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holstein13's avatar
holstein13
Explorer
Dec 02, 2015

Useless Park Reviews

I'm planning to spend the summer in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) and I've been reading a lot of camp reviews lately. Most are so horrible, they make my head spin. Here's a hypothetical example of Camp Anywhere, a fictional campground with an average rating of 3 stars.

Camp Anywhere, USA - 1 star:
This it the worst park I've ever stayed in. The gal at the front desk is incredibly rude and hates dog owners. My dog Spike is the sweetest pit bull in the entire nation and doesn't weigh anymore than 89.5 pounds. The rude lady at the front insisted that I get my dog weighed at the pet smart across the street when Spike growled at her. He was only growling because he sensed how rude she was. I know they have a 90 pound dog limit, but that's ridiculous. Total discrimination.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the pool Nazi made life hell for us and our twin 4 year old boys. She kept telling them to stop running and jumping in the pool. How ridiculous. My boys are only 4 years old. They can barely run and how much harm could they possibly do even if they ran at full speed? They never jumped into the pool. They may have entered quickly, but I wouldn't call that jumping. Management has a terrible attitude and the bathrooms are filthy.

The park itself is full of self-righteous people who hate kids. Someone complained to management about my boys being too loud and playing by themselves outside. For crying out loud, what am I supposed to do with two young boys with ADHD? Do they expect me to keep them inside a small trailer all day?

The park WIFI was horrible. My wife and I couldn't stream two movies on Netflix without interrupting our file sharing service on the server we run. When I complained, they told me there was nothing they could do about it.

The sites are super tight and there are trees everywhere. You would think that management has figured out that people need lots of room for their RVs and would tear down these trees or at least prune back all the branches. I couldn't get my satellite TV to work and had to use their crappy cable TV.

The laundry room was worse than useless. They charge $1.50 for laundry and $1.00 for drying. That's highway robbery and I've reported them to the state board of consumer affairs. These people should be ashamed of themselves. In addition to the theft of our money, the laundry machines were always full. We had to wait for our laundry because we were afraid someone would steal our clothes. But the one time we left to go grocery shopping, someone took our laundry out of the machine and left it in a basket. How rude.

At the end of our planned two month stay, they asked us to leave. They told us the park was full and we should have reserved more time. I told them that I need to stay another week because we had no other place booked. They could not have cared any less about our situation. They had no problems putting out my family with my two boys with no place to go.

Anyway, I was glad to leave that disgusting place. I could hardly sleep at night with the super loud freight train passing within inches of my window and the jet liners flying directly overhead. On the plus side, this place is convenient to downtown and has easy highway access.

Camp Anywhere, USA - 5 stars:
My wife and I love this park. It is beautiful and filled with shade trees. The people here are friendly and respectful. They have strict rules, but I like it that way. I didn't use the bathrooms or laundry because I have those in my coach, but when I walked by, they seemed fine. The internet was a little slow but it was fine for my use. When we wanted to stream a movie, we used my MIFI card from Verizon. It worked great.

The heated pool was nice and relaxing. The best part about this park is the fantastic access to downtown and the friendly advice of the managers. We loved staying here and enjoyed all the local attractions. We would definitely stay here again.
  • Ha... I love it!

    Reminds me of a review I read about a great food spot once. Its the Breakfast Club in Tybee Island. For those that have been there, you know the drill. There is an entrance door and an exit door... CLEARLY MARKED. There is always a line down the street at the entrance door. They are a small place with GREAT food and they prefer to run their establishment with a fast turnover. They clearly post their rules (entrance and exit doors, all members of the party must be present to be seated, they take people out of order as space permits... ie you have 2 people in your party but they have a table for 6, they will take a party of 6 first).

    Anyway, some ding dong wrote a HORRIBLE review because she and her husband walked in the CLEARLY MARKED exit only door and sat down at an empty table. The hostess was escorting a group to the same table and told the woman that they couldn't sit there, they had to go wait in line like everyone else.

    This woman never ate the food and gave a 1 star review... really? How can you review a restaurant without eating the food? You snuck in the back door to avoid the long line and give a bad review because you got called out...???

