Sorry, Vancouver, but you’re second best. The real Winter Olympics, the one the IOC always decree must be on snow and ice, is here in Whistler.

We have snow. We have ice. We have brilliant blue skies, crisp air and a party atmosphere of festival and fun that the big city 78 miles away cannot come close to replicating because of its size. And I have been in both places, so I speak from experience.

Yesterday's ladies downhill was just perfect. An overnight freeze, a course crisp, bumpy and fast, and slopes awash with the red of the local supporters.

But it is at night that this place comes to life, heavy rock, sound and light shows, floodlight snowboard acrobatics and, of course, al fresco eating and drinking.

It comes at a price. An Olympic price. My condo is costing $360 (£219) a night! Coffee and scrambled eggs off the Village Square for breakfast, $20 (£12) before tip. And that is the price of a taxi for no distance at all.

And if you fancy some skiing – powder snow delectable, views stunning - a ski pass for three days will set you back $292 (£178), making European Alpine resorts look like Ryanair value.

How can we complain? This is a Premier League resort, and they are taking advantage of hosting an Olympic Games that they first invited here for 1976. It’s a one-off, and, of course, the place is broke.

It owes its creditors a cool $1.4 billion (£853 million) which is why the event locals will be watching most closely tomorrow (February 19) is the auction of most everything that is saleable.

What the hell! Enjoy it why we can. They may owe money but everything works. The  buses are brilliant. The shuttle runs past my place every 10 minutes 24 hours a day, and this morning when the perfect conditions for skiing brought out crowds laden with equipment and one arrived full, two more that were empty followed in seconds.

The one big mistake here was the Whistler Sliding Center. If you design one to be that fast, you have to design it to be novice proof. Driver errors are guaranteed on every bob track but there never should be room for death by misadventure.

But that was the responsibility of the international federation, not the locals.Their passion for these Games has been awesome, a sheer determination to enjoy every minute and to participate in every one if they can.

Where else would 1,200 'weasels', as snow-packers are known, be prepared to get up at three in the morning to work the course when the snow-machine were feared to be too heavy?

Winter Olympics do not always work. The IOC’s past judgement has been questionable on their locations. And now that the size and the entourage of Winter Olympics are increased, I doubt it will ever be possible to return to the likes of Lillehammer, the best of the nine I have attended.

Newspapers in Britain may be asking whether Vancouver is the worst-ever - that scribe was obviously not in Lake Placid! - but it would be a travesty of the truth to level that accusation at Whistler (and from my short experience there Vancouver, too). Whistler is pushing to be the second best I have ever attended.

And now, excuse me. They are tuning up on the big stage in the Village Square. There is partying to be done.

Neil Wilson is Olympic and athletics correspondent of The Daily Mail. These are his 19th Summer or Winter Olympic Games.