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Free Skiing at Winter Park Resort in Colorado, USA for the 2011/12 season for Mt Ruapehu Season Pass Holders. Stay 7 or more nights at the Zephyr Mountain Lodge, Fraser Crossing-Founders Point or the Vintage Hotel to qualify. Number of days skiing will be one less than the number of nights accommodation booked. Offer open to Mt Ruapehu 2011 Season, Five-Season, Life/Life Plus and Ultimate Pass holders. Child must hold a season pass. Book accommodation and pre-reserve passes with Ski Traveller to qualify. Not valid with any other promotion. Conditions apply.

Winter Park Resort received another 10 inches (25.4 centimetres) of snow in the past 2 days.  That brings them to 293 inches so far this season and they’ve still got a month to go!  Sunny skies and more snow on the way for this weekend!  Spring is here!  Winter Park Resort is open through April 24 so make sure you get out there for some great snow, sun filled days and fun events.

Winter Park Resort opened 18 November and it keeps dumping!  24.5  inches (62.2 cm’s) in the past 7 days, 14 (35.6 cm’s) in the past 72 and 3.5 (8.9 cm’s) in the past 24 with another 7-10 inches (17.8-25.4 cm’s) in the forecast for today!!!

WOO-HOO bring it on!

Hi Lianne,
Had a great time and will send a better de-brief later when I catch up at work if you don’t hear by the end of next week remind me again.  Quickly - loved Winter Park a great resort but not a lot of eating places in the resort needed to go to town to get the restaurants, free buses made this easy enough though.  But skiing choice on the mountain is unbeatable we went to Copper for a day and would recommend WP over this now.  Accommodation was also great brand new and big enough for us would have loved the extra bedroom though would recommend this if it is on special again to add the extra room.   San Francisco was great what a fabulous city 4 days not enough and will be going back here again one day. 
Thanks for your help.
Jo & John

Hi Lianne

We had a fantastic holiday thanks and came back with no injuries, so that was lucky!  I absolutely loved Disney California park, that would have been the highlight for me in LA, terrific rides.  Michael couldn’t quite handle the tower of terror ride and had to have a sleep at the first aid at Disneyland on new years eve!  The only negative about LA was the Disneyland Express.  We missed it because it came 10 minutes early and so we had to catch a shuttle, luckily we made it to the airport and our shuttle (all to ourselves, not Super Shuttle) was cheaper than Disneyland Express without all the faffing around.  

We absolutely loved Denver, very glad we stayed there.  The Doubletree hotel in Denver is superb, with free pick up from the airport, which was great and the staff were very helpful.  Cherry Creek mall is an excellent shopping spot, I managed to blow a heap of cash there at the sales.  It is about a $15 cab ride from the double tree and well worth it.  At the nearby shopping complex that Doubletree run a free shuttle to there is a fabulous restaurant called something like Jim and Nicks bbq, it might be a chain restaurant but I have never seen it anywhere else is the States.  Anyway, highly recommend that restaurant to eat at. 

Copper was our favourite resort of the two, in fact I don’t think either of us would go back to Winter park.   Copper was fantastic.  We had 15 inches of powder overnight at one point and it was a lot of fun.  They also have the beeline advantage which was good, and would be even better if you were there when it was busy.  We were in Copper One so basically right next to the American Eagle, really convenient.  It was fabulous having kitchen facilities, we cooked most nights.   

The winter park accommodation was really fabulous, especially the hot tub, but founders pointe is too far away from the mountain so you had a bit of a hike with all the gear.  The best thing about winter park resort was the free on demand shuttle they provide that will take you anywhere you want to go.   Winter Park itself was windy almost the whole time, in fact I got caught in a blizzard at one stage because they didn’t close the highest lift quick enough, that was unpleasant.  On our last day there though we had a blue sky day and it was beautiful up the top then.  Unfortunately though the snow quality at Winter Park was poor, by our last day there it was absolute rubbish, almost as bad as Turoa on a bad day.  They simply didn’t get enough new snow.  Also, Winter Park is hopeless for snowboarding.  I think they actually need to warn people that it is NOT a snowboarder’s mountain.  Constant flat long traverses are a killer and there are way way too many mogul runs.  Even for skiing there were too many mogul runs.  I actually changed to skiing for pretty much the whole time I was at winter park because it was just too much effort to snowboard (especially at high altitude, it is pretty hard to get around). San Francisco was undoubtedly a major highlight.  What a beautiful city, we only wished we had more time there.  The Handlery is quaint, and I enjoyed staying in Union Square (fabulous Niketown store). 

So everything went very smoothly except for the minor hiccup with the Disneyland Express.  Thanks for doing such a great job organising the trip.
 

Kind Regards

Joanne

Hi Sarah

Well we have now returned from a great trip,thanks for all your careful arrangements. Generally we found the destination was great, the snow was great, and everything worked out pretty well. Haven’t got the photos organized yet but here’s a few snaps - I’m sure you’ll recognise a lot of them. We had quite a bit of snow overnight,and once during the day,and skiing through 8 inches of fresh powder was definitely an unforgettable experience.

It was a great trip and we thoroughly enjoyed it, and would recommend to others (have already, in fact). Thanks for all your advice,it was great to know in advance from someone who had actually been there.

Dear Lianne,                             
I wanted to let you know that Copper Mountain opened a week early on November 7^th for the 2008-09 season.  We are currently having a very snowy week with 9 inches (22.86 cm) of new snow in the last two days and a winter storm warning has been issued for the rest of the week.

I got out and made my first turns for the season yesterday and here is a photo from my office looking down Main Vein into the Village.

Regards,
Roger Markel - Copper Mountain

Yes you may have heard you can use your RAL season pass to get free skiing or boarding at Copper Mountain and Winter Park ski resorts in Colorado,USA.It does’nt just stop there you can also get 50% off day lift passes at Kickinghorse Mountain,BC ,Canada.Some money saved on lift pass expenses can go further to having the ultimate holiday experience.

What great incentives at some excellent resorts,we have just recently come back from visiting all three resorts so if you have a question contact us or drop by our store at 333 Remuera Rd,Remuera,Auckland as we have been lucky enough to stay at all three resorts and can tell you all about the accomodation and the layout of the resorts.