sunflower2

Hi, We're looking into going to Winter Park, CO the week of July 4th. Our girls will be 9 and 13. They like fun outdoor adventures (but not all-day hikes)& active interesting activities.

Would Winter Park be a good jumping off point (so to speak, of course!)for family fun?

Any recommendations for fun things to do in the Winter Park area?

Is Winter Park a better area for family fun than the Avon/Aspen area? (The other time-share resort we could stay at is in Avon)

THANKS VERY MUCH FOR ANY HELP YOU CAN GIVE US!

paige

Hopefully coskier or someone else will give you some info on Winter Park. I've only been there once to ski and it was many years ago. You mentioned Avon/Aspen. Aspen is not that close to Avon but Vail and Beaver Creek are. This is our usual summer destination. That said, you mentioned a time share in Avon. We have friends who live in Denver that come and visit us when we are in Eagle-Vail during the summers. Their parents have a time share at the Christie Lodge in Avon. They absolutely hate it. Now my friend is a little spoiled to the finer things and we always rent a large house on the Eagle-Vail golf course so her one bedroom time share pales in comparison. If your accomodations are important to you maybe you re-post and ask for info on the place at Winter Park vs the Avon place. Some people say they don't spend much time in their room so they don't care. Not me. I like to have plenty of space to spread out and relax away from the kids. I love sitting outside on the deck or porch and enjoying the Colorado summer with a good book, a glass of wine and good company. That isn't possible at the Christie Lodge in Avon.

As far as activities - there is plenty to do in the Avon area and I'm sure someone will post to let you know what's available in Winter Park. When we were in Winter Park years ago my biggest disappointment was there was no "town".

karens

Sunflower - I will get back to you with more later, but I agree that WinterPark doesn't really have much of a town. It has a great alpine slide and mountain biking, if your kids are into that. But not all that much else. I'll comment more later, but I do think there are much better places to Colorado.

travelisfun

You could stay in Estes Park as a home base and see the Rocky Mountain National Park. Winter Park isn't TOO far, so you could drive over for a day to do the Alpine slide and other things.

Grasshopper

If you will have a car, Avon wouldn't be a bad place to base for some great day trips. Within half an hour you can be in Vail, Beaver Creek, Frisco, Breckenridge, and Keystone (maybe 40 minutes tops). You can hike, bike, sail, kayak, take gondolas to mountain top views, swim, golf, tennis. There is tons of fine dining and fun casual eating out.

Winter Park has the aforementioned alpine slide and great mountain biking and hiking. Other than that, it's rather limited (but very pretty!)

lenleigh

One suggestion if you are going over 4th of July: Estes Park does fireworks over the Lake in town. Estes Park has a ton of activities (hiking, swimming, horseback riding, an alpine cable car, miniture golf, mini race cars, a little town to walk around and Rocky Mountain Natl Park is right there where you will see a lot of wildlife just to name a few). You are still close enough to drive to Winter Park, Breck, Keystone and Vail which are appx an hour away. If you wanted to base yourself more in the middle I would stay in Frisco or in one of the resort towns like Breck or Keystone which are still pretty close to Vail and Winter Park.

sunflower2

Thanks to all of you for your helpful comments.

Turns out that the time share in Avon was the Christy Lodge and only 400+ square feet---Thanks for alerting me to this potential problem (we would have hated having a family of 4 in a 400+ square foot condo for a week)

Your comments re Winter Park were also helpful, and as i looked at a map & researched it further, I agreed with you all that it was probably too far away from a lot of the summer activites that our kids would be interested in.

Since we only could get those 2 time shares at this point in time, we've put it on hold for now & will keep checking to see if somethign becomes available in Summit County or Estes Park.

Thanks again!

travellyn

Fairfield has time shares near Pagosa Springs, if that's one of your options. Pagosa is a nice litle town with access to some great scenery and activities.

sunflower2

Thanks. I'll see if we can get into a timeshare in/near Fairfield.

Our timeshare is a RCI timeshare, in case anybody else has any suggestions for wonderful places in Colorado or any other place in US, Carribean, Canada, or Mexico!

We're very open about where we go---we want to have outdoor fun, love the mts & love the beach & water sports, ets.'

Thanks so much!