We rented a "premium" or "luxury" unit (2 bedroom, 3 bath) January 16-January 20, 2008 for our family (2 adults and 3 boys, ages 10, 8, 2). When we arrived at approximately 4 p.m. on January 16, 2008, the unit in which we were put was cold. Accordingly, I turned up the thermostats in every room in the premium unit to warm it up. By that evening, it was clear that none of the heating units was working. Accordingly, I contacted the front desk. The gentleman at the front desk informed me that “there was never any heat in those units” and that we “should use the fireplace.” I told him that this response was absolutely unacceptable in light of the time of year and weather. I informed him that I had three children, including a toddler, and that the glass enclosure on the fireplace became extremely hot with the fireplace on, and thus was hazardous. He advised me that there was nothing he could do, and that he would pass along the issue to the manager the next day. The night, the temperature outside dropped to 20° F below zero. While I turned the fireplace on after my toddler was asleep (and put one of the couches in front of the fireplace so that none of my children could approach it directly), the fireplace clearly was not able to heat the entire unit. The following day, I investigated moving to a new property. However, in the interim, maintenance arrived at our unit, turned on the heat and criticized us for putting the couch in front of the fireplace. (Ultimately there was never working heat in the second, front bedroom). Subsequently, a second woman came by who said she was sent by maintenance to investigate a “burned” couch. First, as she observed, there was no burned couch. Second of all, we were livid because, even had there been a “burned” couch due to its placement in front of the fireplace, the fault was in the association for not providing working heat in dangerously cold weather. Throughout this entire process, despite my request that a manager contact us, we never heard from management with an explanation as to why we were not provided heat. On our final day, I arrived at check out at and first requested that the gentleman at the front desk credit us for the first night stay and explained why. He told me that my request could only be dealt with by a manager. Accordingly, I requested to speak to a manager. He advised me that the manager had not yet arrived but that he would leave a message for the manager to contact me. I have yet to hear from anybody. Other issues that came up: (1) we requested a unit that overlooked the slopes or the mountains when we booked. We were told then that all of the units overlooked the mountain. When we arrived, we learned that all the 2 br, 3 ba units overlooked the parking lots or pools. (2) resort management "excused" the shuttle service that would take us to the ski area base (we couldn't ski out with a 2 year old) from coming to the preset pick-up places within the resort; (3) maid service was spotty (some days didn't show up at all). We would not go back.

We just returned from our trip to Winter park and stayed at the Iron Horse so here is my review. We rented a studio condo on the second floor directly from the owner via vrbo.com. Our unit was adequately furnished with all amenities needed for our stay and the owner was great to deal. My wife was a first time skier so this condo did not really work for us on the ski in/ski out aspect, there was no way she could have taken on the blue to ski into the resort (my bad judgment I guess). We could ski down to the lifts with no problem, but coming back via the bus shuttle was a huge pain. Very slow service to pickup and many times the drivers would not drop you off at Ski Depot (1st hotel floor) so we had to carry our gear through the lobby, take the elevator, carry our gear down the long hallway, and then cross the street to store our gear. The coffee machine in the lobby was constantly broke or out off stock. The owner gave us a very good price on the room and the room was nice so I have no regrets for the price I paid, but if we come back we will stay elsewhere.

Anyone staying at the Iron Horse Condos in Winter Park should know a few things beforehand. First, we learned after arriving there that each unit is individually-owned, so there is not much quality control. Our unit, #2034, had plumbing problems with almost every possible water fixture: drippy faucets and commode, slow drain in the tub; part of one shower handle fell off. Luckily the dishwasher worked fine, as we had to use it every day for the three of us to be able to eat. (We were told that the Iron Horse only requires that each unit of that size have four plates, four saucers, four bowls, four coffee mugs/cups--that was what we had! On the other hand, we had 24 glasses so we could have had a huge booze party--not likely with our 10-year-old son along. Instead, we ate cereal out of highball glasses. Also, there was no casserole dish with a lid that could be used in the microwave, so one of the precious plates became a splatter lid.) The only source of heat was the gas fireplace, despite there being baseboard heat installed but not functioning. The place was very dirty when we moved in, as well--sticky spots on the floors, the bathroom looked like someone had just had a haircut. When we informed the desk of the problems we had, we were told to call the accounting department on a weekday for a discount on our room. Nearly a month later, we haven't heard back from the voicemail we left for Liz. The ski-in/ski-out feature was marginal for our upper-beginner showboarder son: there was no way he would have made it down the blue Mary Jane ski run to ski in, and he had to push himself a lot on the flats to get out (not what we were told over the phone--we paid extra over another nearby hotel's price for what we hoped would be convenience to the slopes). The other option is to take the grimy schoolbuses that Winter Park calls shuttles, where you wait 40 minutes for a driver who's been brought in from Florida to help deal with the holiday rush and doesn't know where at Iron Horse to let you off. All in all, our Winter Park experiment told us that we could just go down the road a few minutes to SolVista and have a more pleasant experience. It's not fancy there, but the facilities where we stayed in 2006 were adequate (much cheaper) and the people are friendly on the SolVista slopes and elsewhere in the resort area.

My husband and I have skied at Winter Park for twenty + years. We like skiing at Thanksgiving on the one year in three or four when they have LLLOOTTTSSS of snow. If you can make a last minute reservation, you might find most of your favorite trails open and empty until the day after Thanksgiving. We've stayed at Iron Horse on more than twenty five trips/100+ days. We stayed once in the largest unit for a family vacation. (It was wonderful except for the usual hassles of having to share the living room with the kids who slept on the sofa bed.) Most of the time, we stayed in a sports studio w/ the sofa bed unoccupied. Every unit was well maintained and comfortable. The murphy beds in the studios are surprisingly comfortable. With the bed tucked back into the wall, the condos are plenty large for two people. The individual units are owned by different people, so the decor varies from 'a bit tired' to 'updated last month.' In Winter Park, we've also tried Hi Country House, Snowblaze, Zephyr Lodge, and several others. I'd take Iron Horse over all of the others. It's nice to sit in a hot tub at the end of the day, sipping a long island ice tea and getting snowed on! Or you can go back to your condo and laze in front of your fireplace while waiting for the steaks to cook on the balcony grill.... YEAH!