Stanley Hotel Tour
Stanley Hotel Tour
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Stanley Hotel Tour
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Detailed Reviews: Reviews order informed by descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as cleanliness, atmosphere, general tips and location information.
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4.0
1,616 reviews
Excellent
842
Very good
371
Average
174
Poor
97
Terrible
132
madNY
Kent, WA72 contributions
May 2023 • Couples
Magic show evening fun was entertaining but we were only able to buy VIP tickets as the other ones were sold out five days ahead of time. I did not think the value of the VIP ticket was worth the extra money that was twice as expensive. All it really did is seat us a little closer to the front in a theater venue that was quite small too as it only sat 75 people. The entertainer was excellent however!
Written May 27, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Jordan
2 contributions
Aug 2021 • Couples
All of the night tours were fully booked (not surprised) while we were in town so we signed up for the daytime tour. Our tour guide was Janson and he was phenomenal. He explained he was a history major early on and you could really tell by the story telling. He made every part of the tour interesting, informative, and fun! I highly recommend requesting him if you're going on a tour- we read several reviews and heard several people expressing disappointment in the tours but we had an absolute blast!
Written August 21, 2021
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Bub1958
Stillwater, NY66 contributions
Sep 2022
This was somewhat of an expensive tour, $30 each plus tip and $10 to park. We did the evening tour which began at dusk. Our guide was more than enthusiastic and knew his history of the place well, so no issues there. We were led to various rooms around the grounds and given very interesting history of what went on there over time, again all very informative. The ghost end of it all was honestly just as lame as any other ghost tour I've been on. We sat in rooms purposely left dark to obviously set a mood for the discussion, and were showed pictures taken by various people with unexplained faces and such in the background. The last place we were taken was the cellar of the hotel, which contained typical electrical conduit and a lot of plumbing you'd expect to see under any building, but I'd expect you might be a little uneasy if you were in your own cellar in the dark. The lit inside areas of the hotel are quite fascinating as you walk through, so it did have that redeeming aspect. As others have state, it's okay but overpriced.
Written September 22, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Robert K
Wilmette, IL4 contributions
Jun 2022
Most of my tour was spent trying to "contact" dead spirits as if I had signed up for a séance. It all felt very forced and very fake. About 1/3 of the time was spent with my tour guide showing us blurry and grainy imagery on his cell phone to "prove" to us that the ghosts existed. I thought I was signing up for fun ghost stories that also shed light on real life historical people who visited the Stanley. No such luck. The people who do this tour take themselves way too seriously and made this entire experience either tedious or downright uncomfortable. More about the actual hotel and its owner would also have been good. Additional charges include a 10 dollar parking fee for parking on hotel grounds. The Stanley needs to rethink their ghost tour segment as my tour included less than 30 seconds discussing the most famous ghost-inspired topic, Stephen King's book, "the Shining".
Written June 23, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Joe M
Broomfield, CO2 contributions
Aug 2022 • Family
Took the new Spirited Shining Tour yesterday with my family. We’ve gone on Stanley Hotel tours a few times in the past ten years and they’ve always been interesting and entertaining. This new tour is a complete rip off.
Our guide knew next to nothing about The Shining, and even shared a few incorrect facts about the movie. He had no enthusiasm for leading a tour and mostly mumbled through his script. The tour took us to the front of the hotel, a patch of grass that has nothing to do with Stephen King or The Shining, a tiny pet cemetery that also has nothing to do with The Shining and then got weird. We were taken into a nasty, mostly abandoned building full of construction equipment (shop vacs, dusty drop cloths), beer bottles, surety old furniture and stains on the walls. There was an old Stanley Film Festival prop door and we were told about a ghost named “Dennis” and then allowed to walk around this boring old building. The last stop was a newly renovated Caretaker Cottage that has replica rooms from the movie (not that well done) and a prop axe.
After that our tour guide told us “the tour is pretty much done” and reminded us he could accept tips. This was just 40 min after the tour started.
Ever since the purchase of the Stanley by a luxury hotel chain, the value and quirkiness of a visit has gone down sharply. I don’t know if the main Stanley tour is still interesting or any good but yesterday’s Spirited Shining Tour was a complete rip off of $30/person.
