Elton W.
Yelp
Cloud 9...Oh How I Love Thee So!
Having started as a ski patrol shack/warming hut in 1973 with daily ski jumping shows by the ski patrol through the mid-1990s, to today's Veuve Clicquot Ice Bar and Champagne-spraying with music pumping on the sun deck, Cloud 9 is considered one of the best day dance parties among the jet-setting crowd and Hollywood A-listers. This is not your typical Vegas pool party crowd.
Having been run since 1998, first by Austrian-born Andreas Fischbacher and now run by Swedish-born Tommy Tolleson, Cloud 9 has a European chalet and party feel of Verbier, Switzerland and St. Anton, Austria combined, in my opinion.
Cloud 9 is Veuve Clicquot's #1 Account in the Country, so that should tell you something...especially since it's only open a few months of the year! Rumor is, the staff keeps count of all the bottles sprayed, and the number is like 100-140 bottles per afternoon, and that's only during a two hour period from 2pm-4pm!
So, for those of you who don't know, meaning, the people who wrote negative or average reviews, you DON'T come to Cloud 9 for the Food! You come for the drinking, dancing and champagne popping/spraying, starting at 2pm.
I mean, sure, you can come and have lunch and go back out and ski, but you'll be missing the whole point of Cloud 9. That would be like going to watch a sunset at 3pm, then leaving at 5pm before you even see the sun set at 7pm, lol. And the food at Cloud 9 is good, but nothing to write home about, which is why I think people are disappointed.
And of course, if you don't like to be around a "Party Atmosphere", then don't stay here past 2pm because that's when it all starts and there's a HIGH LIKELIHOOD that you'll be doused/sprayed/soaked with Champagne. EVERYONE gets sprayed with Champagne here, that's the point.
Insider Tips:
1. If you wanna a table at Cloud 9 on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday during peak ski season, then you'd better call a Month in Advance for a reservation. They have a 12pm seating and a 2pm seating...get the 2pm.
2. If you don't have a reservation, get here around 2pm, and hang around the bar area or just join a table, which is easy to do as everyone's drunk, and stay till they close at 4pm.
3. I highly recommend you drink, A LOT, as it gets Crazy, lol.
4. If it's your first time, or to do at least once, buy a bottle of Champagne to pop open and spray onto the crowd of people dancing on the deck or inside the restaurant. They won't mind cause THAT'S WHAT YOU DO HERE. It's $125 for a bottle of Veuve Clicquot which isn't cheap, but you're on Vacation, in Aspen, at the Top of a Mountain at 11,000 feet, with 250 drunk/crazy people, with good music blaring, and you may only do this once in your life. I'm telling you, it's Worth Every Penny!
Sounds crazy, I know, but it's more fun than you think it would be cause it's something so out of the norm of what logic tells you to do. So, follow the right side of your brain and throw logic out the window, haha. I would normally NEVER waste a good bottle of Champagne, but when I'm at Cloud 9 it makes TOTAL sense to do so, lol.
5. Stay till the very end, like 4:30pm and then ski down the mountain, unless you're too drunk to do so, at which point, Ski Patrol will take you, along with a dozen others, down the mountain in a Snowcat vehicle. But if you can ski it, do it. There's no one on the trails anymore and there's nothing like skiing while your drunk, can't describe it, it's just fun.
And that's about it, haha.
As you can see, I LOVE Cloud 9, and well, so do many others as this place is so popular and famous. Just get here, even if you don't ski that well - ski patrol can take you down. Cause this is a party you definitely don't wanna miss! HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!