By Chuck Woodbury
EDITOR
We’ve established this fact through the last few years: RV parks around the USA come in three versions: Good, bad and ugly.
You figure out the category for this one. The description below and photos came from a reader named John (last name withheld because it doesn’t really matter). He wrote:
We pulled into this campground in Chokoloskee, Florida, yesterday. I thought I would share a few photos. First, our electric box connection:
The cable system only has one channel and how that is possible I don’t know.
The sad thing is that this place charges $69 a night plus taxes. I would complain to the management but their office is closed on the weekends with no contact information.
We have been seeing a trend of increased prices and parks in poor maintenance. We are seasoned RVers and thought we had seen it all.
This is Saturday and according to their website they are booked for the weekend. It will be interesting to see how things work out with a full campground and these kind a facilities.
Good luck, John. Thanks for the photos. We invite other RVers to send their “ugly campground” description and pics. Post here.
This place is so bad, why didn’t you demand your money back and MOVE… The other thing I see with this article is, where is the campground name!?!?! To help readers from landing in this awful place!
The campground is called Chokoloskee Island Park and Marina. My wife and i stayed there last week end. We tried contacting their office when we pulled in but the office was closed the entire time we were there. I emailed them photos of the conditions and asked for someone to contact us. No reply. I contacted the county code enforcement but received no return call. We had to prepay for our stay before we left home and my request for a refund went un answered. This campground will be booked solid with snowbirds in a couple of weeks. They can get their asking price because of their location in on the water. I know we won’t be back.
Looking at Google and their reviews I see that 61 reviewers gave them a 4.7/5 average, not too shabby.
Stay cool
Just goes to show that you can not always count on the reviews. I have stayed at this park and in my opinion it is not worth 4.7 stars. It’s only good point is it’s location. If you can get into the Outdoor Resort on the island it is much nicer and worth 5 stars. It’s website states it’s lowest rate is $79/night. The island and the Everglades N.P. nearby are well worth visiting.
I believe it was stated the campground office was closed on weekends and no contact.
I’ve experienced this problem before. The one campground we reserved on the fly and had to pay in full before arriving for the weekend on are way south. we didn’t even pull into the assigned spot we just kept on going around the circle in the mud and right out the front gate. It was a dump and mostly permanent people with the most kept spots I’ve ever seen. This is why you should always pay with a credit card. There is no need to complain to any one cause missy behind the desk isn’t going to do anything about it any way and you won’t get your money back. You’ll just get your blood pressure up to arguing. Take a picture of why this place is a dump and just leave. Dispute the charge on the credit card used when you get home. Believe me the credit card company always sides with their customer if there is only remote chance you are telling the truth, a pic will surely help to.
Unfortunately a lot of campground owners know they have their customers by the wallet when it comes to commercial private owned campgrounds. If they can fit another rig in a spot they will and charge as much as the market will allow. Too many RV’s with not enough spots is campground economics 101.
Just did a Google Map Search on Chokoloskee, Florida!
It’s an Island off the Florida Coast in the Everglades!
Couple of what look to be RV Parks, but couldn’t find any names.
Doing a Good Sam Search you come up with 545 parks. So it would be nice for the person who posted this to Identify the RV Park!
I think Mike Sokol would love to see that photo of the Power hookup. YIKES!
The name of the park is Chokoloski Island Park and Marina.
Chokoloskee is a very small island that is only 148 acres or 0.23 square miles. impossible to have 545 parks. I believe there are only 3 RV parks and not cheap.
It’s great for kayaking the Everglades, but to camp on those islands or chickies you need a permit from Everglades National Park office that is located close by.
I would redo your research.
Go to Chokoloskee.com. It has to be this park and marina. You can tell by the picture on the home page.
but that park has a 4.7 Google review
Why didn’t you name the campground?
only 2 parks in that area & easy to determine which one this is…even though we have not stayed there I had looked at this area previously so could identify the park easily (& so can you if you are interested in Chokoloskee, Florida
I was the one that send in the photos and should have named the campground. It is Chokoloskee Island Park and Marina. John Doddato
I think it was poor journalism to not name this particular park. Giving the rest of us a “heads up” would be the right thing to do, so we can avoid making the same mistake John did by renting there.
I almost always do a drive through and interview before I rent any RV space.
I am the one that sent in the photos and complaint. I should have named the RV park when doing so. The park is Chokoloskee Island Park and Marina
Thank you!!
