Angel Fire Retreat w/ Hot Tub ~ 5 Mi to Skiing

We cannot say enough about this mountain paradise. Our family of 6 (4 sons ages 7-15) made so many special memories at this home. The highlights were the hot tub and the mountain top views. But equally impressive we're the adjustable, super comfortable beds, the huge porch, and the fun downstairs game and movie area. The bathrooms and kitchen were abundantly stocked, and every detail was thought of. Be prepared for a winding and beautiful drive to get up to the house, and a very high altitude, which may cause some physical reactions (we wish we would have researched this more.). The home is completely secluded, yet close to many fun activities at the Angel Fire Resort. We loved exploring the area, and while we were there we enjoyed white water rafting, horse back riding, and down hill mountain biking. What and unforgettable family vacation!!

We enjoyed every part of our trip, everything was exactly as described.

First and foremost, I respect anyone who allows others to stay at their personal property whether you pay for it or not. My intent is not to keep people from staying at this property but to make the owners and property managers aware of our experience. That said, I'm going to start with the positives so people don't think our entire experience was bad. The primary reason we rented this property was because of the game room and it delivered better than we could have imagined. Our kids have never played Foosball and really enjoyed playing....all of the time! We also taught the kids to play Clue and Trivial Pursuit Junior which they both loved. We watched 2 movies on the big screen and after I fixed the sound (some of the speakers had become disconnected) it was a really nice experience. Their selection of games and movies is really large and there truly is something for everyone. The other part that was particularly nice was the massage chair. I'm not a massage chair fan but this one does a pretty decent job and was used by my wife and I a couple of times. We had deer come by the cabin twice that we saw and the chipmunks are around constantly looking for food. Our kids loved watching the wildlife during meals and evenings on the patio. Bottom line, if the place had been cleaner when we arrived, the beds a bit more comfortable, and a means to kill the heat in the cabin, this place would be by far our favorite place for Angel Fire. Unfortunately, because of the experience I mention below, we won't be back until some of the items are addressed. After a long 11 hour drive and arriving at the cabin very late in the evening, we were quite exhausted and ready for bed. Upon entering the cabin we had some high expectations because we had seen the pictures. As we opened and entered through the lower level door we walked into the game room which was pretty much as expected. We walked upstairs and opened the door to the main level to enter a cabin that was 80 degrees. This was a pretty stark contrast to the quite chilly lower level. We knew the cabin didn't have air conditioning but 80 degrees is pretty warm. Consequently, this is the temperature the main level got up to every day except 1 despite having windows open and fans going. After turing the lights on at the main level we immediately started noticing a few things that didn't seem what I would personally call, up to par. There was a large splatter of something all over the inside of one of the windows, there was sugar all over the living room coffee table, there were moths, spiders, and ants (dead and alive) all over the house. They were on the floor, stairways, windows, sinks, bathtubs, and even in the freezer! There was a rather large (about 9inches) piece of pointed glass on the floor in the downstairs room with the bunk beds, the mirrored closet in one of the guest rooms was broken and leaning up against a wall, and every closet in every room was completely packed with stuff even though there was a post-it pointing to a closet saying we could hang our clothes in there. There was no possible way to get anything else into the closet. We went up to the loft master bedroom with suitcases and found the sliding door had a hamper propped up against it because the lock had broken. Despite the master being in the highest part of the house and the hottest, the sliding door doesn't have a screen to be able to open it to let air in without bugs. And trust me, we opened it and immediately another moth flew in. One of the windows in the other bedroom had no screen as well. While checking the beds on the main floor for our kids, we found what was clearly dog hair on the sheets of one bed. Because of the bugs everywhere else, we had decided to check the beds before putting the kids in. Because our kids are both allergic to dogs and cats, we contacted the property manager just to ask if the owners had pets to know what we should do. We always make sure we get a place that does not allow pets for this reason but we've found that some owners have pets but don't allow others to bring pets. We didn't check before we came but contacted them now. The response we received was that the property managers have no contact with the owners or guests and can't control if someone brings an animal in...but the sheets were cleaned. I did agree that the sheets smelled clean so we're guessing the hair came from the comforter, but due to the lack of cleanliness in the rest of the house we were a little unnerved. Sleeping the first night didn't go very well either. The bed in the master is extremely hard and well worn! My wife and I neither one slept at all between the heat and the bed. The next night we moved down to one of the other rooms and moved the kids to the bunk beds in the game room. This worked better, but only slightly. This was the primary reason for us needing the massage chair I spoke of earlier. The owners know the beds aren't great because there are queen size memory foam mattresses in the closets for each bed. Our assumption was that since they weren't on the beds and everything else in the closets was the owner's that they weren't for us to use. In the game room, the couch down there (though very comfortable) didn't seem to have been cleaned either. There were crumbs all in a couple of the sitting places. Also, as mentioned above, I had to fix the surround sound for the theater in order for us to enjoy the movies. There were whole parts of the movie you couldn't even hear. After checking the back, 2 of the speakers had been disconnected. After reconnecting them, the sound was actually really great! Other items to note, the appliances are very much older appliances. The inner glass door on the oven is broken which seemed rather unsafe and the refrigerator was simply not clean but we used the stove, oven, fridge, freezer, and dishwasher and all worked fine. I also used the ninja coffee maker while there and it really makes a nice cup of coffee. So that was a big plus for me. Cooking in the evenings can be pretty miserable if it's done too early. We typically eat around 6pm or so on regular days but the sun coming through the windows in the evenings really makes it unbearable. A lot of our fruit spoiled from sitting on the counters despite us trying to move it to areas where the sun wasn't directly on it. I would suggest just some window tint on those upper windows. We saw it on other cabins while driving around and I think it would help with temperature as well. If you start dinner after the sun drops a bit is helps as well. When leaving, you're asked to "tidy up" wash and put up the dishes and take the trash out to the city dump (20min away). I've never stayed somewhere that I've had to put up the dishes and haul the trash down the mountain in my car to the dump on top of a $200 cleaning fee. Putting dishes in the dishwasher and putting trash in a locked bin outside the cabin is what we've been used to based our our multiple property stays over the years. There are definitely variations on this but considering the lack of cleanliness when we arrived, it seemed our $200 was for clean sheets and towels which is pretty steep. This place really has a lot of potential. The owners have obviously put money into converting the garage into the game room which was nice. With some tint on the upper windows and new mattresses this would really be a gem of a place to stay. We would love to come back but for the price you pay and what you get, it just won't be worth it for us unless there are changes.