Price of campgrounds

[adelmoll]

Am I the only one that feels this way or are there others? We have been staying in the beautiful State Parks in Oregon and love them but because of needing to do laundry we chose a KOA for a couple of days. Here is what they advertise:
Pancake Breakfast.
Indoor pool/spa
50 amp service
Level sites
Clean Laundry rooms
Snack Bar

This is what we found:
Pancake breakfast starts Memoral day weekend
No water in pool and spa / Should be filled by this weekend
30 amp service
Had to use 2 levelers to get even
Snack Bar opens Memorial Day weekend
Laundry rooms cost more than my first child.

Price for all of these services $45.00 per day
Price we paid for none of the services $45.00 per day

I can understand why they don't have all of the service bfore the "Season" but it burns me that we pay the same. (Not that we would use most of the extras anyway but the indoor SPA sounded real good to us. Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.

Helen

[toolmanroy]

We are spoiled with the beauty and reasonable price of our state parks in Oregon. I think I would go to the laundromat and stay in the state park. We NEVER stay in KOA.

[Kimmrg]

Excellent points! Do the state parks in Oregon have full hookups?

[toolmanroy]

Some do, but most have at least electric and water. You can check each individual park: http://www.oregon.gov/OPRD/PARKS/camping.shtml

Some of the older parks have poor electric service, but you rarely need AC in some of them, so it is OK. They are slowly trying to bring them all up to date. The sites are usually quite spacious.

[Kimmrg]

Thanks for the tips!

[Lstierw]

For sure KOA means Keep On Adding. We have in the past stayed at KOA's but we do try to avoid them. One we stayed at charged us 340.00 for 2 weeks. That might have been ok, but the train tracks were way to close......Les

[jrgwdenner]

We avoid KOA campgrounds unless there are no other choices. We have found them to be run down and overpriced, especially overpriced.

[adelmoll]

We really got spoiled with the Oregon State Parks. They were wonderful. Oregon is the greatest state to travel with an rv that we have ever been in, and I intend to write a nice letter telling them just that.

Helen

[CountryGuy]

Years ago we used to do a lot of KOA's, but in the past, ohhhh, 5 years, give or take, we have been avoiding, whereever possible. However, have to say that this last winter, we stayed in 2 in Texas that were reasonable, did NOT Keep On Adding, one fee did er all for the 2 of us, and both were under $30.00 a night. One was $27.00 a night, 50 amps, full hookup, cable and wifi, all inclusive. To top that off, both were very neat, not run down, the owners were super and we were fully surprised! Maybe they (KOA organization) have heard the gripes and are listening?? Well, at least a couple of them in Texas did.

[Montana Sky]

Sounds like I need to cross KOA off the campgrounds list...

[sreigle]

Helen, we tend to avoid KOA's like the plague. We found most of them overpriced for what you get, crowded in the sense of packing you in tight, noisy because so many of those renting rv's and those out to party associate "campground" with "KOA" and that's where they go.

There have been a few (very few) exceptions.

We planned a month's stay in a KOA in Cannonville, UT. We chose the KOA because it is the ONLY park with wifi AND a reasonably monthly rate within easy distance of Bryce Canyon NP. They do in fact have wifi. However, it is new and not working well at all. It is owner installed. He knows a little about it but really needs a good tech. Apparently there are none around. The signal dropped anywhere from every few seconds to every few minutes. Emails sometimes took hours to complete the send process. And some of those were 8k emails. We gave it up after 20 days, got a partial refund and moved to where we are now. This is not a KOA.

Now that I have expressed my thoughts about KOA, our next park (this coming weekend) is a KOA - Circus Circus KOA in Las Vegas.

I like state parks a lot but I liked them more when we were weekenders and vacationers. At that time our purpose for camping was to "get away from it all." As fulltimers, we live in this thing and we want and need the same amenities we'd have in a stick home. That means cable tv and wifi as well as full hookups. We will do without for a few days but not for long. Not like we did before fulltiming. But state parks are often beautiful and very hard to beat in that respect. We still use them occasionally.

[adelmoll]

I'm with you completely on this one Steve. Fulltiming is different than going camping. The surprising thing about Oregon was that we had full hookups in most of their state parks and our Verizon card worked very well even in the trees. We did have a hard time with the TV though. Lots of trees. We like our tv in the evenings.

[jrgwdenner]

Oregon State Parks also let you volunteer for short terms, like a month. Wouldn't that be a great way to spend the summer?

[campbud]

Our KOA's here in Illinois are very expensive. They are very tight small spaces. We have never stayed in one b/c of the price and site space. We can go to the state park at a much cheaper price and bigger space.

[richfaa]

We will agree that KOA GC's can be high priced particularly around popular vacations areas (but most all GC's are). When we travel to a area we are not familiar with we usually choose a KOA CG because we know what to expect.We can only recall one or two that did not meet our standards. We have been very satisfied with KOA thus far. Here in Ohio most State CG's, if not all, do not have full hooks..if a CG does not have full hooks we are not there. Of course we have not been all over the country...yet...

[Dave e Victoria]

I have to confess we also use KOA about 10 times every year. It is when we are on the road and, as Rich says, we sort of know what to expect. Then there are places where it is the only real option like Amarillo TX where most of the others are just pea gravel parking lots.

We always start with the GOOD SAM directory and cross check to Passport America. Also, we find most of the camping club sites are sort of off the main drag. If we have time, these are first choice because We already susidze their rates.

[Glenn and Lorraine]

Gotta go along with Steve when he says "we tend to avoid KOA's like the plague. We found most of them overpriced for what you get, crowded in the sense of packing you in tight, noisy because so many of those renting rv's and those out to party associate "campground" with "KOA" and that's where they go.
There have been a few (very few) exceptions."

We have found few KOA's that we would return to or recommend. In the past week we traveled from Florida through Georgia, South and North Carolina, Virginia, across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel into Eastern Shore VA, Maryland, Delaware and finally into Penna. The KOA's in Florence, GA, Fayetteville, NC, and Virginia Beach were all overpriced for what was available just a few miles further up the road.

And like Steve we also want our amenities. With the Aircard WiFi isn't all that necessary but the rest absolutely are. We have occasionally used SPs. In Delaware we found Lums Pond State Park near Chesapeake City with some full hookups but no Cable TV. We still got about 10 channels on the antenna.

[Wifeofdano]

Glenn & Lorraine, (or anyone really) Have you ever stayed at the KOA in Harrisonburg VA ? We'll be there next Tues for a couple of days. We're going to play around in the caverns on our way to PA for the weekend.

[CountryGuy]

Lisa, stayed there, if you are talking the one NORTH of Harrisonburg, off I 81, but it was YEARS ago, with a TT with no slides, not with a nice big Tana! We were there early in the season, and as I remember it, it was nice. Here is my disclaimer: Have not been back in years, cause I am lucky enough to have a cousin who will let park whatever size rig in her drive in Broadway.

We kinda favor Endless Caverns due to the family lore that my grandfather was on the work team that ran the first electrical system in them. OK, now, I am homesick!

Have a great time!!!

Carol

P.S. If you are into Civil War studies at all, there is a great battlefield at New Market, very interesting, can spend a good hunk of one day there!

[Wifeofdano]

Carol,
Yes, that's the one! We reserved a big pull thru, we'll see what happens when we get there. Although can't think of anything that would spoil our good time. And the Endless Caverns is where we're going to also! We'll be thinking of you!