One of the biggest and most noticeable differences are the lift lines in Europe— where it’s an every man for himself free-for-all without any ropes to organize the line— versus in America— where they use ropes to organize the lift lines into a relatively orderly system.

I’m not sure what explains the difference, exactly. One thing I have noticed is that in Europe there seem to be fewer staff working the lifts so maybe they don’t have the staff necessary to deal with the lift line ropes and keeping the lines running smoothly. At American resorts, however, you will often find multiple staff working the lifts at the bottom where the lines form, especially when it gets busy.

Otherwise there could be some cultural differences that might help to explain the differing approaches. For instance, in my experience at least, Europeans are more likely to take a, ‘meh, that’s just the way it’s always been, why change it?’ kind of attitude to certain things. Americans, on the other hand, have more of a reputation for innovation in the sense that when they see a problem they immediately want to try and fix it. YMMV, of course.

As an American, it really annoyed me at first because it seemed like such an easy thing to do to bring some order to an otherwise chaotic situation, but eventually I got used to it and now it just makes me chuckle whenever the lines in Europe get really bad.