Vrátna Malá Fatra

The praise is for the setting inside the Malá Fatra national park: the ridge panorama from the top cable car station draws visitors who never put on skis. Reviewers single out the broad Paseky run with a children's zone at its foot, a lively atmosphere with decent apres-ski, and room for ski touring on the neighbouring slopes. Midweek there are no queues at all.

The Chleb cable car draws criticism: the ride takes about twelve minutes, weekend queues of twenty minutes build at the bottom, and strong wind shuts the line down, sometimes for days in a row. Skiers complain that Paseky ices over and turns to moguls by mid-afternoon, and that the snow guns fire straight into riders' faces, leaving the chair seats wet. Night skiing is a token effort: one ticket window and passes sold for ninety minutes.