Campground / RV Park Review--2017 Thanksgiving Trip

The boys had the entire week off of school for Thanksgiving week. Jeff's off time during this rotation started Thanksgiving Day and he had some time off to use up. Old neighbors wanted to catch up with us. Put this all together and what do you get???  A MASSIVE trip!!!

We never know what we're going to get when we book a campground / RV park online. Jeff does his best to Google Map the place -- roads, extra wide / extra long spots, etc.--but you never truly know until you're face to face with your site.

The California State Park system updated their booking system in August 2017 and to say it's been a nightmare for us has been an understatement!  Our trailer is 43 feet long. We now realize that 3 extra feet is a big deal when booking state parks, as most of them only book you to 40 feet. So we lie. To be honest, it usually isn't a problem once we get to an RV park---state parks are another story!

I wanted to review our locations during our trip for others to reference while traveling and for us to remember!

Doheny State Beach 

1. Ease of getting to park location--good.
2. Accuracy of booking information---horrible!  We booked a 40 foot site and the original site they gave us was approximately 20 feet in length in a tent / truck camper section. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they didn't pay attention when we drove in to see if the location and our rig were a match!
3. Flexibility--pretty good.  After driving by our first site and realizing the obvious, we drove back up to registration and with a little bit of luck were given 2 more options to choose from (which was odd since the sign said "Campground Full").  After trying to back in to this spot an amazingly nice State Park Policeman came up to us and asked us if we'd like to try a location with more space.  Ummm....yes please!
4. Overall Review---has some possibilities (due to amenities such as tide pools near this location), but we didn't get to check anything out. If you have a large rig like us, then it's a NO for sure unless you can get one of about 6 spots that are easy enough to get into. 

San Clemente State Beach (Calafia) 

1. Ease of getting to park location--good.
2. Accuracy of booking information--great, but only since we had the nice State Park Policeman specially call into this park to his good friend Samantha and arrange a nice spot for us. This one goes to him---NOT the online booking system!  The site was a pull through, which is exactly what we need with being so long!
3. Ease of getting to site---HORRIBLE!  This park was nice. It had LOOONNNGGG sites which would have been a dream come true for us.  However, it also had very narrow roads (think one lane) with HIGH (think 8-10 inches) curbs with a drop-off on either side.  What this meant for us is that it was extremely difficult for Jeff to drive around the curves at the ends of the rows due to both the narrow lanes AND the steep curbs that could have broken an axle or popped a tire on our trailer!  Seeing as how we live in our trailer, we didn't want to chance it so we headed back out to registration to ask if there was a Wal-Mart nearby we could park in for the night!
4. Flexibility--good. After explaining that we were not willing to damage our home by driving to our site location, they refunded our money and allowed us to park in the Day Use Only lot. It ended up being perfect!  We had a lot of stares the next morning since we'd put our deck down to enjoy a cup of coffee while looking at the beach, but we loved it!  
5. Overall Review--great!  Even though the high curbs and narrow lanes are ridiculous to have in a campground where more and more people are buying large rigs, we enjoyed our one night there. There was a paved path to the beach and in general a lot of space for events, etc. 

Just a reminder.....all of the above was for just ONE night!  Thank goodness this was the most difficult of them all!  

Malibu Beach RV Park  (2 night stay)

1. Ease of getting to location--good, yet tricky. Tricky because about 15 minutes from the park we saw signs that said vehicles with a certain # of axles could not drive on the road. However...we realized that if the RV park was on this road, maybe it wasn't meant for us and after stopping to double check with a random guy who really had no clue, but told us to go on ahead---we went on ahead!  
2. Booking accuracy - A+. Then again...Jeff booked this one so we were good to go!
3. Ease of getting into site--good. These sites were NARROW!  Narrow, as in, once our slides were out, we were inches away from the next trailer / motorcoach!  But this was also a very friendly park, so the neighbors helped by moving a picnic table, guiding us, etc.
4. Overall Review--great!  We were able to put our deck down and overlook the ocean even though we were on the 2nd row of sites. (This is when it helps that we're XL...we can see over most others if they're tiny enough!)  Although the beach is directly across the street from the park, you had to walk down to a red light to do it---and it wasn't close. So...we opted to pile in the truck, drive the way they wanted us to, make a u-turn and park in front of our RV park!  The beach was great for the boys---no matter how cold they always find their way in the water! Laundry was around $2.50 to wash, which was expensive, so we shoved as much in as we could!

