Best Glamping near Orchard, CO

Stayed one night to wait out weather in the mountains west. Staff are friendly. Golf cart escorts to your site. Sites are flat but a bit cramped. The laundry, bathroom and showers were clean with nice hot water. The have pizza delivery to your site-- which on a day that was 36 degrees with icy rain, was a welcome treat! The town has a basic commercial street with a gas station, liquor store, and coffee shop. There's a bar and grill across from the campground also. I wouldn't call it a destination, but more than served its purpose for the night.

My family and I stayed here for one night in a 34' travel trailer as a reward from crossing Kansas. :) We knew what we were getting into - a tight family campground, so we weren't disappointed in that regard. It's actually a little hard to write this review because there's such a mix of pros and cons. I think listing them out will be the best strategy.

Cons: 

- VERY close to the interstate. Take a look at a satellite map view so you will come prepared. The road noise is ever present, and if you can tune it out you will be a much happier camper. We were able to sleep ok with it, but it was a constant in our experience.

- Proximity to your neighbor. This is the way it is with KOAs, but it did feel strange hooking up utilities within arm's reach of your neighbors having dinner.

- Wifi. They advertise it, but it was so slow that not once was I able to successfully load a single webpage. Verizon is also not strong here.

- Cable. They had hook-ups but quality was too poor to watch.

- The hot tub was closed with no indication when it will open. 

Pros:

-The playground was pretty awesome, large and with multiple things to climb on for kiddies.

- They had a pool and kiddie pool. Both are small, though.

- The game room is really nice! (see pics)

- Pizza and ice cream on site.

- Affordable laundry. $2.50 for wash and 50 cents for 8 minutes for the dryer.

- Clean and tastefully decorated bathrooms and showers.

Other:

- Pancake and sausage breakfast on the weekends for $6.50.

- A BBQ restaurant run by the campground.

- 40 minutes to Denver. 

- Dog park.

Overall, not a bad experience, just not spectacular.

We stayed in Pelican camp grounds (#86). Easy pull-through, clean spot, large metal picnic table with large fire pit and grate. Each camp spot in Pelican has an entrance to lake although a rocky step before water. There is a small beach at the end to put your kayaks, rafts, boards in. You have to walk through that camping spot but that’s the pros/cons of that last space. You are allowed to enter water anywhere.

Dogs are allowed anywhere as long as on leash, including beaches.

Never went to the main beach. The marina was stocked with a variety of things but not a lot of quantity. Plenty of wood and ice. Friendly staff. Fires allowed!

Biggest complaint- SOOOO MANY GNATS!!!! I mean more than we have ever seen anywhere. The gnats issue almost made this a 3-star review.

Solid campsite option. Nothing to extraordinary but don’t have anything bad to say. We had a pull through site with electric hook ups, a fire pit that had a grill grate on it, and a picnic table. The campsites are spaced out pretty well but there aren’t really any trees to give you privacy. There are stairs down to the beach in the water area which was a nice place to take a walk. When we went, there was construction and took us down a fairly bumpy dirt road detour. They do have water available throughout the campsite so we were able to pull up and load up our RV tank. Super peaceful at night.

Probably best for an overnight stay en route to a destination. Right off of I70, so there is constant highway noise. Train heard faintly in the distance, but not bad. Under the flight paths for Denver airport, so the occasional overhead plan noise. Sites are cramped but clean. Stayed in site 81, which was a bit uneven sloping down to the front of the pull through site. Connections are a little far for some RV models, so make sure you have extensions for cords and hoses just in case. The campground advertises a lot of conveniences like pizza orders delivered to your site. Did not use any of those services during the 2 night stay. Local saloon across the frontage road from the park entrance if you are up for soaking in some of the local color. About 30 miles from Aurora and the outskirts of Denver.

AT&T signal is OK. Verizon is better.

Appears to be kid and pet friendly or just a nice place to stay overall but I will tell you first hand it was not. I’ve never in my life spent so much money to be treated with so little respect in my life. My family and our dogs stayed for a week (mind you we are quiet and keep to ourselves, our kids are respectful and we always clean up after our pets) during this time we had a woman that worked here at our camper at least 50 times a day “checking in on us” first thing was she didn’t like our solar lights we put out so we could see to put our shoes on when we had to make midnight doggie deposit runs (and not have to turn on our big light and disturb our neighbors)… next big thing was it rained for 3 days straight while we were here… which didn’t phase my kids who strapped on their rain gear and went to play on their play equipment… when the rain stopped and the sun came out- the same woman came knocking to let us know my kids had gotten their play equipment muddy and she expected them to go clean it off- which was no problem I sent them with the broom and some spray bottles. Little did I know, she was going to have someone power wash it 25 min after they had spent all day scrubbing and cleaning it… but my final straw was our last night here… we had left for a few hours to go do some things and we came back and my 2 year old daughters wagon (very clearly not a utility wagon- it’s pink!) was completely full of all the pet waste from the day I’m guessing, with a note taped to it saying “dump pet waste here” needless to say I’m fuming at this point.

As far as the facilities… We paid for 50 amp power and full hook ups for the duration of our visit- they instead put us in a 30 amp campsite (which is not a big deal we had adapters) but for the price difference I’m a little pissed looking at how we were treated. The shower houses are nice.. And the price gouging in the store is outrageous… almost 600% markup for even just a cold drink. I will try to add a positive note, as I try to do for even places such as these- they did have a very nice wash room for laundry. But having only one dryer that kinda worked (2 hours to dry a small load of laundry) kinda ended up being another strike against them as well. I’m not one to be nit picky, nor am I petty.. but how I was treated was completely outrageous. -20/10 makes me reconsider ever staying at a KOA again if this is how they are allowed to treat their campers!

Also beware of the goat heads! They’re everywhere. I got one in my foot, my son got one in his bike tire, and we had a flat on the camper due to one. When I say they are thick, they are THICK.