The Stanley Hotel

As is mentioned in many reviews of The Stanle, the construction is a huge turn off! And absolutely no mention of it when you're booking your room. In addition, when I booked my room, I did not realize that I was booking it in the Aspire building. I thought that the Stanley hotel was one big hotel. I did not realize that there were different newer buildings. In the end, though, I am very happy that we are in the other building as what is being done at the original hotel is really offputting. The staff, however, were very nice and accommodating. Besides all of the construction, they have tours going on an hourly basis that are open to anyone who passes by, for a cost of $25+, of course and no discount for hotel guests. Those tourists who have not spent several hundred per night are all over the main lobby, dirtying up the carpet, wandering around the property with screaming kids, going up and down the stairwells, and elevator if it's running, just taking up space that should be reserved for guests!! Especially guests who are paying dearly for what they thought would be an old, elegant hotel experience. It is definitely not an elegant hotel anymore. It tries, a little, but is obviously too interested in making money off of tours rather than providing an exceptional experience for guests. I had envisioned myself sitting in that grand lobby reading a book with some tea. Impossible and wouldn't be pleasant if it was possible. Our room in the Aspire was nice, and the lobby, spa and gym facilities and the outdoor pool are very attractive and peaceful. But, again, some things just don't make sense. For instance, the lovely fireplace they have in the lobby is shut down at 8 PM when the desk agent goes home. I have been looking forward all day, to just sitting by that fireplace with a nice drink and reading my book. Seems like a normal expectation for a higher end hotel in the Colorado mountains. The pool area is nice, as is the steam room and gym. There are plenty of towels, tea and coffee and nice amenities. They need little tables out by the lounge chairs on the pool deck for people to set their drinks and things on instead of the ground. The beds, linens and pillows were great. There is no mini fridge in the room, no additional amenities in bathroom like Q tips, makeup remover wipes, etc... normal amenities offered in hotels of this price range and expected caliber. There is no full length mirror in the bedroom or in the bathroom and the mirror in the bathroom is so dimly lit it is impossible for a woman to see to put makeup on and no other mirror in the bedroom. They don't make up your room or refresh towels unless you specifically request it. I understand not changing out towels for ecological reasons, but when you are paying these kind of prices for a hotel room, someone should come in and make up your bed every day and tidy up and take the trash out. We're just one night in to our stay so we shall see how the rest goes. It has been pretty disappointing though.

I’ve always wanted to stay at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. And so we did for our wedding anniversary April 2026. And I was disappointed. We booked online and made a few notes for the staff. First, it was our anniversary getaway. Second, we prefer feather pillows. We were surprised that the hotel was/is under significant construction. No mention of this on the website. A main dining area was not available, and the parking was considerably smaller. The noise stared at 7:15 am. A tad early. The hotel is spattered with memorabilia from the movie. Which I didn’t mind one bit. We opted for a queen junior suite. The size and shape of the room was wonderful. Beautiful windows that fully open allowing a nice breeze in. The bed? Average at best. It was bouncy and squeaky. The linen was good. Soft and seemed like very good quality fibers. The pillows? Well, if you like hard, lumpy, tubes for pillows, you’re all set. We asked for feather pillows again. We’re told they just switched over to another company and would try and find some of the old pillows. We were delivered smaller lumpy pillows. This wouldn’t have been so bad if we were told by email that they didn’t have feather pillows. We could have brought our own pillows. But they do have feather pillows! They just needed to go over to one of the other buildings (The Aspire hotel/building) and get them. If you want to be a great hotel, you must have a good bed and pillows. Without that, nothing else matters. The layout of the furniture and decor was awkward. First, two enormous TV’s that were way too big for the spaces. And that’s coming from someone who loves televisions. The remotes worked just as awkward. They worked, but you had to use two remotes for the main TV. For a suite, I expected maybe a desk. But instead, we got a sofa-sleeper. Which wasn’t bad, but it was not comfortable as a couch. Two enormous dressers that sat next to each other and one prevented the other’s drawers from opening. The thermostat seemed broken to me. We tried to just turn it off because it was so warm even though the outside temperature was 50, the room temperature was 75…. The entire night! We called the front desk, but they told us to do what we had already been doing. We could feel the baseboard heat on. We just opened the windows and slept without covers giving our floormates within view a show, albeit, boring. The coffee maker was a Keurig type set up and worked great. The bathroom was small but wonderful. It felt fully updated with the old charm as well. I wish it would have include a shower cap, Q-tips, and facial wipes for make-up. That’s common at hotels in this price range. The room has potential, but it needs an interior designer who cares about the function of a room and management committed to excellent beds and pillows. And maybe read the notes guests put in the reservation. Or, if they do, mention it when people arrive. Like, I don’t know, “Happy Anniversary! We’re so happy you decided to spend it here with us. Thank you. And your feather pillows are already in your room.” For the price we paid, yeah, I expect at least the feather pillows. I felt like the hotel had an identity crisis. Is it a luxury hotel or an attraction? In practice, they do neither very well. A couple great things. The gift shop. This shop is well appointed and stands out compared to the rest of the property. This shop is on par with the Broadmoor shops. Really nice. The Stanley Chocolate Factory in town was what I was expecting from the hotel. An excellent chocolate shop with exquisite candies that rival competitive chocolatiers. It’s worth a visit. The hotel misses some of the most common conveniences. First, billing things on property to your room. I can give a pass to the Colorado Cherry Store. But the main restaurant? Why couldn’t we charge our evening (anniversary dinner) to our room? I find this baffling. The next morning, our breakfast server informed us that we can charge it to our room. Baffling. The gift store should be billable to the room as well. It’s convenient for guests and should be a requirement for all on property vendors in my opinion. As we sat for dinner we mentioned our anniversary to the hostess, which meant something to us at least, but she did not inform our server, so we were not offered a desert or even a “congratulations.” Our hostess did say, in passing as we left, “By the way, happy birthday!” We got a laugh out of it at least! I’ll point out here; the restaurant was not busy at all. There’s no reason we shouldn’t have had everyone’s attention making sure our experience was a good one. The food and service did not match the bill which was well over $200 for two people. The salad had browning and was soft, the non-alcoholic drink was more expensive, $15, than the spirited drinks. I’ll take the hit there; I should have seen the price and passed. But who in their right mind would order that? Just give me the alcoholic version with the shot on the side. The deserts were a mix. Every pastry tarte I’ve ever had, a-la-mode, was warm. This one was cold and it felt like it was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t but the combination of cold pastry with ice-cream didn’t work for us. The cheesecake cherry slurry was fantastic. But the NY style cheesecake was hard. I’ve eaten lots of cheesecake over the years and I’ve never had a hard cake. It’s not good and though I took it with me to the room, I couldn’t finish it. Which is saying something. If you charge over $200 for two people, you should have decaf coffee. We’re not the only people that prefer this at night. One great thing was the Aspire building/hotel. It’s part of the hotel, and looks like it, but it’s updated and well run. It has a fantastic spa and nice workout facilities. We will stay at this location if we need to stay up in Estes Park again. I’ve always been someone who believes you get what you pay for. When I saw the prices of things, my expectation was set. But at the Stanley, it’s overpriced for what it is. Plain and simple.

