it was inevitable you were going to make an Olauf snowman! The ski fields look like they are made for beginners and the toboggan and tube rides were fun, safe, and very well staffed. The car park gets a daily clean from snow & slush and the nearby food outlets and coffee shops served up fresh doughnuts and hot hot coffee to warm the insides. you need a Kosciusko parks pass to enter and pay a $5 toboggan hire and $5 toboggan park entry fee, and that's about it. If you want to buy your food and drinks there you can; If you want to bring your own and use the park benches near the food outlets, you can!
Having heard that Selwyn Snowfields prides itself on being family friendly, we turned up expecting great things. Unfortunately our first touch point when we arrived was with a surly and particularly unhelpful young lady at the front desk who not only could not manage a simple smile but also made very hard work of explaining lift and lesson options for our family.Having finally worked it all out, I then asked and paid for clothing hire for our two young first-time-skier boys only to find that, unbeknownst to me, my wife already had some pants for one of them to wear. I therefore went back to the surly young lady at the front desk and explained that we didn't actually need the pants and could we get a refund for those. The girl then walked off without saying anything and made me wait for 5 minutes while she evidently called a manager before coming back and telling me that she didn't know the code for processing a refund and that the manager had said that as I had asked for the pants that I couldn't have a refund for them. What a terrible introduction to a 'family friendly' resort!So Selwyn have taken $14 from me that they didn't really earn and with that money have purchased themselves a nice little review on this website. They'll also be losing out on the many thousands of dollars that I'm likely to be spending at ski resorts in future years as, if they can't be the best at customer service (which you'd think they'd want to try really hard at given their more illustrious competition down the road) then we may as well go somewhere with good snow and more variety!
Went to Selwyn snowfields with the family and friends. Great place for those who are learning to ski. The snowfields are smaller than the bigger ones at Perisher and thredbo so kids are able to go off and ski without the parents having to escort them. There is a small kids club and all the same lessons etc for the beginners. A toboggan area and tube ride adds a bit more fun!
Great place for young kids & families. Tubes and toboggan for the kids and plenty of good places for making snowmen.
Definately a good place for the first timers ( which we were ), however, when we went to use the amenities, it literally took our breath away...... we have used many a long drop in our travels, but none that you couldn't actually breath in. We believe that there is just too many in a small confined area, with not enough ventilation. Don't know how the littlen's get along in there...
We went to Selwyn with 20 12 year olds, most of who couldn't ski. We had 4 lessons over our 2.5 days and by the end, all of our kids were confident and reasonably proficient. The ski fields are contained enough that we knew the kids wouldn't get lost and we could easily round them up. These fields were ideal for a group of our size and experience.
We took our three children (aged 7, 4 and 2) to Selwyn for the day in July 2014. It was the last Saturday of the NSW school holidays, and the middle weekend of the ACT holidays, so we were expecting it to be busy, and it was! We had a great day, selwyn is a good place for first time skiiers and it is also small which helps when you have small children - less walking to get from the slopes to the various amenities. We booked the older kids in the Snow World classes and they LOVED this - highly recommended. We booked them in the 1pm class, this works well if you are driving in from Canberra or Cooma that morning as you would struggle to get there for the 9am class. Main advice I would give on visiting is allow enough time to get there, so you don't miss lessons, etc. There was a long line at the National Parks booth on the way in. I would recommend pre booking everything that you can, as the lines in the morning are very long, but you can avoid this by booking online (there is a pre booked section, no line, about 30 people in the line next to this who had not pre booked). Also, we hired all our equipment at Selwyn, but this takes minimum 30 minutes to get sorted (with queues, fittings of boots and skis) so next time I think I will hire in Canberra and take with us. Its not any cheaper to do this but we waited so long we almost missed the kids lessons (and you can't be late for lessons). The kids LOVED the snow tube, though our youngest was too little and they don't allow little ones to sit on laps for this. Overall, it was a good day, next time we will try and get more things in advance to avoid the lines, and have more time having fun!
Selwyn's the perfect place to learn snowboarding or skiing. I went here with my girlfriend to teach her to snowboard and it was very good because it was the right atmosphere for that. Uncrowded, gentle gradients and very few crowds. Great for families. Also very helpful staff. Just all round a very positive experience. They have sushi, which I didn't expect to be eating in the Aussie alps, bit exotic! Great gift shop where I purchased a shot glass and bottle opener. Megan at the information desk was very, very helpful and friendly. Overall the perfect winter holiday destination. Check out Kiandra on your way in or out, as there's so much Aussie skiing history there. Thanks again- Robert.
Great for first timers with snow, especially for little kids. Teenagers may be bored though especially if you don't plan to ski.
We only went there to play on snow (toboggan & snow tube) because we have 2 little kids. It was nice place for kids because it was not very crowded and cheap. Not sure how good the ski slopes are.