We have already reviewed the best ski hotels in Europe and the best ski hotels in America.
Now, we concentrate specifically on the Fairmont brand. Which are the best luxury Fairmont ski hotels? Ski-in ski-out Fairmont hotels in Canada include Fairmont Tremblant, Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello, Fairmont Lake Louise, Fairmont Banff, and Fairmont Chateau Whistler.
If you don’t like the look or location of these Fairmont hotels, we have also reviewed the best Four Seasons ski hotels, the best Ritz-Carlton ski hotels and the best St. Regis ski hotels.
Here is our pick of the best Fairmont ski hotels. Make sure you book your ski trip via our luxury travel concierge for free benefits, including breakfast for two, room upgrades (subject to availability), resort credit, welcome amenities, and more.
1. Fairmont Chateau Whistler
The Fairmont Chateau Whistler is one of the best hotels in Whistler.
The big advantage of the Fairmont is that it’s located at the base of Blackcomb Mountain by the Wizard Express ski lift. This means you can experience the joy of ski-in, ski-out, and walk out of the hotel in your boots and straight onto the slopes.
The hotel has a ski concierge room to store your skis, board, and boots overnight, so you don’t have to carry everything back to your hotel room. In this ski concierge room, there is sometimes hot chocolate available, too.
The other big advantage of the Fairmont is that it offers a club lounge, which you can access by booking its Gold rooms. The Fairmont Chateau Whistler Gold floor accommodations offer jetted tubs and gas fireplaces in every room, along with upgraded hotel amenities and Bose sound systems.
The Fairmont Gold accommodations are located on the 9th-12th floor, with some Fairmont Gold rooms on the 8th floor. Privileges include:
- Private check-in and check-out
- Exclusive Fairmont Gold Lounge for Fairmont Gold guests
- Deluxe Continental Breakfast in the Fairmont Gold Lounge
- All day coffee & tea service in the Fairmont Gold Lounge
- Afternoon canapés & honour bar in the Fairmont Gold Lounge
- Complimentary newspapers and personalized wake-up calls
Exclusive access to the Fairmont Gold Lounge is a true highlight if you book a Fairmont Gold room. In the Whistler Gold club lounge, you can relax fireside while enjoying a complimentary Deluxe Continental Breakfast, local newspapers, and magazines, catching up on email with a complimentary laptop computer, or unwind after a day on Whistler Mountain.
The Fairmont pool is large, heated, and right by the slopes, making it a magical place to swim, or you can warm up in the hot tubs surrounding the pool.
While the Fairmont Whistler’s rooms don’t generally have fireplaces, its impressive suites offer glove-warming gas fireplaces, perfect for those cozy winter months, along with modern spa bathrooms with soaker tubs and updated modern alpine decor.
The standard rooms at the Fairmont face backward, towards the car park rather than over the pool and the slopes. While they remain luxury rooms with 37m2 of space, you may be disappointed if you get a car park view.
Their decor is more generic than Alpine in feel. Most have decent-sized windows, but few are floor-to-ceiling. Most rooms don’t have balconies, which is a real disadvantage when compared to the Four Seasons Whistler up the road.
At Four Seasons, even the base rooms have large balconies and fireplaces. We have compared Four Seasons Vs. Fairmont Whistler separately. That said, the price of the Fairmont is usually less than the Four Seasons, so you do tend to get what you pay for.
Some of the Fairmont Whistler rooms have a Romeo and Juliette balcony, so although you can’t step out or sit out, you can swing the doors open and stick your toe in the snow.
You should book a mountain view room at the Fairmont for the full alpine experience. Pick a club room or a suite if you want a fireplace in your room.
Throughout their rooms, Fairmont hotels offer Le Labo Rose 31 bath amenities in their bathrooms, which is standard for the Fairmont brand. Suites have the same. These amenities smell nice but are not my favorites. Acqua di Parma, Bvgari, and Molton Brown are my favorite amenity fragrances.
2. Fairmont Tremblant
Tremblant’s landmark Fairmont ski-in ski-out hotel is spectacular and provides the perfect setting for a perfect alpine getaway. Brilliantly located at the foot of the majestic Tremblant peaks, Fairmont Tremblant resort is right in the heart of the village but is also right on the slopes.
Walk out of the lower level, put your skis on, and ski the 50 meters over to the lift or gondola, and you will be on your way up the mountain with no effort at all.
When you want to ski back to the hotel, you can ski back via the resort’s easiest green run, arriving at the hotel terrace lobby, which sits conveniently at the bottom of the slope. The excellent ski valet will store your skis so they are ready for you the following morning.
You can give your skis to the bellman when you check-in, and the ski valet will unpack them and set them up for skiing each day. At the end of your stay, the skis will be fully packaged up again and delivered to you as you check-out.
There are 314 guest rooms, including 62 spacious suites. Many offer breathtaking views of the mountains, the pedestrian village, or the surrounding woodlands. Rooms come in a variety of sizes, and The Fairmont Gold experience includes a club lounge and a private reception area on the 7th floor.
Gold rooms offer warm decor, a luxurious bathroom, exquisite personal amenities, high-speed Internet access, and club lounge access. The concierge lounge offers complimentary daily continental breakfast, drinks, snacks, tea, coffee, honor bar all day, and complimentary canapes served early evening.
If you don’t have club lounge access, it is worth mentioning that the hotel’s restaurants and bars all have fantastic views of the slopes and offer a great place to relax.
3. Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise
Previously, we compared which is best: Fairmont Banff Springs Vs. Chateau Lake Louise. Both hotels have great spas, indoor pools (Chateau Lake Louise doesn’t have an outdoor pool), luxury rooms, Gold Club lounges, and excellent restaurants and bars.
Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise is a grey-hued castle-style structure set in front of a sky-blue lake (the lake’s color is extraordinarily blue!). The windows all face out towards the lake, and inside, similarly grand chandeliers adorn a large circular foyer.
The location of Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise is perfect, right by the lake, but it can feel isolated. If you want to Instagram or photograph the lake, you can roll out of bed and into this picture postcard setting. This is a resort hotel with all its amenities and restaurants, but if you want some variety in eateries, Banff is a 45-minute drive away with difficult parking.
There isn’t much to the Lake Louise village, so you are limited to dining in the hotel. On the bright side, you can take plenty of walks right from this hotel’s doorstep.
You can’t ski in or out from Fairmont Banff Springs or Chateau Lake Louise. A hotel shuttle makes numerous runs from the Chateau to the Lake Louise ski hill throughout the day, as the Lake Louise Ski Area is just across the valley from the hotel.
With over 4200 skiable acres and 139 named runs, this alpine terrain offers variety for all abilities. The ski hill is open from mid-November to early May. This ski area is a 40-minute drive from Fairmont Banff Springs with free shuttle services available, but it is just a few minutes from Chateau Lake Louise village.
With 539 rooms, Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise’s base rooms start at a similar 215 ft² (20 m²). These base rooms tend to cost slightly more than those in Banff, with lake-view rooms being more expensive still, but the view is quite something.
Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise’s Lakeview Lounge and Fairview Restaurant offer dining with wonderful lakeside views and are exclusively reserved for guests.
Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise offers a rather dull rectangular indoor pool with a whirlpool. There is no outdoor pool at all, so you can’t laze outside by the pool in the summer or swim in a steaming outdoor heated pool in the winter, which is a major disadvantage of this hotel if you like a swim.
Chateau Lake Louise is closer to the slopes than Fairmont Banff, but if you are looking for a great ski-in, ski-out ski hotel in Canada, we prefer Fairmont Chateau Whistler or Four Seasons Whistler.
4. Fairmont Banff Springs
Fairmont Banff Springs looks like a European castle poking out above a sea of pine trees. Banff Springs Fairmont feels grand with lots of unplastered stonework, an enormous staircase, and lots of seats to sit. This Banff hotel also offers a large outside space with a fire pit and great views.
Fairmont Banff Springs is right next to a golf course, and you can book room rates to include golf. Fairmont Banff Springs is vast, with around 757 guest rooms. Base rooms at Banff Springs start at 220 ft² (20 m²).
Sunshine Mountain Lodge, Banff’s only ski-in, ski-out hotel in the area, is not luxurious, and the National Park regulations limit this type of ski-in ski-out development. You need to drive or shuttle to the ski hills from Fairmont Banff, and while the shuttles and busses are free, they can be a hassle and eat into your skiing time.
Mount Norquay is just 20 minutes from downtown Banff and has been the local ski area since 1926, offering 28 runs spread over 129 acres. Mount Norquay awards the flexibility of allowing skiers and boarders to pay by the hour and offers the only night skiing in the Rockies every Friday night.
In the summer, the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel is usefully near the tourist village of Banff, which is packed full of interesting shops, restaurants, and cafes. However, the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel is not based in the center of town. It is a short (congested in the summer) drive away over the Bow River. If you prefer to walk, the hotel is around one-and-a-half km from the center, or you can use the hotel’s free shuttle to get to and from Banff.
The hotel has a large indoor and outdoor pool. It is classic in design, with lots of archways and a rather dull rectangular design. Dare I say the indoor pool looks a bit dated but is great if you just like swimming laps. This pool is open throughout the year.
The outdoor pool at Fairmont Banff Springs is heated and is also open all through the year. While the pool, again, is rather dull in its design, the views are stunning, looking across the valley and out to the mountain beyond.
There are plenty of loungers in the summer if you want to spend your days lazing by the pool, and there are lawns beyond for little ones to run about on. This outdoor pool is a massive advantage of Fairmont Banff Springs.
5. Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello
Chateau Montebello is historically related to the Canadian Pacific railroad company. The hotel was built in the 1920s as a job creation scheme and became a Canadian Pacific (CP) Chateau hotel. In 1999, the hotel became a Fairmont, and more recently, Fairmont became part of Accor.
The hotel is one big log cabin with 211 guest rooms and suites. Like the Goldilocks fairy tale, this log cabin is located in a forest. It is easy to get to and is only an hour’s drive from Ottawa and an hour and a half drive from Montreal. There is a grand lobby with a big fireplace in the center.
It’s so romantic and even better at Christmas with a roaring fire. At least one wall of each room is actually made of the external logs that were used to build the original building. This makes every room very special and utterly charming.
With 42 km of groomed trails for all levels on its doorstep, Montebello is a true cross-country skiing paradise. Depart from the hotel and discover the surrounding land and golf course. Cross-country skis and boots are available on-site.
6. Fairmont Jasper
Fairmont Jasper is a firm favorite for skiers and snowboarders with the highest base elevation of any major Canadian ski area. Marmot Basin is located around 20km south of Jasper.
Marmot Basin ski resort is Jasper’s ski hill with more than 1,675 acres of skiable terrain. Along with 86 named trails, uncrowded groomed slopes, and superb facilities, there is lots and lots of that white stuff that makes skiing at Marmot so great.
Fairmont Jasper offers crackling fires and clear cold air in an unforgettable lodge nestled in the immortal Rocky Mountains. Here, you’ll explore the windswept peaks, surrounded by living nature and the glittering stars of one of the world’s largest dark sky preserves.
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