Where to Stay at Purgatory with Kids

Working out where to stay at Purgatory with kids turns out to be simpler than at almost any resort in Colorado, and it comes down to one detail: ski school and childcare share a floor. Both run out of the second floor of the Village Center, so a family with a toddler and a preschooler does one drop-off, in one building, at one time. Nowhere else in our 16-resort comparison does that. At Vail you’re choosing between two base areas on opposite ends of the mountain, and at Breckenridge there are three separate kids’ buildings. Here there’s one staircase.

Purgatory childcare starts at 12 months, which makes Purgatory with a toddler a real option rather than a compromise, and the Purgatory ski school age begins exactly where childcare leaves off, with an overlap at four, so a child who isn’t ready on day one can switch without leaving the building. The money works differently too: lessons cost a fraction of what the I-70 resorts charge, and kids 12 and under ski free. The honest catch is the drive, because this is the furthest major resort from Denver. which is precisely why it’s quieter and cheaper, and why most families make it a proper Durango ski trip with kids instead of a weekend.

Comparing resorts first? Colorado ski resorts ranked for families with toddlers – ski school ages, childcare minimums and kids’ ticket policies for all 16, in one table.

Weighing the big names instead? Vail vs. Beaver Creek for families covers why Vail has no childcare at all. If your youngest is under a year, Keystone and Breckenridge take infants from six months. And if cost is the deciding factor, Loveland takes walking one-year-olds for $105 a day.

Other guides: Steamboat · Beaver Creek · Vail · Copper Mountain · Winter Park 

Before you go: the warmest ski base layers for kids · our family ski trip essentials · the ski school drop-off packing list · our ski drying kit · essentials for a baby on the ski mountain  · baby and toddler sleep essentials  · essentials for the drive to the mountains  · skin and altitude kit for kids

Why Purgatory works with young kids

The reason where to stay at Purgatory with kids is a shorter conversation than at Vail or Breckenridge is structural: the resort put everything a family needs on one floor.

Childcare and kids’ ski school both operate from the second floor of the Village Center. Childcare in one room, ski school at the Bear’s Den down the hall. If you have a two-year-old and a five-year-old, you walk into one building, hand over two children, and leave. Compare that with Vail, where the two children’s ski school centers sit on opposite ends of the resort and arriving at the wrong one can cost you the lesson, or Breckenridge, which runs three separate kids’ buildings.

That single piece of architecture is why Purgatory with a toddler is a genuinely different proposition from the I-70 resorts. The hardest part of a ski morning with little kids isn’t the skiing – it’s the logistics of getting two different ages to two different places in ski boots before 9:30am. This ski resort removes that problem rather than managing it.

Purgatory childcare: 12 months to 4 years

Purgatory childcare takes children from 12 months to 4 years old, running 9:00am to 4:00pm on the Village Center’s second floor.

The booking policy is the quietly excellent part. Most resorts make you commit days ahead and punish you for changing your mind. Beaver Creek wants two days’ notice and charges $54 to cancel inside 24 hours. Purgatory asks for 12 hours and deliberately holds some availability open for walk-ins, charging $180 instead of $160. With a toddler, the morning you need childcare is often the morning you didn’t plan for, and Purgatory is the only resort in our 16 that builds for that.

How it compares on price and age:

Keystone and Breckenridge still win on raw minimum age, taking infants from six months. But from the first birthday onward, Purgatory childcare is the best combination of price and simplicity in the state.

Purgatory ski school age and what a lesson includes

The Purgatory ski school age for the children’s group program is 4 to 6, which lands exactly where childcare stops, with an overlap at four. That matters more than it sounds: a newly-four-year-old who melts down on day one can move to childcare without leaving the building or the floor.

Sort rentals the day before. They’re not included in the lesson price, and trying to do the ticket window, the rental shop and two drop-offs between 8:45 and 9:30 is exactly how a good morning falls apart.

Lesson pricing 

Your child needs a lift ticket… but it’s free. Kids 12 and under ski free with the Power Kids Pass. The catch is operational, not financial: you have to collect the pass at the ticket window before the lesson, so that’s a stop to build into your morning.