The Lakes RV & Golf Resort (2 night stay) 

Our ending location was San Francisco, but it was a long drive from Malibu so we split it up. Since it is difficult to drive on PCH 1 for some parts with a rig that needs as much room as we do--and because we were unable to find any state park or RV park with open sites, we decided to head towards Yosemite. This location was still almost 2 hours from Yosemite, which made for a long drive to go see that park, but it was a great location overall!

1. Ease of getting to location--great!
2. Booking accuracy--A+--again this one goes out to Jeff!
3. Overall Review--beautiful, well-maintained park where people buy the spots and rent them out to people like us who are traveling. This is the 2nd type of park like this we've been to and they are usually pretty nice. We didn't have a chance to try the pool, but laundry was cheap, so this a great spot to do a load if needed!  I think Jeff said it was $1.50.

San Francisco North/Petaluma KOA (4 night stay) 

Once again, due to our size, we have found that it's easier to stay outside larger cities because we can get more space.

1. Ease of getting to location--good.
2. Booking accuracy--great!  Again....goes out to Jeff!  We got lucky with a pull through site b/c Jeff called every day for the 2 weeks leading up to our trip. This campground was previously booked solid due to evacuees from the Santa Rosa fires earlier this year. Originally we had to book a "no power, no sewer" site. To say we got a major upgrade is an understatement!
3. Ease of getting into site--great!  It was a pull through.
4. Extras--if you've ever been to a KOA, you know they gear to famillies, and this one did not disappoint!  There was a petting zoo, a rock wall (that wasn't in action during our stay), a jumping pillow, an amazing playground, and plenty of room to ride bikes!  This KOA was largely in the holiday spirit with blow-up Thanksgiving decorations when we arrived. On Black Friday, it all got switched to Christmas decorations, so it was fun to see the change!  This location also held a Thanksgiving dinner. They simply asked you to sign up and bring a side dish/dessert (they provided the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and rolls). Well...we decided that might just work out easier for us since we were planning on sight-seeing on Thanksgiving Day, so we did that and it was awesome!  So much food and no clean-up!  We'd totally recommend it to anyone staying there!  There were 100+ people there and it was great!
5. Overall Review--great!  Laundry was expensive $2.50 to wash, $1.25 to dry, so that wasn't fun, but it had to be done!  Every chance they got, the boys played on the jumping pillow or playground, so it was a great activity to wear them out (as if what we did each day didn't already to that!).

Seacliff State Beach (2 night stay) 

Time to head back home, so we tried a spot south of Santa Cruz that just got us on our way.

1. Ease of getting to location--good.
2. Booking accuracy--not a clue. Jeff did this all on his own so I don't know if he called, booked online, etc.
3. Ease of getting into site--not easy, but doable.  There was a one-way road leading to slanted sites, so basically you had to turn yourself around in order to back in and park. Thank goodness I was in the other car with my neighbor and didn't have to be a part of it!
4. Overall Review--A+!  The back end of our trailer was facing the beach, so we let the deck down and had amazing wave sounds, views, etc the entire time!  They boys could run about 40 feet down from us and get to the steps leading to the beach and play right in front of us. There was an old pier to walk to, things people had built out of logs that had washed up, etc. We had a fun 2 days here! Great little restaurants to go to nearby also, so this was a winning location for us!

All in all, we had great locations and an amazing trip creating so many wonderful memories!  We hit things quickly, but now we know where we'd like to visit again, but it also let us see how far we could go in one day of travel. Our boys are great travelers and we love being able to take advantage of this while they're young!

Next up....maybe I'll find time to blog with pictures about this amazing trip we took!