    I tend to peer through reviews and find things that are relevant to me. How close to an attraction, cleanliness of certain facilities, site size, etc. I could really not care less how pleasant or rude a staff member is. I interact with the front desk when I check in and check out. In between, I don't see or talk to them. I have a toilet and shower in my camper. If the facilities aren't especially clean or comfortable at the campground, I use mine.

    Everyone has a different idea for what a campground should be. I know what I am looking for in a particular campground and use reviews and Google Earth to figure out if a campground will suffice for me.

    We stayed in Savannah a couple years ago at a place that had HORRIBLE reviews. We used it as a "base camp" to go into town. All I needed was electric/water/sewer and close proximity to Savannah. We stayed at the "bad" park and loved it. We will be back!
  • spoon059 wrote:
    We stayed in Savannah a couple years ago at a place that had HORRIBLE reviews. We used it as a "base camp" to go into town. All I needed was electric/water/sewer and close proximity to Savannah. We stayed at the "bad" park and loved it. We will be back!
    I'm exactly the same way. Just give me W/S/E and a close proximity to town / attractions and I'm a happy guy.

    I don't use the bathrooms, laundry or cable TV. I've got my own WIFI. I can usually level my site with planks of wood. I'm a little socially inept and can't even tell when staff is being rude to me (my wife usually tells me later). Everyone seems nice to me. My rig is well insulated and quite. If there's a lot of noise, I'll wear ear plugs. I like to have enough room to put out the awnings and park the car, but I don't need much more than that. A quick glance at Google Maps Satellite view and I can pretty much tell if I'll like a park or not.

    I find the reviews to be mostly a waste of time but I still look at them occasionally to see if the sites are accessible for a big rig or there is some other important issue I need to consider but for the most part, they aren't very useful.
  • I read the reviews to see what hookups they have available. My requirements are a pull thru site with water, 30A electric and sewer. WIFI and cable are pluses. Next, is it near what I came to see?
    If they have a pool and/or a playground and an area to walk dogs, thats OK but I won't be using them and tell them so when I'm checking in so they can save a spot for folks that want those things. Frankly, if I got in a swimming pool, I'd be afraid that Captain Ahab would mistake me for the Great White Whale and try to harpoon me.
    One park I stayed in had a picnic table at each site, free coffee at the office and free copies of the daily paper - delivered. I really enjoyed that.
  • It is not just the review. It is the reviewer. An opinion from somebody who has taken the time to post many reviews, usually thoughtful, gets much more weight than somebody who has only posted a few which are more than likely venting for something each time.

    The more the better, especially for the smaller out of the way places. Everyone knows about Disney & the FHU CG at Yellowstone. Not much to be found about Gander, NL.
  • Why sweat these posts? Everyone has a different viewpoint. Go and find out for yourself.
  • I really love the poor reviews...... Well I give it a ONE star its a nice park but it rained all week, the whole time we were here, and there were water puddles everywhere..............
  • Oaklevel wrote:
    I really love the poor reviews...... Well I give it a ONE star its a nice park but it rained all week, the whole time we were here, and there were water puddles everywhere..............

    Ha ha ha ha... I have seen that review! I give it a 1 star because it was too cold to go in the pool/lake/river/ocean.
  • I have seen people give their favorite places poor reviews in an effort to scare others away so that it wont be so full.
    Does anyone divulge their favorite return boondock place, camp site # to the world? No.
  • I ignore 90% of the garbage in the reviews and try to pull out small kernels of information useful to me such as:

    1) need for additional hoses/cords because utilities are far from TT
    2) steep slopes/flooding problems on specific sites
    3) CG policies that might negatively affect my stay
    4) nearby features such as highway or railroad noise
    5) composition of transient vs seasonal sites
    6) what is available in the CG store vs. surrounding area
    7) issues with access roads to CG (narrow/steep or construction detour, etc)
    8) shade vs open sun sites
  • One of my favorite parks, but from someone's actual review "The rangers were grumpy and rude. The landscaping was unsightly and in direct sun. People looked unhappy and mad. Kids were crying"

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Recommendations, reviews, and the inside scoop from fellow travelers.14,716 PostsLatest Activity: Oct 15, 2013