Hyatt Vacation Club at The Ranahan — Hotel in Breckenridge

We are staying a week at this new property in a 1 bedroom villa. The hotel itself opened in December and it is a beautiful property. They are obviously still working out logistical and operational detail. Check-in took a very long time, and we were the only ones checking in at the time. The staff seemed unsure of what exactly to do (we booked through Orbitz), and we had to fill out unusual forms about medical issues (?), and exactly who was staying in the room.

We are skiing and had a large amount of gear. Getting in in through the front doors was a challenge, and we were on the third floor at the end of the hotel.

There is just one elevator at the lobby end, and stairs at the far end of the hotel, with a single door entrance midway (but no stairs or elevator). Pushing a large luggage cart uphill through a narrow, horrifically long zig-zagging corridor was frustrating. Then to have to walk all the walk back to the lobby because there is no other way to load/unload gear took quite a while to get our gear and car situated. If you have to get to your car, plan on lots of walking depending upon where your room is and likely lots of stairs.

There were also no instructions on how to operate/connect to the Smart TVs and Bose audio systems. Maintenance helped us to connect all of our devices as it's difficult to identify which devices are located in your room. Ditto for operating the somewhat complex HVAC controls.

The property is several miles from the hustle & bustle of downtown Breck, so you will need to drive (and pay Breck parking), take the town shuttle, or take the complimentary hotel shuttle. We chose the latter and that service was very nice. We also skied a day at Keystone and took the free Summit County shuttle which picks up/drops off just down the street from the hotel. Very nice.

OK, those points side, the room was very nice - we just came from a luxe 3-bedroom Jackson Hole condo and were not disappointed. Everything is new and fresh, and well laid out with a fully functional & stocked kitchen so meal preparation was super easy. The bathroom is beautiful & we loved the soaking tub. The fireplace was gorgeous and easy to operate. The deck is enormous and would be wonderful in the spring/summer/fall season. WiFi is excellent & very fast as we are working a bit during our stay. In-room washer/dryer was excellent as well. Sound insulation between rooms isn't all that great, but it's not terrible. We had one issue with luke-warm water, but maintenance came up quickly and were helpful. The hot tub was clean, hot, and had no obnoxious odor of chlorine. The staff was very accommodating and kudos go out to Dan & Sandra from the management staff.

Christie's Sports has a small location off the lobby, which was very nice, stocked with all new gear.

Overall, this is a gorgeous, higher-end property that is working-out the minor kinks of it's recent opening. I highly recommend staying here.

Now the ugly - run, do not walk away, if offered a timeshare preview tour. They employ deceptive practices by offering you 'gifts' to attend, then afterwards, attempt to change the terms under which the gifts were to be offered. In our case, we were offered Breck lift tickets, then had to proactively engage resort management after the Inside Marketing Manager tried to say we did not fulfill our part of the agreement. If you are offered something, get the specifics in writing prior to attending the tour....

My husband and I had a series of unfortunate miscommunications with Welk Resorts Breckenridge (and the Welk Activations Group). We signed up for a tour of their new Breckenridge property, putting down a $50 deposit, while we were at a Colorado Avalanche game. We made our reservations online, but never received confirmation. It took multiple phone calls to confirm and even another phone call to get a confirmation email.

Our initial reservation was for 5/13/18. We stayed up in Breck that weekend (one of the requirements of their showing, to receive a $75 travel voucher), only to discover on the day of our tour that they weren't open yet. They were still 2 weeks away from opening, yet they scheduled an appointment for us. Bummer. So....we had to go back down to Denver and reschedule our tour. The trip to Breck was specifically for this presentation, though we enjoyed ourselves for the weekend, we definitely spent more money than we would've to not even see the presentation.

We received an email from Welk saying that WE missed the appointment and that they wanted us to reschedule. After a few more back and forth phone calls with Patty (Activations), she/Welk offered us a $500 gift card to come back up for the tour, as an additional incentive to give them another shot. We decided to go for it because we wanted our $50 deposit back as well as the $75 travel voucher, and $500 for the trouble would be a nice incentive. We rescheduled for this past Sunday 6/17/2018. It took MULTIPLE attempts to get confirmation for our appointment. We were debating whether or not to even go at this point, due to our previous experience, but we receives a phone call confirming just in time, followed by 11 confirmation emails.

We show up to the presentation about 30 minutes early and the front desk staff told us that we would have to wait the full 30 minutes to see someone as they were all busy. Understandable, but the delivery was a little cold from the get-out. Jeremy, our guide, was friendly and did a nice job with the presentation. When we checked out, we collected our gifts, however our $500 gift card was not the 'use it for anything' type of gift card that we were expecting, rather it was limited use 'only for travel' gift card with multiple restrictions. Great. I called Patty after the presentation to ask her about it and her response was 'Why would we pay you $500 to come listen to a presentation'? Hmmm, I was wondering the same thing, but that is what they offered, so we took it!

Ultimately, we declined the time share opportunity because if we struggle with communication and follow through with this company from the beginning, before we are even owners, what in the world would it be like after we ARE owners and actually need something from them? I understand that their Breckenridge location may have a few things to work through, being brand new an all, but the location, lack of tour facilities, and especially the Welk staff were enough to make us look another direction. I hope you have a better experience if you decide to visit...

Disappointing Stay at The Ranahan – Will Not Be Returning

I stayed in a 2-bedroom villa at The Ranahan last month for a weekend getaway and unfortunately, the experience was extremely disappointing from the first night.

The issues began when I turned on the ceiling fan before bed, which immediately set off the fire alarm. Since it was late, no one from engineering was available. Instead, a front desk staff member came up and casually mentioned that this was a “common issue” due to the alarm's sensitivity—claiming that the fan’s motion may have triggered the laser sensors in the alarm. Odd, but I tried to brush it off.

The next morning, I was rudely awakened at 5:40 AM by the bedside alarm clock, which had been left set by a previous guest. Later, after showering, I used the hair dryer—only for the fire alarm to go off again, waking up my friend in the other room. This time, engineering replaced the alarm and said it was overly sensitive due to updated Colorado fire safety regulations. After testing the dryer again and confirming the alarm didn’t go off, we thought the issue was resolved.

That afternoon, after a visit to the pool, I went to blow-dry my hair once more—and the fire alarm went off again. At this point, I was beyond frustrated. Management told us the room clearly had problems and offered to move us—to a room two floors below. However, they didn’t offer any assistance with packing or the move. We had dinner plans, yet had to rush to pack everything, clear out the fridge, and bring all of our belongings to the front desk to check out before getting new keys. This chaotic move severely disrupted our final night.

We ended up staying in and calling it an early night. Unfortunately, the next morning we were woken up again—this time by loud kids running around in the room above.

I spoke to the on-site manager, Vincent, before checking out. He acknowledged the issues and explained how I might be able to get a refund through the third-party service I used to book, as he could only refund the resort fee due to the property being a timeshare. I appreciated the help and called the third party the following week.

Shockingly, when the third-party representative contacted the hotel, Vincent denied any issues and claimed the fire alarms were triggered by my hair dryer—blaming me entirely, despite everything he had previously acknowledged. The hotel also refused to speak with me and sent my calls straight to voicemail.

This was one of the most frustrating and disappointing hotel stays I’ve ever had. I do not recommend The Ranahan and will not...