Last month, We were honored to go on the Darden Diamond Club trip to beautiful Park City Utah! We certainly got the royal treatment, including a mountain excursion, spa day, golfing trip, a visit to the olympic village that included a special ski jump show just for us and so much more!!
I have been meaning to finish this blog post on our Diamond Club Trip in Park City Utah for weeks now and I just couldn’t get to it! Finally…here it goes…
So Chris won the prestigous Diamond Club Award this year!! I am so proud 🙂 That means that his Longhorn was one of the top 5% of all Longhorn restaurants nationwide!! So we got to go on an all expenses paid trip to Park City Utah!
As explained on Darden’s website: The Joe R. Lee Diamond Club Award is presented annually by Darden Restaurants to the top performing General Managers and Managing Partners across the company’s restaurant brands. The award is named in honor of Joe Lee, who opened the first Red Lobster in 1968 with company founder Bill Darden and later became Darden’s first Chairman & CEO. Now in its 16th year, the award recognizes General Managers and Managing Partners throughout North America who demonstrate outstanding results by showing strong and inspiring leadership while also achieving top financial performance in the company’s previous fiscal year.
We flew to Salt Lake City and there were executives from the company were waiting to greet us! Cameras were flashing and a video camera captured our arrival and I felt like royalty or something!! Little did I know but those cameras and video cameras would follow us just about everywhere on our trip 🙄
Our luggage was retrieved and we boarded a limo bus to take us the 30 miles to Park City. Along the way we saw gorgeous views of the mountains as we traveled up them to get to the resort. The resort that we stayed at was the Montage at Deer Valley. It is a GORGEOUS luxury hotel nestled in the mountain sides.
We got checked into our beautiful room and then headed downstairs to the welcome party that would be that evening’s festivities 🙂
The welcome reception was a grand affair!! We had amazing food and drinks, played a little corn hole and then took the chair lift to the top of the mountain for some amazing views!!
The next morning, there was a little business to attend to… The opening keynote address was given by the CEO and then there was a panel session with some of the executives from the different Darden brands.
Once the business was wrapped up, we boarded another limo bus to take us on a mountain excursion to Park City Resort. During the winter it is a skiiers and snowboarders mecca, but they have really fun summer activities too 🙂 We took advantage of the opportunity to try out the alpine slide (twice), the alpine coaster, scenic lift rides and a little mini golf. Chris and his friend (another Managing Partner that had won the award too) tried the rock wall. Let’s just say that one of them reached the top…and it wasn’t Chris 😉 We wanted to try the zip lining too, but it had raining earlier that day and they were closed 😥
After the fun was over, we boarded a bus to take us back to the resort so we could get ready for the BIG Awards Dinner that night!! We got all dressed up for the big night 🙂
The dinner was lavish, to say the least, and when Chris walked across that stage to accept his award, I couldn’t have been prouder!! He was one of only 16 Longhorn Managing Partners to receive the award!!
The next day was a spa day for me and Chris went golfing!! I enjoyed a day of being pampered that included an amazing massage, my first-ever facial, sauna and steam room time and the best pedicure I have ever had!! I was treated like a queen and loved every minute of it 😉
The Closing Reception was a secret for us until we got there and it was probably one of the most memorable experience of my life!! We arrived a Utah Olympic Park, home of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, for a grand evening of olympic proportions 🙂
The gorgeous venue was closed for our private event. We were welcomed by former and future Olympians.
After a dinner that consisted of numerous stations featuring different cuisines from countries that were a part of the 2002 Olympics, we were treated to a private showing of the Flying Ace All-Stars Freestyle Show. We saw Olympians and National Team skiers and snowboarders perform acrobatic feats as they soared up to 60 feet in the air before landing in the Park’s NEW Big Air Pool. The pool is aerated so it cushions the landing for these athetes. They can practice new stunts during the summer in the pool that they can take to the snow in the winter.
This was an amazing finalé to an amazing trip!! We headed back to the Montage so that we could get up early and head home!! I really enjoyed visiting Park City Utah and would love to visit there again!! Have you ever visited Park City Utah?