Winter Park Escapes — Attraction in Winter Park

What a welcome it was to pull into the key pad entered, heated garage, which is single wide yet two deep. try backing in if you can, to make it easier to get out and through the parking lot. You’ll notice a plug-in for EV’s, we left all of our ski gear in the space/racks and knew it would be safe and warm in there. There is a half bath at the far end of the garage and is nice for those that need one last stop before going to the mountain, riding the bus, or walking through town. The newer built unit is stacked with many steps between floors, so seniors with issues and low landers should beware. Up the first flight, the main floor has a dining room near the front entrance with a large live edge slab table, a bench, and cushioned dining chairs. There is a small but full bath, well appointed kitchen with an island and adjustable, no back stools, which opens into the family room, and a balcony that overlooks a parking lot, and Highway 40. The large screen smart TV is above the gas fireplace and has full range motion mount which was convenient when cooking. The sleeper sofa was really only comfortable seating for maybe five of us, and a small seating area that had a cute hanging basket type swing seat, seemed a bit out of place. It doesn’t really work for a movie night per se, so we brought a couple of the dining room high backs to make it a bit more comfortable. The deck has a fair space for a table and a few chairs, but the gas grill adds a component to cooking that would be available if the weather was good enough. The view from the balcony isn’t the most spectacular and you’ll be looking at some construction for what looks like may be awhile. The gas fireplace gave out the last 24 hours we were there and it was disappointing that they couldn’t get it resolved the last night as they stated “it was above their pay grade.” The home is heated with radiant floor heat and every thermometer has a message taped to them about not turning them above 67 degrees “since it takes 6-12 hours to adjust.” Yet, the checkout instructions online stated clearly to turn them “down to 70 in the winter.” Hmm. As you continue up the the third level, there is a linen closet with extra blankets, pillows, and linens. A stackable washer and dryer are fairly good sized with detergent if you need to do a load or two, When we opened the dryer door on arrival, it was loaded to the gills with more linens that must have been left from the cleaners, and we tossed it on top of one of the unused bunks. On opposite ends of the floor there is each a bathroom, king sized bedroom, and a bunk room. Bathrooms are accessible from the halls to the bunks, and another door from each of the king rooms. The design of the doors is such as they would always open and bang against each other. There should be a pocket door from the king room no doubt.The spacious bathrooms have double sinks and the showers had to be run for a bit to get hot, but had plenty of hot water for all. The bunk rooms have a larger sleeping option on bottom, but if you have two adults in them, the closet is small and not much space for your gear. The king rooms were spacious and comfortable, but the blinds weren’t the best for blocking out light, and every amount of adjustment wouldn’t help. The mattresses were very comfortable no complaints from any in our party. Continue to the top floor and you’ll be on the roof, where you’ll find a small fridge before you step out onto the rooftop. Lots of wonderful space and views with tables and chairs; tarped during our stay plus snow and ice covered, and the salt water 6 - 7 person spa is so warm and welcoming after a day out in the snow. Beware of the step onto the deck if it’s frozen as it can be very slippery. They do have a couple of the heated walkway mats near the tub, but they should run a couple more all the way to the sliding door. There are speakers on the deck where you can pipe in tunes if you want. The rooftop is the fun spot and could be truly utilized more during the nicer months. The unit is very nice and comfortable, but...

Winter Park Escapes has some beautiful properties, and their management team and staff seem very kind and polite. It's unfortunate that the management team is not empowered to be able to adequately attend to their guests' needs when problems occur.

TLDR: The sewage pump was backed up upon check-in, and we ended up spending the majority of our stay in uninhabitable conditions (without being able to shower or flush the toilet) while constantly calling to find out if/when the plumbing issues would be addressed. We ended up staying in a hotel our last night as the smell was unbearable. Winter Park Escapes refunded only half of our stay.

Here's the long version: Every year, my friend group goes on an annual ski trip. This year was particularly special as 2 of us had just had babies (first trip away from them) and 1 of us was planning a romantic proposal to his girlfriend.

Day 1 (Thurs) - When we checked in, the internet wasn't working, the hot tub was 60 degrees, and there was a beeping noise coming from the downstairs bedroom. We called maintenance, but were too excited to be very concerned about it. The maintenance guy came and reset the alarm, which was coming from the septic pump. After a few hours, the alarm starts going off again, so we stopped using water to make the beeping stop and allow our friends to sleep.

