Full-Time RVers – Campground / RV Park Review: Dakota Ridge RV Park & Resort – Golden, Colorado (Near Denver)

I am so excited to be giving out our very first 5 out of 5 on The Gypsy Scorecard!

I don’t take this score lightly, but I think it is well-deserved for Dakota Ridge RV Park in the charming town of Golden, Colorado only 11 miles outside of downtown Denver. We officially love this place and highly recommend it!

A few things to love about Dakota Ridge:
– Buddy sites with lots of space
– Hot tub
– Close to grocery stores, Target, and other shopping
– Workout room (It’s small, but it exists!)
– Proximity to Chick-Fil-A (Sweet tea and waffle fry heaven – thank goodness – it had been over 2 months since my last chick Fil A fix and just about as long since I’ve had a good southern, sweet tea.)

First off, how beautiful, large, and gorgeous is this site? Beautiful grass, no dirt, and large concrete pads to park your RV on are just the beginning. While not everyone likes buddy sites, I personally do. I think they give everyone more space and most of the time, you and your neighbors are not typically outside at the same time. Check out our gorgeous site below!

Some of the amenities include a swimming pool (great for swimming laps), a hot tub, a community room with games and movies to borrow, a small workout room, playground, and a dog walking area.

The bathhouse and the laundry room are both very nice as well. Unlike most RV parks, both are large and spacious here. The laundry facility is very large with more washers and dryers than most places. In the bathhouse, the shower stall are huge with a bench to sit your stuff on and numerous towel hooks. Once you’re out of the shower stalls, there are plenty of mirrors and places to get ready.

Overall, we really enjoyed our time at Dakota Ride RV Park. We were here for almost a month and we will definitely be back in the future. It is a short drive to Denver and only about an hour away from Summit County with our favorite places like Copper Mountain and the town of Frisco.

* I only have 2 complaints about this place. They’re minor in the scheme of things, but I would be remiss if I did not mention them.

1) They only have valet trash pickup. This means, any trash you don’t set out between the hours of 8am-10am, can’t even be put in a dumpster. They keep the dumpster locked. This is impractical in a campground. People cook food and don’t want cut up food leaving odors in their RV (think cutting up onions in a small space and leaving them out all night while you sleep). We typically take the trash to a dumpster after each meal. They keep the dumpster locked so you can’t even throw away your own garbage.

2) The hot tub is frequently closed. As one of the main perks of this RV park, I expect it to be open more than it was. Many days we were told there was a chemical imbalance and the hot tub was closed. It is not that difficult to keep the chemicals in a hot tub balanced if you know what you’re doing. It is obvious, they don’t know enough about hot tub chemicals to keep it properly balanced. One of our first nights in the hot tub, they checked the water 3 times while we were in it as they couldn’t quite get the reading they wanted. While we used the hot tub frequently, many times we went up there only to find it was closed.

*It is also worth noting how expensive this park is. Being one of the few decent campgrounds in/around the Denver area, they’re able to charge quite a bit for it. They take advantage of being one of the few good ones in the area, but I can’t fault them for that. That’s business. The park was full every night we were there so they can clearly charge that much and still get repeat customers. Some of the people we met at the park have been staying at Dakota Ridge for years and are still coming back even with the price increase. – Obviously, if you’re looking for a budget friendly RV park, this is not the one you’re looking for, but if you’re looking for close proximity to area attractions (like Red Rocks Amphitheater or Frozen on Broadway at Denver Center for the Performing Arts or a Colorado Rockies game– click any of those links to read about our experiences at those places – also we viewed the Solar Eclipse from here) then this is a great park. It is also worth noting, I have a friend that lives nearby which we took into account when choosing this park.

I also want to mention we read quite a bit of negative reviews on this park and we didn’t have many location options when we booked so we were quite nervous about staying for so long. I understand everyone has different opinions AND they have very strict policies, but as a person who actually likes rules, that made me like this place. I read a lot of people complaining online about some of their rules – including, extra costs for additional people, charging for dumping trash outside of the dumpsters, refund/deposit policy, not accepting mail on behalf of guests, etc. While I don’t love all of these rules, I would personally rather have rules I hate than not enough rules. I like order and don’t like when people break rules so I liked this park. Just a few days ago, I saw someone on the Full-Time RVers Facebook group complaining about this park and while I agreed with the RVer and not the RV park, the RV park clearly states all policies ahead of time AND requires guests sign a form stating they understand these policies. Like I said, I like rules so I was ok with this, but it seems many others are not as fond of the park as I am. You wouldn’t have so many people come back again year-after-year if the park wasn’t good tough. A lot of people complain that the spaces are tight, but that is really only the back-in sites around the perimeter. The pull-through sites (which do cost more) are much more spacious with concrete padding. I wouldn’t stay in a back-in site here, but we’ll definitely be back again to stay in a pull-through. Maybe we got lucky and didn’t have some of the issues other people have had at this park, but I also like to think we’re kind of chill and just liked this place. 🙂