Before we got to our room, our trip was 5 stars all around. Colorado received lots of new snow, we walked around nearby Breckenridge & were having a great time. Unfortunately, that would all change soon.
The past few years we've booked condos through VRBO/AirBnB and had very good luck. This year we found a deal through Copper Mtn's reservation service, so we decided give it a shot. When booking with them, you don't have any idea what you're getting. They have "levels" of accommodations but in our case they never told us what we had reserved. Since we've had years of good experiences with their rooms, we figured they'd all be good. That assumption would essentially ruin our ski vacation.
Our building was "Copper Valley". If they try to book you in this building, refuse, run, call your credit card company, anything but accept the room!
Problems encountered during our trip:
1) For some offers, you have to book via the phone. Who does that anymore? We never received a booking confirmation email, assuming they mistyped our easy email address.
2) At checkin, they were at 100% capacity & could only provide a single queen bed, not the king we'd requested at booking.
3) Our room was on the 3rd floor but our building had no elevator, not a huge deal but at 10,000' elevation, multiple trips carrying bags up is taxing.
4) Our building only has parking spaces for 1/2 the units. Again, not a huge deal but at 10,000' elevation the 1/4mi walk in the snow to walk back up 3 flights of stairs was tiring.
5) TINY. Maybe that's why there's no elevator, you don't want to carry all your bags up which is good because there's not enough room. Think large closet with a bed thrown in the corner. 1 random chair in the corner & definitely no desk if you need to setup a computer or heaven forbid, work.
6) The room decor included multiple boogers stuck on the walls, floor, furniture, etc.
7) The walls are paper thin, think of a sheet between beds in a hospital. Not a huge deal if it's empty and you have no neighbors. In our 1 night there, we became VERY familiar with the people staying next to us (roomates might be a better word). Adding to this fun was that they berated their children for 2 hours to the point we thought about calling CPS (Child Protective Services). Don't fret though, they settled down and we got to hear them have make popcorn and then loud, regular emphysema style coughing the rest of the night (because, who needs sleep before skiing?).
9) The bed was so uncomfortable that you might as well sleep on the floor (which we noticed was stained, filthy & disgusting during our bed bug check).
10) After getting 2 hrs of sleep & trying to take a warm shower to start the day & enjoy the slopes, we found that not only did you have to keep shampoo / etc on the shower floor because there was no shelves to hold anything but it also had an overwhelming sewer stench coming from the drain. Fun times!
After all of that fun, we went to the front desk to see about our options. They said they couldn't do a refund that but a room change would be possible, however, it wouldn't be ready for "a bit" (this was at 10:30am). We were still hopeful on salvaging our trip. The front desk said the noisy neighbors were checking out that day, so we decided to try & catch a quick nap so we'd have some sleep before hitting the slopes. Not only were the noisy neighbors there till past 1pm (strange since Copper has a 10am checkout time) but to add to their fun emphysema coughing they were also doing some sort of building maintenance on the roof directly above our room. After an hour listening to that, we decided this trip wasn't supposed to be, we ate the considerable lift ticket price & started our long drive back to California. When they called at 3:30pm to let us know the room was ready, we were already 2hrs down the road.
After returning home, we called to reservations to check on a refund. They said talk to the front desk. The front desk said to talk to reservations. When I finally got someone who could make a decision, they said a refund wasn't possible because we'd asked for a room change and that they'd upgraded our room to a condo (all news to me since a) they said refunds weren't an option when we checked 2 days earlier and b) they never mentioned the condo upgrade until days after the fact when I called them).
All that for $500+ a day for 2 people with lodging / lift tickets & basic level resort food. No thanks, never again.
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