Having lived in Fl since 1969 this is all too often the case when a restaurant or RV park is near the water or has a water view. They will charge enormous amounts of money and sadly people will pay just to be near the water. We have been in many RV parks near water where our awning will “reach out and touch” our neighbor and restaurants that have a great view of water but lousy food at very high prices.
I hope that people post reviews when they come across a bad park. I check reviews (campgroundreviews, Google, facebook, tripadvisor, etc). If it has bad reviews or no recent reviews, I pass.
I am the one that sent in the photos of the campground. I did post reviews about the RV park to campground review sites. I sent a review of this campground to the one I always like the best, Campgroundreviews (formally rvparkreviews). They never published my review about our experience. My wife submitted another review and hers did not get published. It leads me to believe that these review sites no longer will publish a negative review about a campground. We chose this campground from their website review because the campground had great reviews. Nothing could have been farther from the truth.
Lawyers rule the world, you know — fear of lawsuits affect reviews on some sites, including CampgroundReviews. I used to submit reviews to them years ago (my husband still does) but always figured out a way to balance my negativity so the review wasn’t too harsh. Perhaps you did this — if so, and they still omitted your review, then you might try just giving it a low rating (like one star or something) without commenting. I agree we all need to know what’s what– but I can understand web site owners fearing the wrath of a business owner who feels he’s been slammed (never mind it’s true).
Name it here then!!
Your review IS published on CampgroundReviews. Either that or you lifted the photos from someone else’s review.
Two things are common almost everywhere:
1. Pull-thru sites with hookups at the back so that you must unhook the dinghy in order to back the motorhome to the rear and park the dinghy up front. Even though it’s a one-night stay, and you have no need to unhook.
2. Sewer ports raised so high that stuff needs to flow uphill. Not likely.
We even parked in a city park where the sewer port was not only elevated, it was to the far right side so that we had to extend the hose under the rig.
Buy a longer sewer hose. There is no reason you should have to unhook to reach to the back of the spot. I connected my rig with a 16 foot trailer behind it no problem.
The best thing that could happen with these is for Chuck to forward the link to the owner so they could see not only the complaints but how many readers are seeing it. Also, give the owner an opportunity to respond (although what possible excuse could they offer?). Maybe even forward to the county code enforcement office.
We feel your pain and will never try and add to it.
We had looked in to camping at that park a couple years back … we love to fish & if they had had decent rental boats available we would have been there…feeling rather sad right now because the location of this park looks outstanding …
Please start publishing the names of offending campgrounds or say why not.
I see and understand the problem, but giving the location without the name does not help us avoid making a reservation or registering @ this RV park before we find these conditions. One way as another commenter said would be to send pics and posts to the owner and let him respond. But to put some teeth in that complaint post the Name and location of the offending park, so fellow RV’ers can make the decision as to whether they want to do business with this park or not… I think that is fair. It would save RV’ers time and frustration and inconvenience and the owners of such parks would either have to clean up their act or sell to someone who might just do that…
Agree 100%!!! I just looked at reviews of “campground in Chokoloskee, Florida” & every one of them is 4⭐️ or better. So, there’s no way to tell which one should be avoided, based on this review.
I agree that it’s not only ugly, but also repulsive. But then, the poster said it would be full to capacity on the weekend, so aside from local code compliance, what motivation would the park owner have for improving their standards? After all, it’s been in the family since 1972, and they still fill it up. In the month since the post has been up, has anyone contacted the Perrine family? What was their response?
It’s common in commercial parks (even those with national affiliations) to have picnic tables and sewer connections close to each other. Whenever sites are close together, they don’t have many options.
More RV’ers will have to leave comments in the large/widely used sites to let others know NOT to stay…until they get hit in the pocketbook with an empty park, they won’t fix.
Hi Chuck,
Have you considered providing the name of these campgrounds? I would most definitely prefer to avoid them, rather than roll in and find these deplorable conditions. It might encourage the owners/management to clean it up a bit. Thanks!
Let’s get that information added to Campendium and other review sites! Better place for it, and we’ll all get to to see it!
I would have never hooked up to an electric box looking like that.
Absolutely useless article. If you can’t expose the name…just maybe it was staged
The two parks on Chokoloskee were hit hard by Irma. All of the RV’s there were flooded by the surge tide. I’ve driven past but never stopped in. Don’t think i will be in much of a hurry to stay there now. I have never seen the sewer connections so poorly laid out.
Looks like this one fits two of the categories mentioned – bad and ugly!
Not a lot different than Camp Nelson RV park near Nicholasville Ky. Ok staff but in serious need of repairs…mostly permanent residents with bad habits…Stinks!