Ok, here are the highlights and lowlights from our week in Winter Park, Colorado. Overall, we had a great time. Great weather, nice little town (and towns nearby - Grandby, Fraser, Grand). Thank you Chewbacca and the others who offered up advice and opinions. You were all spot-on in your recommendations.
We did a lot of hikes. Went to Rocky Mountain National Park and that was great, primarily because we didn't have to fight Estes Park crowds. It was a very short timed entry wait, and lots of open space once in the park. Visited a few hiking spots and the Alpine Visitor Center which was cool. Could have gone back and spent a whole second day doing long hikes, but had too many kids and elderlies with us.
Went trout fly fishing on the Upper Colorado outside Kremmling. Went in expecting weak fishing given the water levels, but it turned out pretty good. Landed several trout, and missed several others including a few monsters. Thank you to Surly for the guide recommendation. He was fantastic.
Played golf at Pole Creek golf course. Tough course. Beautiful. A lotta fun, but played terrible. Nevertheless, would recommend.
Went whitewater rafting Class 4 and that was great for those that went.
Did some mountain biking at Tressle Bike park and e-bikes around paved trails. All were great. Tressle is really cool.
Now a bit of the downside. Workers throughout Winter Park were not happy people. The workers at the Resort, McDonalds, hotel, breweries, everywhere in Fraser and Winter Park were unfriendly and in many cases just uncompetant, either because they didn't care or, they didn't care. And just to note, we had no Karen's with us. There isn't one in the entire group.
Our hotel experience, the Wnter Park Mountain Lodge, was ridiculous, almost comical. We started off great. They were able to let us check-in early for several of our rooms. However, that quickly declined as several rooms spent several DAYS, trying to get soap, towels, and hot water in the shower. Each room probably requested 3-5 times for these items, making for about 10-20 requests to fix these problems and the manager on duty just simply nodded and blew everyone off. A few of the moments along the way: the people cleaning the rooms weren't carrying soap or towels on their carts!
We surmised maybe there was a soap shortage in the hotel. When I finally found a competent worker, he looked at me incredulously. He said they have piles of soap in the back. Same for towels. When I told him several rooms have been trying to get hot water for several days, he said, "That's weird. I've been here the last few days and I'm the head maintenance man and no one has asked our maintenance staff for anything." As we exited the hotel on our last sad morning, I whisked past a British dude hurriedly rushing down the hall with towels and soap in hand, mumbling something about "fucking Americans". As we reached the front desk, two groups were wondering why they had no soap or towels in their rooms. It had been 8 days since our first complaints. I could go on about the restaurant service and other issues, but needless to say don't stay at this hotel.
But overall, great trip.