What a lesson actually costs here versus the big resorts

This is where the Purgatory ski school age bracket gets interesting against the marquee names, because the lift ticket is where the real money hides:

Beaver Creek’s peak day runs roughly 2.4 times Purgatory’s, before you’ve bought the lift ticket Purgatory gives your child for nothing. Across five days with two children, that gap runs well into four figures, which is the real argument for where to stay at Purgatory with kids rather than driving to Summit County. The drive is longer; the week is dramatically cheaper.

Ski lesson rules

You don’t have to stay put. Purgatory doesn’t require a parent to remain on site while a child is in a regular group or private lesson. You just leave a reliable mobile or local number where you can be reached immediately.

That sounds like fine print. It isn’t. Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Loveland all tether a parent to the resort or the town for the duration, which quietly kills the version of the day where you drop the kids and do something else. At Purgatory, a 9:30-to-3:00 lesson is genuinely yours. Ski it, drive into Durango, or go back to the condo and sleep.

It also changes the calculation on basing in town. If you’re staying in Durango, the 30-minute drive up stops being a trap, because you’re not committed to sitting at the base until 3:00pm.

Where to stay at Purgatory with kids: slopeside or in Durango

The structural decision mirrors what families face at Steamboat and Beaver Creek: slopeside convenience against town cost and town life.

Stay at the base if your children are in childcare or lessons. With a 9:00am drop-off at the Village Center and a ticket-window stop before it, being able to walk there is worth real money — and it’s the whole reason the one-floor layout helps you in the first place.

Stay in Durango if cost matters more, or if you want a genuine town in the evening. Durango is a real place with restaurants, grocery stores and things to do that aren’t skiing, which matters on the afternoon when someone is too tired for another run.

Where to stay at Purgatory with kids: the base village

Purgatory’s base lodging works differently from most Colorado resorts. There’s no condo-hotel with a front desk and a room-type list. The base is a cluster of buildings whose units are individually owned and rented through the resort’s own central reservations. Purgatory Lodge is the flagship, described by the resort as a “luxury ski-in/ski-out property” with 3- and 4-bedroom units sleeping 8 to 10, a shared heated pool with a waterslide, two adult-only swim spas, a fitness center, a day spa and a 24-hour front desk.

What matters when you book is that the resort states plainly that these apply to “select units only”: ski-in/ski-out or walking distance to lifts, full kitchen or kitchenette, private deck, fireplaces. So nothing is guaranteed by the building, you’re booking a specific unit. Ask three questions before you pay: is it genuinely ski-in/ski-out, does it have a full kitchen or just a kitchenette, and does it have in-unit laundry.

One quirk worth knowing: the Village Center is itself a lodging building. So you can literally sleep above the childcare and ski school, though only by booking a particular unit.

Parking is free, with a catch. During peak periods and holidays the Main Village Lot is reserved for carpools of four or more. A family of three arriving on a holiday Saturday is parking in an outer lot and taking the shuttle, which runs between lots until 5:00pm.

Check price and availability of Purgatory’s base lodging.

Where to stay at Purgatory with kids: Durango

Durango is where the whole-property hotels are, and it’s 25 miles south or about a 30-minute drive.

Best Western Plus Rio Grande Inn – Guest rooms · microwave and fridge, no full kitchen · indoor pool and hot tub, confirmed open year-round · walkable downtown · full breakfast included
Best for: the one property in Durango where a winter swim is actually guaranteed.

Check price and availability of Best Western Plus Rio Grande Inn

Club Wyndham Durango – One-bedroom condo suites only, ~380 sq ft, sleeping 4 · full kitchen in every unit · shared guest laundry, not in-unit · no pool on site (guests are currently directed across the street to the Best Western’s) · two outdoor hot tubs
Best for: a real kitchen downtown, but it’s tight for more than two kids, and don’t promise a pool.

Check price and availability of Club Wyndham Durango.

Residence Inn by Marriott Durango – Studio to 2-bedroom suites sleeping 6 · full kitchens (brand standard) · indoor pool plus a children’s pool · indoor whirlpool
Best for: the most space for a family of five or six.  Bookable with credit card points instead of cash. Note the name: it’s branded “Durango Downtown” but sits on US-160 west of town and is not walkable to Main Avenue.

