Fiorini Ski School

I am so happy I found this school. When I started looking for a lesson program 4 years ago for my now 8y/o daughter my goal was to have her build her confidence skiing and learn to love being in the mountains. Check and check. During the Winter she is first out of bed on lesson days and has learned to love skiing with both me and my wife. I highly reccomend this orgamaizd and passion filled program.The owner is excellent to deal with and the staff is engaged and seems to love what they do. more

Thanks Fiorini Ski School for the day on the hill, I'm now rocking on my own. thats whats up. more

Hi, thanks to Fiorini Ski School, my son is now one of the best snowboarders in his class. Sara has showed extreme improvements in her expertise, & has really stepped up to help my son excel. she helped my son pick out his terrain park snowboard, we ordered it, and she showed him how to wax and sharpen the edges, my son is extremely happy and so is my wife with Fiorini Ski School. thanks again! WATCH OUT, Judybook.com has a website programming flaw where rank 5 stars, and then you go to submit your review, and it turns your 5 stars to a 1 star, beaware by star ratings on this site, and read the reviews. more

just wanted to let you know, the website has a programing flaw, where you go to push submit, your 5 stars gets turned into 1. beaware. ANYWAYS, this school rocks, especially sara, shes done so much for my daughter, some of my daughters friends now want to join up now. thanks@! more

Sara L was my instructor and she helped me find the board size I needed to rent, and the right boots. the boots are tough to get on and she helped me get them on, she also went through of how to strap in, after she checked my balance a few times, she helped me onto the chair lift, I'm to small and the chair moves so fast, so she helped me get onto the chair, she helped a lot, i was very greatful to have sara as my instructor. I can now make turns on the hill, and fall once in a while. thanks sara! more

Sara L was my instructor, i had a hard time getting my boots on, and she helped me get them on, i had a hard time getting onto the chair lifts because im to small, but she slowed the chairs down and helped me on them. i wanted to give her a big hug after the day was over because she was so awesome and was level headed with me even though i was so slow and fell a lot. thank you, now I can turn. more

Fiorini is one of very few remaining "concession" schools on the west coast. Many ski areas, having been purchased by large conglomerates in the past decade, have rid their mountains of these kinds of schools in an attempt to limit losses of business to outside providers. As the Summit at Snoqualmie is such a magnet for beginners, there is so much business that we all happily share customers, and sometimes even training staff. Fiorini has been in operation for some 65 years. Started by Julie and Buzz Fiorini, an old time Seattle family, the school now operates under the leadership of their daughter, Georgeanne Fiorini. The school is directed and trained by some of the finest instructors in the Professional Ski Instructors of America NW Division (see thesnowpros.com and psia-nw.org). Ski teaching is a fluid thing that faces a lot of challenges in retention of instructors and therefore delivering and maintaining a high level of knowledge in new instructors. Certainly world class resorts with full time operations can sustain a full time job for a ski instructor where in Washington skiers and their instructors alike largely indulge their passion on the weekends. If you have the resources - I would definitely recommend a private ski lesson in Park City once or twice in one's ski career as a supplement to group lessons! While I would never put down our instructors, it's important to point out the difference between someone that is teaching daily vs. 1x/week. That said, Fiorini does a great job at addressing this issue by limiting class sizes (8 max) and selecting instructors that have a capacity for interacting with students on a meaningful level while assuring their safety and their having FUN. Even with a deep base of ski teaching knowledge, simply connecting with an instructor and having a "ski role model" usually yields the most success. I would take our program and put it up against anyone else’s - we are the best on the hill. I only rated 4/5 because I always think we can do better! ;) fioriniski.com more

My 5-year-old is currently in lessons with Fiorini. Although she has taken ski lessons since she was 3 and was turning, stopping and riding lifts with ease, the school placed her in a Beginners group and has refused to move her to a different level. The first class was spent playing duck-duck-goose on the snow and then "progressing" to the green rug, where they shuffled up and skied the 10 feet down to the bottom. Week 2, they "graduated" to the moving carpet. Their excuse is that the upper levels are full anyway, and they don't want to place her with 7-year-olds. Her ski instructor at Fiorini is a 15-year-old 9th grader (needless to say a 1st time teacher) who does not understand how to teach kids. One dad in our group--a former ski instructor himself--is so concerned about kids riding on the lift with this inexperienced teacher that he volunteers to help out with the classes. After a family trip to Deer Valley Utah, where she was enrolled in an excellent ski school all week, my daughter began keeping skis parallel and starting doing rudimentary hockey stops. We spoke with her teacher and were hoping that Fiorini could at least work with her on improving her new skills, but I just learned that her Fiorini teacher told my daughter to keep doing "pizzas" (wedges) like the rest of the class. Guess it was easier to teach them that way. We have heard that the school has had difficulty attracting good teachers this year. They are understaffed as well. Parents should not have to volunteer to help the instructor when paying $264 for the 7-week series (on top of lift passes and ski rentals and gas to get there)! My expectations for this class have gone to nil. Essentially, it is ski babysitting for my daughter. They should be ashamed at calling themselves a ski school when they hire inexperienced child instructors and refuse to listen to parents' concerns about their school. Unless your child is a true beginner or a very cautious skier, I would be extremely wary of this school. more

I've had my kids in the Fiorini Ski School for 5 years. I recommend it via word of mouth all the time. And whie it's too late for anyone to take advantage of it this season I figured I'd document my recommendation for future seasons. The Fiorini program operates out of Summit West at Snoqualmie. They group the kids by age group and skills. They keep running records from the previous years to help with the skills grouping. The instructors are of various age ranges - my oldest son's snowboarding teacher is a sr. at UC Irvine taking the winter quarter off; my youngest son's ski teacher is a sr at Issaquah HS. They are all well trained in safety, teaching, how to deal with multiple types of kids. I've watched the instructors get nervous kids comfortable, and push enthusiastic kids to ski harder. But the watchword is fun. And the kds learn every year. My oldest really progressed as a skier the last few years, and his instructors already have him linking turns on the board this year. My youngest is skiing under control and getting more comfortable on the lower blue runs. I think one of the strongest testaments to how people feel about the school is the number of returning families every year. And the number of returning instructors. The school runs from the first weekend in January through the end of February - total of 7 weeks, minus President's Day weekend. Lessons go from 9-11:30, and 12:45-2:30. Plenty of time to grab an early run, one at lunch, and a few after class before heading home. Price changes, but it's in the mid-$200s per kid. Rentals and ski passes are extra if you need them. Registration opens in October. Oh, and they do adult lessons as well. more