I haven't done Santa Rosa yet but Whistler is great. It is a hilly course for sure but you can't beat the venue. It's beautiful, lots of lodging and restaurant choices, and other stuff for your support crew to do. Prepare with the understanding that you will spend more time on the bike, but it's worth doing at least once.

The separate T1/T2 is a little annoying but there's a nice paved trail over to T1 for checking your bike in - you can just jog back. And they do a good job with shuttle buses on race morning.

Whistler saying "its hilly" is an understatement. Its very hilly bike course...It's a 3 loop bike course with 8,461 feet of climbing. The scenery is beautiful assuming you can see it while your grinding up hill. Run is flat. Nice places to stay but it will be a very challenging first IM unless you just like hilly courses. The two transition areas are a logistical pain. I did the race when it was only 2 loops and it was bad. Now that it's three loops on the hilly part...…...good luck. Last year it was hot during the race and people suffered. Its a good "vacation IM".

Huh? I know they shaved off some of the Green Lake part of the original run course that made the run a bit harder but it still has 1,000 feet of gain on the run course according to the course map, which means it's probably a bit more than that. I had the original course at like 1,200+. It's not hilly as in long sustained hills but much of the run course is what I would describe as rolling. Under no circumstances would I characterize the run course as flat.

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Whistler is a beautiful location. The old bike course was so pretty into Pemberton and back. The new one, I have heard is very crowded with the three loops.
The run is amazing- definitely not flat. It is super spectator friendly. I saw my family so many times during both the bike and the run - I lost count. Bonus was the wife could take the kids to and from the rental during the day because the accommodations are all within walking distance and tons of restaurants, and parks and play areas for the little ones to have fun.

Have no data point for Santa Rosa.

I never understood the notion that your first IM needs to be easy or flat. Whistler was my first in 2017 and it ranks up there as one of the toughest among Lanzarote and Whales. The only thing flat was the water. My Garmin file shows 7359' (single loop course out to Pemberton Medows) on the bike and 1138' on the run. The 2 transitions were fine and much more manageable than 2 transitions and a point to point swim like Cozumel. We stayed in the main village next to the expo which made for short walks to catch provided transportation to T1. Lots of affordable accommodations and things to do.

The only IM I've done was Whistler this past year. It was very challenging, but I feel very accomplished that I completed one of the harder courses first. The venue is awesome and you don't need a car once you get to the village. I didn't mind the 3 laps on the bike, and the run is mostly shaded with some gorgeous views of the lakes. Plus with the later race date, your longer workouts should be in nicer weather. Financially, it may be a wash depending on where you live and what the exchange rate looks like.

I did Santa Rosa as my first Ironman last May. Great race - rolling bike but not too technical or crazy steep, flat & mostly shaded run and absolutely gorgeous swim. I totally recommend if you're looking for a nice early season race.

I do think its a nice race for "first timers", meaning those looking for their first race to complete the IM distance and not get too overwhelmed by those factors that some can consider challenging (technical bike courses, steep hills, currents during the swim, etc).

I haven't done Whistler but do concur that unless you train in the area or on very hilly roads it may be tough for some who aren't very experienced or are worried about just completing the distance on the day. But that's not true for everyone. I imagine that race is gorgeous and if that type of course interests/motivates you then you should go for it!

I did Vineman in 2015 (Pre IM) and Whistler in 2016 both were on old courses from current, so I can not comment on that part of it, but I am of the opinion that 140.6 is hard where ever you do it. Even the Chalk Hill climb at Vineman felt pretty darn hard at mile 95, even though when I pre-rode it I said to myself "that was the hard climb everyone was talking about??"
You can't go wrong with either race, both the swims look beautiful, but Alta lake at 7AM, with the sun rising and the fog coming off the lake with the mountains in the background, it is something pretty incredible. Lot of climbing at Whistler, nothing else to say about that. The area around Santa Rosa has a lot of rollers, little tricky to judge power as it felt like I was always going up or down. I am a terrible runner so I have nothing good to say about either run course, or any run course. The lake in Whistler was nice to look at while I questioned why I was doing this again.
The areas: Whistler is hard to beat, the village is one of my favorite places in the world, in the summer bikes everywhere, go watch people ride the bike park, jog in the XC ski trails, tons of places to eat, 4 or 5 bike shops in the village. The only issue, there is 1 road in and 1 road out to Whistler, and on the Friday before the race it is a bit of a traffic jam getting into to town. The other issue that I heard from others was that they had loud hotel neighbors, oddly enough, ours got back to their room at 4 AM when I was waking up for the race.
Santa Rosa seemed nice, but if you are from California would not seem to be anything remarkable about it. Except for wine the next day! I would say make sure you know what bike shop you want to do. And if you have children, the town is full of Peanuts characters.
Good luck with your race either way!

Done both. Santa Rosa is great for 1st timer.
Rosa might be the easiest on the west coast.

Whistler hills and heat will KILL you.
3 loops( 6 out and back) are super boring and run is NOT flat. I had 1200 on my watch.

Did I mention heat? 95 air temp, over 100 on the pavement. It was a carnage.

Thanks everyone for the responses so far. I'm okay with the challenge part of it and the commentary about family destination probably will get my wife excited. We live in the Bay and so Santa Rosa is a day trip for us normally. We actually were there for the 70.3. I enjoyed it but definitely think the condition of the roads left something to be desired despite the overall flatness of the ride.

JC

Yes I should have said rollers......I meant no real hills to climb/run up like the bike course and its a lot "flatter" than the bike course.