Check price and availability of Residence Inn by Marriott Durango

Homewood Suites by Hilton Durango – 78 studio and one-bedroom suites · fully equipped kitchens · indoor pool
Best for: a reliable kitchen-plus-pool combination. It’s in Bodo Park, roughly two miles from downtown, so you’re driving to dinner.

Check price and availability of Homewood Suites by Hilton Durango.

DoubleTree by Hilton Durango – Standard rooms, no multi-bedroom units · no kitchen, microwave and mini-fridge only · indoor pool and whirlpool · riverfront, near downtown
Best for: a straightforward near-downtown hotel night, not a self-catering week.

Check price and availability of DoubleTree by Hilton Durango.

MainStay Suites Durango – King and 2-queen suites sleeping up to 4 · kitchenette, not a full kitchen, despite the extended-stay branding · indoor pool · guest laundry, may cost extra
Best for: budget, with eyes open about the kitchen.

Check price and availability of MainStay Suites Durango.

Getting between Durango and the mountain

If you base in town, this is the section that decides your week.

A shuttle exists, but it isn’t a bus. The Durango–Purgatory shuttle runs 7:00am to 9:00pm, and:

• Reservations require 24 hours’ notice
• There’s a two-passenger minimum per trip – a solo parent with one small child may not meet it
• Pricing is per booking, not per person, and rides may be shared
• $25 cancellation fee
• Children under 2 ride free, with car seats provided
• Transportation department: (970) 426-7282

Published stops, morning out and afternoon back:

Look at that timing against the lesson schedule. The first shuttle reaches the resort at 8:50am, drop-off opens at 9:00am, and the lesson starts at 9:30am. But you also need the ticket window for the Power Kids Pass. It works, barely, with no margin. If you’re basing in Durango and your child has a lesson, drive.

Making it a Durango ski trip with kids

Most families don’t drive this far for a weekend, and they shouldn’t. Purgatory is the furthest major resort from Denver, which is exactly why it’s quieter and cheaper than anything on I-70 – but it also means the drive only pays off across several days.

Treated as a Durango ski trip with kids rather than a ski weekend, the trip gets better. You’re basing in a town with its own character rather than a purpose-built village, the lodging costs less, and there’s enough beyond the mountain to fill a non-ski day, which you will want, because young children do not ski five days in a row.

That reframing also changes how the money looks. A Durango ski trip with kids with childcare at $160 and lessons at $209 on a weekday costs a fraction of the same week at Beaver Creek, and the savings more than cover the extra fuel and the longer drive. For a family that would otherwise skip a ski trip entirely on cost, this is the one that’s actually affordable.

Enjoy your family ski trip to Purgatory Ski Resort

If you’re choosing a Colorado resort around a child under five, where to stay at Purgatory with kids deserves to be on your list well before the famous names are. Purgatory with a toddler means childcare from 12 months at $160 a day, in the same building and on the same floor as the ski school your four-year-old will graduate into. Nothing else in the state puts both under one roof.

What you give up is proximity. This is a long drive, and it only makes sense as a multi-day Durango ski trip with kids rather than a weekend. What you get back is a week that costs a fraction of Vail or Beaver Creek, a lift ticket that’s free for anyone 12 and under, and the simplest ski morning we’ve found anywhere in Colorado.

Verified from Purgatory’s published information, October 2026. Prices, ages and hours change every season — confirm before you book.

Keep planning

Comparing resorts first? Colorado ski resorts ranked for families with toddlers – ski school ages, childcare minimums and kids’ ticket policies for all 16, in one table.

Weighing the big names instead? Vail vs. Beaver Creek for families covers why Vail has no childcare at all. If your youngest is under a year, Keystone and Breckenridge take infants from six months. And if cost is the deciding factor, Loveland takes walking one-year-olds for $105 a day.

Other guides: Steamboat · Beaver Creek · Vail · Copper Mountain · Winter Park 

Before you go: the warmest ski base layers for kids · our family ski trip essentials · the ski school drop-off packing list · our ski drying kit · essentials for a baby on the ski mountain  · baby and toddler sleep essentials  · essentials for the drive to the mountains  · skin and altitude kit for kids