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Park City, Utah – February 2024

Day 1 – Thursday

At the tail end of the skiing season, we high tailed it to Park City, Utah from Dallas, Texas so we can get in our annual snow trip. Was the trip worth it? Hell yeah! We are in year 3 of doing an annual snow trip with our now 4 year old son. He loves it, we love it, and it’s something we are going to try to keep doing. It’s been kind of hard with my job as an accountant, busy season, year end etc but we made it work. We decided to go to Park City this time around instead of our usual Colorado spots because why? We heard it’s a MUCH EASIER ride from the airport to the ski resort. And yes by a million times it is. A short 45 minute ride from the airport to the Canyons Village is a hella lot easier than a 2 hour drive on a shuttle from Denver airport to whatever we’re staying at (Winterpark or Keystone). And that’s if conditions allow us to make it there in 2 hours. It did but still 2 hours with a toddler…pass for now. We decided to stay in Hyatt Centric Park City and whew. That hotel deserves it’s own paragraph below. Anyways back on track – the first day we flew in we quickly checked into our hotels, changed into our snow gear and headed straight to Woodward Park City, which was located about 15 minutes from our hotel. We did bookings online a few months ago for tubing and ski lessons. So for our first day of fun, to ease my inquisitive little boy into snow activities we did tubing naturally. I did this when he was 2 years old and we loved it as a mom and son activity while dad was at his conference. We were hoping for the same excitement this time around and yep, he LOVED it. We went on a few runs down the mountain as a family. They limit kids under the age of 6 to the smaller hill and so we maxed it out before he got too cold and hungry. So mom and dad split up to watch him and the other parent went up the higher tube ride and it was AWESOME. If the park people asks if you want to spin, think about it before you agree. I was spinning/dizzy by mid way and I fell OUT of my tube when I was trying to get up. Still fun and glad I did it. We ended the night at Kuchu Shabu and WHEW the best call to go there. We got in right before it got busy got seated at the bar top and had 2 shabu shabu pots. My son naturally ate about 8oz of prime ribeye but the portions were generous the owner Austin is awesome and knew his ish about Japanese Shabu. I loved all the dipping sauces and the traditional broth for me was where it was at. I was able to customize it but I loved that it wasn’t over-powering. It was a great call after being out in the snow all day – plus this was rather cold for us Texans. But be warned you will smell like shabu shabu!

Day 2 – Friday

Friday morning we woke up and got in a nice breakfast courtesy of EPC the restaurant within Hyatt Centric Park City. Then we got a call from our shuttle ride that they were on their way to pick us up to go dog-sledding. Yes Dog sledding! Dog sledding!!! Woof Woof! I’ve always been amazed by dogs, being a past dog mommy, and loving dogs my entire life. This was an adventure I couldn’t wait to see for myself. Yes I did feel like I could be mistreating the dogs but boy was I surprised. The dogs were SO friendly and happy and jumping around. They loved the attention and had fun running in the snow. We didn’t go fast, I think the musher said the dogs average around 15 to 18 miles per hour but they don’t run for long periods of time. And when they want to rest, we rest with them. My son and I first sat in the sled at the beginning of the run and it was fun. Keep in mind that if the dogs pee/poop – you’ll smell it but it’s nature. Everyone poops! At the half way mark we took pictures, see below, and mommy decided to become a musher in training! I loved it, it was more exhilarating than sitting. I like challenges and that was fun trying not to fall. And at the end the musher instructed me to man the fort and I was scared but I did it. I held onto the brakes hella hard and made sure we were NOT being pulled to nowhere land when the musher was training the dogs what to do. So I definitely recommend if you’re heading out to Park City, check out North Forty Escapes. They offer dogsledding and snowmobiling in the winter. They also mentioned a ton of summer activities too like archery, so cool to get my mockingjay fighter on but that’s for another time. North Forty Escapes shuttle bus was about 45 minutes one way so keep that in mind. We all took naps on the way back because it was around nap time and it was nice to relax before heading someplace for lunch.

