we just got back from our great trip to Vail. This small basement apartment was perfect for my family: I'm a single Dad and brought 4 teenage kids. They sprawled out slumber party style on the futon (slept 2 boys 18 and 19), the fully reclining chair (went completely horizontal) for my 15 yr old girl, and put my 4th teenage child in his own bedroom since he was catching a bad cold. We cooked meals 4 nights in the small but fully equipped kitchen, and ate in the living area since there was seating for 2 at the kitchen/breakfast bar area. The housekeepers brought fresh towels and emptied our trash often. The funky location of the unit (same level of the hotel as the conference center, through the laundry room for the hotel and down the hall by guest laundry) made it hard to find at first, but then once we figured it out, we realized it was SUPER convenient because it was the same level as the parking garage, and only 1 floor down from the main lobby. We never had to wait for the elevator, and bringing in groceries and luggage was super convenient. The only time we ever rode the elevator was to go down 1 floor to the hot tubs. We discovered the FREE redbox DVD rental library on that floor as well. The TV was able to plug in an HD cable so we could play a DVD from our laptop computer in the living room. Nice touches were the robes for us to use. We had TONS of snow while we were staying there, so it was nice to have the garage parking and heated roadways so we could get in and out without shoveling anything. I thought this was an affordable and very fun way to stay close to the action in Vail. The only people who would be disappointed by this condo would be someone expecting to look out the windows and see the mountains, but those people would have read that this is a basement unit with no windows. Frankly after 6 days of skiing from 830 am till 4pm, all my kids wanted to do was fall asleep, so the view didn't matter AT ALL. I could barely rally them to visit the hot tubs! Staff was super friendly at the front desk. We didn't use it because we had a car, but learned that with a $50 minimum order, the City Market grocery store in Vail will deliver groceries free when you order them on the City Market Web site. If they made more of these apartments (I think there are 4 total) I would have bought one too. The condo was super clean.