Our guide knew next to nothing about The Shining, and even shared a few incorrect facts about the movie. He had no enthusiasm for leading a tour and mostly mumbled through his script. The tour took us to the front of the hotel, a patch of grass that has nothing to do with Stephen King or The Shining, a tiny pet cemetery that also has nothing to do with The Shining and then got weird. We were taken into a nasty, mostly abandoned building full of construction equipment (shop vacs, dusty drop cloths), beer bottles, surety old furniture and stains on the walls. There was an old Stanley Film Festival prop door and we were told about a ghost named “Dennis” and then allowed to walk around this boring old building. The last stop was a newly renovated Caretaker Cottage that has replica rooms from the movie (not that well done) and a prop axe.
After that our tour guide told us “the tour is pretty much done” and reminded us he could accept tips. This was just 40 min after the tour started.
Ever since the purchase of the Stanley by a luxury hotel chain, the value and quirkiness of a visit has gone down sharply. I don’t know if the main Stanley tour is still interesting or any good but yesterday’s Spirited Shining Tour was a complete rip off of $30/person.
Written August 20, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Vacationers62
San Diego, CA690 contributions
Sep 2022
This is a definite tourist ripoff! $30 for the tour, and $10 to park! You can redeem the $10 token at their Post Chicken Restaurant, which we all thought was so-so. You only see 4 rooms. Your guide will turn off the lights in one room and use a "spirit box" to commune with the ghosts. It sounded like a radio, as there were music stations coming through! Hokey! The underground tunnel was very short and nothing really to see. No one saw or hear ghosts. Definitely overrated!
Written October 2, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
clanoffour2019
6 contributions
Jan 2023
We took the Nighttime tour (not The Shining tour). Two in our party had done the historical daytime tour last year and enjoyed it. We thought the nighttime tour would focus on the spookier aspects of the hotel. It was a complete waste of $90 for our party of 3. Our tour guide (I wish I could tell you his name, but he was completely unintelligible) is in the wrong trade. When listening to information from a tour guide, being able to understand what he is saying is KEY. We got nothing from this tour verbally. Could not understand a word. I assume he was telling stories about people's experiences with ghosts in the hotel, because he kept showing us pictures on his phone that guests had supposedly taken in the past. Very boring. Even with the gargled presentation of information, it might have been nice to see unusual areas of the hotel (which is beautiful by the way) but we only toured the lobby (jammed with at least 5 other tour groups), the music room, the library and some dark hallway downstairs. We weren't even allowed upstairs or anywhere near the rooms. Don't waste your money
Written January 10, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Michelle G
77 contributions
Oct 2021 • Couples
We took the “haunted” tour at the Stanley Hotel this weekend. $25 per ticket PLUS $10 for parking!! (They give you a $5 token to use in the hotel but at 8:00 pm the only place open was the bar). So if this tour was awesome I wouldn’t have had an issue with the price (although charging for parking seems excessive in any case), alas it was far from good.
They had us gather in a room showing a video about how the Shining series (not the movie) was filmed there). About 15 people were in our group. We were then taken to the the concert building where the guide told us a little about the history of the place and then told us to look around for 10 min. There wasn’t much to look at…then we were taken downstairs to see the rooms of two “ghosts” and shown cell phone pics of them. We also spent 10 minutes in the dark hold DumDums in our outstretched hands waiting for the ghost to knock them over.
Back in the main building we went to the basement to see the old tunnels and another ghost on her cell phone. And that was it. Exactly 58 minutes.
Don’t waste your time!!!
They had us gather in a room showing a video about how the Shining series (not the movie) was filmed there). About 15 people were in our group. We were then taken to the the concert building where the guide told us a little about the history of the place and then told us to look around for 10 min. There wasn’t much to look at…then we were taken downstairs to see the rooms of two “ghosts” and shown cell phone pics of them. We also spent 10 minutes in the dark hold DumDums in our outstretched hands waiting for the ghost to knock them over.
Back in the main building we went to the basement to see the old tunnels and another ghost on her cell phone. And that was it. Exactly 58 minutes.
Don’t waste your time!!!
Written October 12, 2021
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Andrew R
8 contributions
Jan 2022 • Couples
Won’t recommend the “ghost” tour. They take you to random service rooms in adjacent buildings, tell you ridiculous stories about people who supposedly died with the lights turned off, show you some pictures of “ghosts” on their cell phone and then that’s it. It’s just a hour of that. You hear nothing about the history of the hotel itself or get a tour of the hotel. It has little to do with The Shinning. I would have asked for my money back, but I didn’t want to talk to these ridiculous people any longer.
