Resorts World Catskills: Everything you need to know

If you’re looking for a fun experience in the Catskill Mountains, check out Resorts World Catskills, a casino with great restaurants and an all-suite hotel with a great view.

For more help planning your vacation, check out all of our travel posts.

I like casinos. My family loves gambling, and I inherited that trait. When Pete and I lived in New York, he lived in Yonkers, where Empire City Casino is. The casino was, literally, less than five minutes from his apartment. Once a month, the casino would give us free play, and once a month we would head to the casino to play.

Since we moved to North Carolina, a new casino went up not too far from where I lived in New York: Resorts World Catskills in Monticello, New York. It opened in February 2018 with over 100,000 feet of gaming including over 1,600 slot machines, and 150 live tables. Yup. I’m sad to be missing out on this.

My friend Michelle goes often, since it’s only an hour away from home, so she collected everything you need to know about Resorts World Catskills for us.

When you enter the Resorts World Catskills hotel, the first thing you notice is everything is clean and it doesn’t smell like cigarettes like so many older casinos do. Weeknight evenings are pretty busy, but not crowded. Check in goes fairly quickly.

For safety purposes, when you get into the elevator you have to scan your room card then press the number of the floor you are heading to.

It’s an all-suite hotel with rooms ranging from 600- to 2,000-square feet. When Michelle stayed, she booked a luxury king suite, so if you book a different room type, your experience might be a little different.

The hotel room is beautiful. And, relatively affordable. You can actually book through Groupon to get a great deal on the room rate.

The bathroom is incredible. There’s a waterfall shower head, a separate toilet, and a makeup area with a sit-down vanity with amazing lighting. Plus, there are plenty of towels. And the towels aren’t flimsy at all. (Quick note: Last time Michelle was there, she needed more towels. She asked the housekeepers for a few extras, as you usually do at a hotel, and was told she had to call down to the front desk staff to ask for anything. So keep that in mind).

The sinks are amazing, and the shampoos and soaps smell so good (Side note: They’re from luxury brand Molton Brown).

Now, the rest of the room.

There are floor-to-ceiling windows spanning the whole front of the room, so if you open all the curtains, you get an incredible view of the Catskill Mountains. It’s a beautiful area, so it’s nice that the hotel designers took the mountain setting into account when designing the rooms

The TV is a giant flat screen that is kind of awkwardly placed to the left of the bed, but the beauty of the Catskill Mountains is better then anything you’ll see on flat-screen TVs anyway. The TV offers movies, so many channels — and music. You could also order room service directly from the television.

The bed feels brand new, comfortable, and had large pillows that relax you instantly.

There’s a desk and couch in the room too, so if you needed to relax in the room or get some work done while you were there, you have the space to do it. And, if you do have to work, the free Wi-Fi is awesome. You don’t have to reconnect at all after the first time (which yes, reconnecting is very first world problems, but if you’re someone like me with limited data, this is very helpful).

Each room has a little doorbell outside, which was nice, but the housekeeping staff still knocked.

The coffee machine was hidden in a drawer, so be sure to look for it if you want a fresh cup of coffee in the morning.

Some of the hotel rooms have private pools, but if you choose not to book one of those, there are two pools in the hotel that all overnight guests can use. There’s an indoor pool and and outdoor pool deck. Just be prepared with something warm to wear if you’re watching your family swim. The hotel does turn on the air conditioning in the pool area, so it gets cold.

There’s a 21+ pool area, away from the all ages pool area, in case you’re not traveling with kids and want an adult only experience.

Have you been to Resorts World Catskills? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.