 Re: Steamboat Springs, CO Skiing Trip
I second that about the kitchen! We always do Condos or VRBO to get a nice kitchen. Nothing in the way of lodging is cheap during ski season, though. King Soopers/City Market is the local version of Krogers and generally has the best prices. Safeway tend to be higher on most items. Save on car rental and don't get one! You can walk most of Steamboat or take the free shuttle to the ski area!
You can get discount lift tickets at most King Soopers - they usually knock about $5 -10 off. Entertainment book for Denver usually has some good lift ticket deals, but I have not looked at it for 2011 season yet. We got the Colorado Gems card for $10 and it offers lots of free days and two-for-ones at some of the smaller ski areas, but Steamboat would not be included on that. We ski Loveland, A- basin, and do Echo Mountain for snowboarding ( according to a couple of boys from Scouts, last weeks snow conditions were poor at Echo, but we just got snow over new years and it may be better now). We are trying SolVista near Grandby this January. The smaller ski areas are plenty of room for beginner/intermediates to roam and are about generally half the price of the large and well advertised places. I can't see spending $100+ a day at Vail or Aspen when you can go to Loveland or Sunlight for as cheap as $30.
We buy used ski equipment - depending on where you live may be worth while for you check out getting some and lugging them on the plane. I got outfitted for around $100 myself and at $29 a day for rental it pays for itself after 3 days. You could even sell them when you done and recoupe some money. New stuff is expensive!!!! The only way I could get my son boots to fit was to buy clearance ones at $120, nothing used would fit his big feet!!
My son one time scored all day private lesson for the price of group lesson because we were the only ones there for lessons on a Tuesday! What a deal!! Weekdays are ideal to ski - never have seen lift lines of more than a minute or two at Loveland on a weekday either, so you can get tons more runs in than you can on the crowded weekend.
Hope these tips help a bit!
--- from a Colorado skiier | 
Linear Mode
