We are so glad you enjoyed your trip and the staff was so helpful! Come back in the summer for the perfect Colorado summer experience.
We love Granby ranch. We are a family with young children and ski once per year. I prefer green and wide, easy, blue slopes which Granby delivers. It is small enough to not be over-whelming. Even on President's day weekend, there were no lift lines! We really like the down-to-earth feel of Granby. We did enroll our daughters in ski school. It was very crowded on the holiday weekend and my kids did not do well (my kids also are not big "kids-club" fans and tend to be timid in new situations). The individual attention needed for very-beginner and more timid children may be somewhat lacking (especially on weekends/holidays). We did switch our 8-year old to a private instructor who was fabulous. She was on the lift and skiing after the 2-hour session! I would highly recommend starting with individual lessons, especially for never-skied and/or timid children. The only restaurant in the ski resort is the grill (so you will definitely need a car if you plan to go out to eat at night, grocery shopping, etc). The gill at Granby ranch however is great. Excellent drink menu and food selections. Also a pretty decent kids menu. We ate lunch at Granby grill almost every day and also enjoyed their 3 to 5 PM happy hour appetizer and drink specials! We really enjoyed our week at Granby and would highly recommend, especially to families.
This is a very small ski area, which has pros and cons. Most of the runs are green and blue, and it's a fun family location. On the downside, there is no wi-fi here (free or otherwise), so tracer apps that let you know how far you skied, calories burned, speeds reached, etc., will not work here. Overall, it's not a bad place to spend the day skiing, but you probably would not want to invest in a season's pass to make it your primary location. Where this facility really shines, though, is their weekend night skiing program. It's only $16 for the lift pass, and it's always lots of fun. It's a rare treat that few resorts still offer.
We brought the family up as our 9 year old daughter had never skied. We got her in the ski school for the day. It was a very hectic check in and check out process, I'm thinking they could maybe find an easier way to get the kids checked in and out. Other than that, our daughter enjoyed the instructor - I think it was Michael from Peru. We did check in several times during the day and I was happy to see her having a great time and was able to ski by the end of the day. Once the lesson was over I did have to go stand in a long line, for close to one hour to check her out of ski school, which left us with only one run to do with her down the mountain. She was able to make it down and did well, so I must say the instructor did his job. As far as the ski area goes, it is an excellent spot for beginners. It's small but not overcrowded and the lift line wait was only 5 minutes, tops. It's not long to the top of the mountain and very easy terrain for the more advanced skier. I would highly recommend this place for families with young children and any beginner skier.
So glad to hear you will be back!
So glad to hear you guys enjoyed skiing here. We hope to see you back on the slopes next year!
Thank you for your kind words about Granby Ranch. So glad your lesson, lunch, and views were amazing. We cannot wait to see you again on the slopes.
Went to Granby Ranch with my family and we had a great time. The mountain is small but very nice. The staff are friendly and informative but the lines for rentals was awful and pretty unorganized. However, There were hardly ever lift lines to be found. Oh and the restaurant is atrocious and the wait staff is extremely rude. They ran out of cheese for pizza, brought our meals in pieces sometimes as much as 10 minutes between (so basically I received my meal 20+ minutes after my son received his.) After complaining the waiter said "look, were short handed so dont blame me" what?? If we cannot blame you, WHO do we blame? WORST MEAL I CAN REMEMBER IN A LONG TIME! **Do yourself a favor and find other places to eat. Otherwise our vacation was amazing until my wife broke her wrist. --the medical facilities are top notch, and coming from Houston, those are some big shoe's to fill. Two Words-- Doctor Bailes!
Great place for beginners and families with small kids. The runs are super easy. The runs are short, as well. There is really only two lifts (that take you to real runs). The four person lift takes you to the easy runs. That lift is pretty fast. The three person lift that leads to the expert runs (not really) is super slow. You spend more time going up on the lift than actually skiing down. The terrain park is fun for all. The ski school is okay. We loved our son's instructor but the other staff were just okay. They don't seem to have a good check in and out system. Too much wait time compared to other ski schools. I did like that they actually have a good security system in place with pick up.
Went here second day of skiing. Loved the cost and the groomed greens. Kid friendly and had levels for everyone. Will definitely recommend to people who don't ski alot to start here instead of winter park. Or who have to keep track of kids. One base ..hard to lose them here.