For Christmas last year my son wanted to go to the snow. After some research I picked Breckenridge and the Ranahan. We spent two days at the Ranahan in January and here are my thoughts:
Location:
In Breckenridge, Colorado. It is a bit out of the main town, maybe a five minute drive into downtown Breckenridge.
Booking:
Hyatt recently(ok it’s been a few years) purchased a ton of vacation properties. We booked directly through Hyatt, it was 25 thousand points a night (or in the high $500s a night). At the time we were doing a Hyatt run for a status match challenge so I didn’t even look at other options 🙂 Booking in the app or online is very easy to do. First, you can transfer points from your Chase account if you don’t already have them in your Hyatt account, typically these transfers are instantaneous, and then you just book the nights you want.
We stayed two nights for 50 thousand points total.
Check In:
With Hyatt if you have status you typically can ask for an early check in and have it be granted, staying at vacation properties is different however, and we had to wait until the regular 4pm check in.
Since it is a vacation property, when you check in they send you to the concierge’s desk so you can hear their sales pitch and try to get you to attend a timeshare presentation. They even offered child care! We were only there two days and aren’t interested in timeshares, so I politely turned it down.
Note that since it is a vacation club property-none of the Hyatt benefits are received. When we were in Sedona we got upgraded, but nothing is confirmed (including that breakfast credit). I still think it is worth it, especially with families.
The Room:
This was our first time staying at a vacation club (we’ve since stayed at two others), and it was beyond our expectations. The room had a rustic cabin vibe. These are vacation homes so we had a queen bed with a balcony, a full kitchen, a dining table and pull out bed. Bonus for having a washer and dryer as well! Which we didn’t use since we were only there two nights but have used at other locations.
We were as far from the front desk as you could get, and when checking in they told us to just drive around to the back to have a closer entrance to our room. We weren’t complaining though!
Hotel:
Really this was the selling point for me-the hotel has an indoor/outdoor pool that is fully heated. How fun is it to swim outside while it is snowing! It was for sure an experience we will all remember.
The indoor pool also has a small water slide that my kids used over and over and over again. Honestly, I think if we never left the hotel they would not have cared.
Outside there was also a hot tub, that made for an experience to run from the pool to the hot tub. Or you could just get in the hot tub without getting in the pool, but where’s the adventure in that?
It looked like there was a grill outside by the pool area for use during summer, but it wasn’t in use during winter time.
What was really cool about the hotel is that you could borrow sleds from them to go sledding at the nearby sledding hill. Although we found we didn’t need to because the sledding hill actually has sleds to borrow. Maybe it was because it was the middle of the week, but it was not busy at all at the hill-we even had a time we were the only ones there. I highly recommend checking out the hill if you stay during the winter.
The Ranahan also offers a shuttle for guests, you can take it downtown and not have to worry about parking. There are numerous drop off spots, and when you’re ready to be picked up you just call the driver to see where they are at and let them know where you’ll be at for pick up. This is a great amenity because anyone who has been to a ski town knows the misery of trying to find parking anywhere. We took the shuttle one night and walked around downtown, the process was easy and we weren’t waiting very long at all to be picked up when we were ready to head back.
Overall:
The Ranahan is a great family property for any season. The rooms are comfortable and the full kitchen is an added bonus when trying to feed a family with picky kids. The water slide and outdoor heated pool make for a great experience or a nice place to relax after a long day in the snow. Definitely consider this property when in the Breckenridge area-and it’s so easy to book on points 🙂