Day 3- Saturday

Woke up bright and early for our ski lessons back at Woodward Park City, my husband, myself and my son’s first time skiing! We’ve only snowboarded (my son took his first snow boarding lessons last year at 3 years old). My husband and I had a group class at 9am. My son was in a private class at 10am. We actually was able to get my son’s to start at 9am since the ski instructor was there and he was ok with it. So in the beginning I got to see my son listening to the instructor and putting on his skis. We fortunately and unfortunately moved on quickly with our group class so we went up the “magic carpet” and went down the slopes a bit before heading on the ski lift. Our group lessons was for 3 hours and the private lesson my son was in was only for 2 hours. I hung around a bit longer to go up the ski lift 3 times. My husband opted out after going up once, so he went to meet my son after his lesson. I have to hand it to you skiing was easier to grasp but still hard work! I’m not a youngin’ anymore so I FELT everything the next day. My son had some cute little videos going down a tiny hill in his skis, kids on skis and boards are so dang cute. Come at me if you think otherwise. They are like little jelly people with no bones. He talked to mommy afterwards and said he had fun skiing but preferred snowboarding. Alright boy – let’s get you back on snowboarding lessons next year. I think my old bones need to get into a snowboarding lesson as well. Because I can’t imagine falling off the ski lift again, my hips are hurting just thinking about it. But a success on our ski lesson day! We were so afraid of my son, potentially backing out because he was sort of hesitant the day before about doing a ski lesson because mommy and daddy wouldn’t be with him. But I’m glad it worked out. He’s such a brave boy – manipulative but such a good kid. He’s got adventure in his blood so I’m happy it went well with no tantrums! We took our Hyatt Centric shuttle bus to Main Street and made reservations for them to pick us back up at 830pm. So that allowed us time to grab dinner, we stopped in on Kaneo Mediterranean for dinner and it was a surprise. We didn’t do any research and was able to grab a table on the bottom floor, ordered lamb chops, kale salad, and mussels and a mac and cheese dinner for our son. He of course ate half of the lamb chops but he knows good food. So I can’t blame him. We got ice cream at Java Cow and it gets pretty packed and hectic in there. My fav was the sea salt caramel flavor! We stopped by some tourist shops and got of course my go-to thing; a Christmas ornament that reminds me of this trip. Everywhere I go I usually buy a Christmas ornament or something that I can make into an ornament so I can use that as a memory each time we put up the Christmas tree each year. Plus it helps me fill up my bare tree. So two stones in one! And some park city utah stickers to add to my suitcase. We have away suitcases and it’s hard to tell them apart if we check them in and I just decided one day to stick some stickers on it. And it’s been a thing too. My son loves picking out stickers for our suitcases!

Day 4 – Sunday

Today was the last day and we just wanted to spend some time on resort so we grabbed breakfast and asked our valet if they had some snow sleds or snow discs? I don’t know the proper term but the plastic things used to go down small hills for FREE. They had to contact house keeping and guess what they had 2, which is perfect! We asked to borrow them and then proceeded to go down the short walk at the foot of a ski lift and went down a few runs. It was next to Dos Olas restaurant and well…the sign that said “NO SLEDDING” was very small and not in a place where we could see so we got in a few good runs/had great laughs and then a skier pointed it out to us. We were VERY careful to make sure to watch out for any incoming skiers or snowboarders so we knew it wasn’t balls to the walls sort of deal. But then after seeing the sign it made sense. So we decided to go to my plan b – head to FCD Hill which was about a 15 minute uber drive away. The FCD Hill, is a small hill at the Overland Trailhead (6358 Overland Dr.) behind the Tanger Outlet Mall. We had a complete and utter blast there. There was only one family when we got there around 1230pm and it quickly filled up with people but there was enough hill to go around. My son is a daredevil and wanted to go up high and sled down by himself. He makes me proud! Fearless haha. Definitely recommend, even if you don’t have a sled, sun & ski and or near by Walmart has them so buy them and head on over to FCD hill. But the bottom of the ski lift in Canyons Village, I heard is open to sledding around 430pm each night since the ski lifts are closed. Use it at your discretion – we never tried it but the worker at the ski rental told us about it. It was our last night so the next day we woke up and packed and headed to the airport. They have Clear at the Salt Lake City Airport, but their TSA PreCheck was also fast! It is a TREK to concourse B so get some grub after you pass security and be prepared to walk that long way to your gates.

Hyatt Centric Park City Hotel

Ok here is the low down on this amazing hotel. we’ve even started looking to book in advance for 2025 here. It’s that amazeballs. We booked this hotel on points, my husband is a Hyatt Globalist and we did the points thing. So when we checked in Thursday afternoon they didn’t have any upgrades available because they were 103% booked. Yes that’s what they told us. So we got a nice quaint room, a typical hotel room but it had a small sink, coffee machine, and a really spacious and WORKING mini-fridge. Since we’re globalists we get 2 free water bottles a day so that was nice to keep in our cold fridge. Anyways going back to the hotel being 103% booked, we knew it was packed because when we originally booked this hotel we couldn’t do an entire stay in one run. We booked one night and waited for another night to open up and booked another night so we had essentially 2 reservations. We called to check if they had any upgrades because we would have to check out and check back in and low and behold. They said YES! So we packed our bags and allow the bellhop to take our suitcase to the SUITE UPGRADE. AHHHH! This is by far the biggest suite we’ve experienced. I mean full on kitchen, dining area, living area, a HALL WAY?!, a bedroom and a half bath PLUS washer and dryer. My brain nearly exploded because with a washer and dryer…I PACKED WAYYY to many clothes for this trip. We enjoyed our stay very much and it was bigger than my apartment back in college. It was on the first floor so right out our window/patio we did see people swimming in the pools and hot tubs but that didn’t bother us. So yes we are already thinking of booking this hotel next year because of the fantastic hospitality, the wonderful spacious rooms, the convenient shuttle buses plus convenient to the lifts in park city. It really exceeded my expectations and I LOVED winterpark and keystone. Heck I’m just a snow girlie. I love our snow trips!

Hope this helped anyone out if they were hesitant to take their kids skiing in park city or if they had questions. Message me for more tips. I just blabbed a lot but I do have items saved and some memory space on my brain that can pull up specifics!