Written December 29, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Emiliano Zapata
Oak Lawn, IL4 contributions
Jun 2022 • Family
Do not waste your time. We did the night tour because it was supposed to be scary. Half the tour is standing outside the hotel listening to the tour guide tell us some made-up stories about deceased employees who haunt the hotel. The only thing interesting was that the hotel was Stephen King's inspiration for The Shining.
And no, The Shining wasn't filmed here. I thought it was. I wish I knew this before we wasted our time.
And no, The Shining wasn't filmed here. I thought it was. I wish I knew this before we wasted our time.
Written June 7, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
bride-to-be-june
Perry Hall, MD2 contributions
Hi there,
Can you tell me what company you booked your tour through? How much it cost and how long the tour was?
Thank you
Terri P
Palm Desert, CA22 contributions
We registered online for the tour. I can’t remember the cost but felt it reasonable. Last maybe 90 minutes.
Hi, i was wondering if you could do the estes method there? If so where should i do it
Sadaf A
Sugar Land, TX86 contributions
Can I take my 4 year old to visit the Stanley Hotel , just to look around not take the tour ? The website mentions that kids under 8 are not allowed on either the day or night tour but can we just park and visit the common areas ? What areas will we be allowed to access ?
RLK414
Plainfield85 contributions
Absolutely!!! You can park in the lot and just look around….go inside to the gift shop and other areas too! We saw Elk right next to our car…. Very cool ! Have fun in Estes Park and the Stanley. I am no expert but any other questions you may have let me know.
karin h
Bettendorf, Iowa, USA348 contributions
I have been trying to get a reservation for your main hotel for one night (August 4-5). We are 3 adults. Ideally, we'd like a room with 2 bedrooms, if that's an option. Or -- 2 rooms close to each other. One for 2 people; one for 1 person. The single person is a Colorado resident the other 2 of us are visiting. We are over 65, have AAA and AARP, if that gets us anything breaks. Also, my husband is a veteran -- does that count as military discount? We could also do a suite but need to know if the bed and the sofa bed are separated by at least a partition. Hopefully a door. Please let me know what is possible -- the website does not seem to work well. Thanks.
Karin
"Semper ubi sub ubi"
Does the hotel tour during the day include getting too see other floors ?
Cathy P
Knoxville, TN7 contributions
Absolutely! Upstairs and below ground...the hallway that will remind you of the twin girls from the movie and certain guest rooms of interest. Below ground is fascinating too. I would do the tour again myself if I were to visit there again, it was that good!
Does the daytime tour at the Stanley Hotel include getting too see the floors ?
Sean L
Roy, UT71 contributions
I am not sure. We did our own tour. The main stairway was blocked to hotel guests only.
AJ J
6 contributions
I’m not wanting to take a tour but I am wondering if it’s worth $10 to park just to see the grounds and stop at the bar or coffee shop?
degruber
Chicago, Illinois17 contributions
It’s worth $20 to take the tour, get some history then walk the grounds and eat. The tour takes you into places you can’t see as a visitor. So to just go and walk around wouldn’t leave you feeling the same. We loved the tour and stayed for lunch and walking around.
Laura Kemp
6 contributions
Is the 6 o'clock tour one that features haunted locations?
DelilahDew
Boston, MA17 contributions
Cannot recommend the Stanley Ghost Tour 8PM. It was disappointing not at all what I had hoped for. Very limited areas to visit. Majority of the hotel is off limits. Nothing haunting at all although the guide tries to make it "ghostly". The original "Shining" with Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall WAS NOT filmed at the Stanley by the way. Stephen King did however visit.
Kerry J
Kenner, LA87 contributions
Is the tour worth the money? Sounds like mixed reviews. Can we just go and take some pictures inside and out and grab a drink?
Jeff A
Copeville, TX164 contributions
Yes! It is only $25 so, it's not a lot of $$. HOWEVER, if you are a REAL skeptic or not willing to be open to the stories and experience, then this may not be for you.
Our experience was GREAT as our guide passed put wooden pencils that she showed us how to use as dowsing rods and ask questions for the resident spirits. Sounds like hype, right? Well, let me say that it freaked both myself and my girlfriend as to see how they pencils moved!! Skeptic or not, this is hard to explain away as to how they moved to questions! That experience alone was worth the price!!!