DO NOT plan a stay here -The Stanley property is under huge construction on the entire grounds. No gardens or landscape only cyclone fences, dirt, and a lot of construction vehicles. No mountain escape feel-you may as well stay in the city. Contstuction is loud and disruptive! Construction starts early am and goes to early evening and every room can hear it. We heard so many patrons complaining of the construction noise. They don’t warn you of the construction at booking and refuse to give discounts once you realize the relaxing stay you wanted has turned into a nightmare because you have to wake up to construction sounds. Horrible experience and expensive waste of a vacation! Also the ghost tour was a bust-little history and little mention of paranormal activity.

Location-Amazing 5 Atmosphere- Historic and Interesting 5 Room 329- Dirty. Not cleaned well at all. Asked the manager to have housekeeping come and remove dust build up (I’m not talking some dust film…I’m talking months and months of neglect) from lamp shade next to bed, bed frame and floor between nightstand and bed where there was also tortilla chip debris). To their credit, they did in fact come back and try to fix with direction given by my husband. My husband said the vacuum housekeeping used was very old. The carpet needs deep cleaning at a minimum. There is debris and food under the heat register. Moved the chair out from the corner to enjoy the view and looks like coffee or pop spill dried on the register and wall. The floor surrounding the furniture under the TV caked dust dirt hair debris etc etc etc. The view out of the window is amazing , however the windows are filthy! You can see someone has letter written with their fingers on the outside of the glass. Also no screens in two out of three windows. There’s also brownish red drip marks on the left window frame onto the heat register. I will say the bathroom (smelled of bleach) is very clean as Is the linen. Went to the restaurant, and the actual menu is different from the menu posted on the website. The selections are less than appealing as are the exorbitant pricing. I’ve been reading reviews and cleanliness seems to be a reoccurring theme that owners and management alike do not put much stock into. That’s unfortunate considering the history of the hotel and the potential. If I had to guess the thought process is who cares people are still coming and they’re still going to pay outrageously for rooms that we aren’t going to put a dime into or manage staff appropriately and set expectations above the sub-par level. As far as the construction noise it is what it is. We were told they’re expanding the parking lot as well as a horror movie museum or something. Tacky, chintzy, hokey, whatever you want to call it. The Stanley could be not only a classic destination it it could be classy. Unfortunately that is not what’s happening currently.

We enjoyed our stay at the Stanley, but I wanted to warn other travelers that it is a massive construction site right now. If I had known, I might have still stayed there, but I would have requested a different room. Right now, the back side of the main building it a dirt pit. Construction starts at about 7:30 a.m. and wraps up at 5 p.m. Because the building has no air conditioning, our room got quite hot. Normally we would open the windows, but the dust from the construction site would come into the room. We would open the windows in the evening to cool it off, which works out fine if you're not in your room during the day. (Pro tip: Sit on the front porch instead!) Other than that, we really enjoyed our stay. We did two of the guided tours, the ghost tour and the Shining tour. They're both fun.