Day 2 (Fri) - The maintenance guy comes by and unplugs the septic pump to make the beeping stop. He told us to use minimal water until he could come back and fix it, so we abandoned our groceries in the fridge and went out to dinner instead since we would not be able to do dishes. In retrospect, this was a terrible solution and I believe this is the point where the management company should have offered us similar accommodations because it is clear that the plumbing was not working and the house is, therefore, not inhabitable. The plumber came by later and opened up the septic pump in order to attempt to clear the blockage. The whole bottom floor reeked of sewage, which is a health hazard, and the couple staying in that room slept on the couch. It seems to me that this is an act of bad faith, exposing us to a health hazard.

Day 3 (Sat) - The whole house now smelled of sewage. We leave for the day and begin trying to get in touch with the leadership of Winter Park Escapes to figure out if this is going to be resolved before we return to the house that night. Kyle, the Operations Manager, was very attentive and sympathetic, but was unsure of what he could do to help. He offered to put us up in a property that was 30 minutes further from Denver. Since that would further inconvenience us, we told him we would be checking out early and getting a hotel in Denver. He was able to call his management team and get us a refund of 1/3rd of the cost, but told us we would need to talk to management in order to get approval for a full refund.

And thus we ended our stay with Winter Park Escapes. Since then, I have been calling others in the management team to see if they have approved our refund. Daniel, the Homeowners Manager, has told me the "good news" that their final offer is to refund half of our stay (in order to cover our hotel cost, as well).

While I am happy to get a partial refund, this is not the kind of service I would expect from a company that boasts to provide "the highest quality service and amenities available". Our stay was not a pleasant getaway. We weren't able to enjoy the house we were staying in, nor were we able to enjoy our time out of the house as we had to constantly be in contact with the maintenance staff.

With how kind the staff is, you may have a great experience with Winter Park Escapes. But if something goes wrong, I wouldn't expect a good experience with...

Please save yourself the trouble (and money) and rent with a different company.

I Stayed in a rental for 2 nights with my family. On night 1, we arrived 3 hours after check in time and spent an hour trying to shovel snow off the patio to access the hot tub—it had snowed very heavily 7-10 days prior to our arrival so it was very hardened and difficult to break up. At around 9:30PM (!!!) two men barged in through the locked front door very loudly and scared/traumatized my entire family. They then yelled up the stairs that they were there to clean off the patio so we relaxed a little. They shoveled the remaining snow and left. Not sure why this was not done before we arrived. The hot tub water was hot so someone had turned it on, but had not cleared a path? Didn’t make sense to us.

A few small grievances: The property has a lot of water damage on the walls, and some of the towels were obviously not cleaned. However, there were extras available that we could use. The building, overall, was very stuffy. We all stayed mostly in the living room until the last minute up until bedtime to avoid the VERY stuffy bedrooms. The tiny humidifiers and fans were a small respite, but we made it a point to not spend too much time in the rental. Also, the water kettle was broken--the lid was being held together with scotch tape. But even with all this, I would've given a 4 star review if not for what happened 2 weeks after our stay.

We left the morning after next. That morning we tidied the living room and bedrooms, cleaned out the fridge, filled and ran the dishwasher, wiped down the stove top and counters, took out ALL the trash as directed, set the thermostat to the temperature they requested, and gathered the used towels into common areas for easy clean up. We left having had a lovey ski trip. AND THEN 2 weeks later they added a $309 charge to our bill for "damage". When we asked for a photo of what was damage (because there couldn't possibly have been damage) they sent a very zoomed in picture of a corner of paper blinds and claimed this was the $309 worth of damage. What's worse, the blinds (if those were indeed the blinds from the unit we rented, as there was no way to tell with how zoomed in the photo was) looked exactly like they did when we arrived: like normal manual operation paper blinds. I can’t fathom what kind of paper blinds even cost $309! Paper blinds, at baseline, are cheap so the charge doesn’t even make sense.

I regret not looking at other reviews, because this "damage" fraud (where they claim visitors have destroyed something on the property) seems to be a habit of theirs.

In summary: they commit fraud without hesitation. Please double check if you’re renting on AirBNB or VRBO as they have properties cross listed there and I don’t want anyone else to...