The Riding Fool - Cumberland's Accommodation

Didn’t realize this was a hostel when we booked it for our family of 5 with 3 young kids aged 3, 7 and 9. Thought it was a hotel and were kind of surprised not to have a bathroom or an air conditioner or any other amenities in our room when we showed up. As a hotel I would not give it 5 stars, but as a hostel I think it deserves a good review. I’ve never stayed in a hostel before, but haven’t heard great things about them. This one had 3 bathroom shared between 8 private rooms, the bathrooms and the room were very clean and tidy. It appears that all the rooms are private with no dorms or shared accommodations. There was a large shared kitchen and living room/games room. Overall the place was very quiet and had an old school vibe to it. Price was a little bit high for what it was (almost $300 after tax). I probably wouldn’t stay again because of no private bathroom etc, but the kids loved the bunk beds. Next time I’ll pay more attention to the extra letter ‘S’ in the word “hotel” when booking :)

Centrally located with the brewery and coffee shop just down the road. The Bunk bed room we stayed in had plenty of space for a hostel. The beds were comfy and the bedding of reasonable quality. The kitchen is well equipped too and the lounge area is spacious. The showers had good water pressure with a reasonable quantity of water too! Overall, a very nice place to stay if you're in town to mountain bike and not going to be spending much time in your dorm.

Whenever I am lucky enough to be in Cumberland, the riding fool is my first choice for affordable excellence. The rooms are great, the check in process is easy and the staff are wonderful humans. The common area has a pool table and wood fireplace and an incredible ambience. I love this place and will be back again and again!

What a great little hostile/hotel. Right near the mountain bike park in Cumberland. Rooms are very clean, bathrooms are super clean, kitchen and common area are amazing. I had a great conversation with a woman that worked there. She was really friendly and informative, and helped me pick a route to ride. We’ve stayed here a few times and would do so again in a heartbeat.

Just love this place. I wish I could have stayed longer and taken advantage of the coziness and the great kitchen and hangout space. Friendly hosts and a very cool, down-to-earth vibe. Bring some earplugs if you’re a light sleeper. Everything you need to make coffee and meals is there, including a fridge with individual boxes. So bring food if you’re staying for a while.

What a great little place. Older building full of charm. Check in was seamless didn’t have to even see one staff member to do so. Had a 6 bed private room for my family so everyone had their own bed and space. Comfortable clean linens Didn’t have any trouble at all with shared bathrooms, great location . Overall fabulous. BUT!! One thing to note though, because all the rooms surround the central stairwell , come 6am it’s like every other person in the entire place was hitting the mountains. The noise was unreal. Like seriously loud!! No exaggeration it’s loud!!! Shoes, boots, shouting people, slamming doors every min. Walls are paper thin, you can hear clearly ,word for word of the conversations next door and outside the door. If you come here to sleep in past 7am or have little ones that are light sleepers it WILL be an issue and you will be starting your day at 6am.

Great setup right on the main strip. Big common room with a pool table, old school arcade game, darts, and lots of seating. Easy to use large kitchen. Storage for bikes and ski gear is great, even drying racks for boots and mitts. Trails at your doorstep.

The staff was amazing. So friendly and they work hard to keep this place clean. The kitchen was great with everything you need. They have a beautiful little patio area. The trails are right there so you don't need to drive anywhere once you get there. I would come back for sure and it's perfect if you have a small group or family traveling together. Thanks to the staff for an amazing vacation :)

For a hostel, this gets a full score. It was clean, spacious and had a few facilities. It was easy to check in and I was happy with the private room - clean with a comfortable bed. I enjoyed the communal space; there were couches, billiard tables, darts, a guitar, books and the option to just relax & look out onto the Main Street. I recommend this place if you're in the area and want affordable comfortable lodging close to everything in town.

Excellent hostel, great service. Absolutely spotless and the nicest bathrooms I've ever seen in a Hostel. Each bed has a little light and very big lockers. The whole hostel is beautifully designed and decorated. My only complaint is there are no standing fans or small bedside table fans in the rooms so when the temperature is 32 degrees Celsius the ceiling fan does nothing. I was tempted to sleep outside. I have stayed at many other hostels which have fans not sure why this one doesn't.

Love this place. We have stayed here a few times over the years. It always super clean and very well appointed, comfy beds, large communal space, great kitchen area with lots of kitchen utensils, even a few double boiler coffer makers, super friendly staff. 4 large clean bathrooms. And it's a good deal to boot. Now the down side. BRING EAR PLUGS. Stay away from room 6 it's a quad room. It's right beside the men's dorm and the men's dorm is always filled with super loud mt Washington workers who live there for the season. They treat the place like it's their mums living room. They are up at 630am getting ready for work banging a crashing till 730 when they leave for work then they party till midnight and start all over at 630am. So unless you are heading for 1st chair at the mountain stay away. And also where the bathrooms are located they make for a noisy night, the bathroom locks are the noisiest thing I've ever heard. All night long. Please management change out the bathroom locks. No doors would be a better option than the current set you have. The owners need to spend a night in the private room on a busy weekend to experience this first hand. But Cumberland is a rad little town and this hostel is also a rad little place. A few little tweaks it could be perfect.

I don't know what this place was like before covid, but we visited for a few days and felt like fools. The first thing we noticed was a lack of covid concern. The debit machine was covered in fingerprints. Isn't it supposed to get wiped off between every use? We almost got charged $50 for 2 extra people we didn't have in our party but we (not the staff) noticed the total was way off. The main stairs say not to go up and down at the same time as other people, but everyone ignored the sign. No more than 3 people in the kitchen at a time but no one paid attention to that either. It's a shared kitchen tho so people were about 6 feet apart. Till at night when everyone hung out in there. Disinfectant sprays are everywhere to wipe things down, but we saw maybe two other people besides us use it? The kitchen had "freebies" to help yourself to. I got a really nice cider out of it, so that was cool. This has to be the only place you can still use a pool table too! No one cleaned it or the sticks and we watched a whole bunch of different people play. They said they clean everything that gets touched constantly, but I noticed dirt for days. There was hair, dust and a wrapper under the bed in our room. The bathrooms were okay but 2 of them ran out of soap. Does a hostel have a liquor license? They told us all the bars and restaurants close early so we should buy liquor and drink it there. That was cool till people stayed up every night. One night over a dozen people were up after 1am! People smoked on the bbq porch where it says you can't smoke and we could smell it inside. This is a cool old building and it's close to everything. Great if you like to mountain bike or party. We weren't going to write a review. We're not in the area a lot and we'll stay somewhere else. But we overheard the owner and staff making fun of guests 'who don't even ride bro' and realized they're d*cks so we did!