Whew! I feel validated LOL...
Seriously, I would have felt like an idiot if your friend had a terrible experience. But it's hard to believe the service would have changed drastically for the worse at a quality resort... So I'm not remotely surprised she had such good things to say.l
I agree with your friend; the daycare experience was no small factor in our going back for so many years. Well, and the skiing too of course. It's not so much that the daycare would be the first factor in going back but more that it made the entire experience so much more pleasurable and we never felt worried about our kids. We called in mid-day and they were happy to give us the skinny on how their day was going!
We've done daycare or ski school ( or sometimes had to request an accommodation for our daughter where we needed something extra) at a number of places, and our experience at Sugarbush was at the top of the list. And tell your friend (if she comes back to Vermont) that Stratton's daycare was a close second... And their ski school was pretty darn good as well.
I'm glad your friend was happy... There are good recommendations and then there are raves! Sugarbush daycare (I'm less familiar with their ski school so specifically daycare here) is a rave. And so is Stratton's. And if you ever need to know, so is the Adaptive program at Smuggler's!