Pomona RV Park is a nice place, at a good price ($37 a night), with excellent WiFi and very deep cable selection, and mostly shaded sites with cement pads that keep the sand and dirt outside. Apparently, new owners took over in January of this year (2007) and have been pretty busy since then, upgrading and repairing the place. Probably 10 percent seasonal or permanent trailers here, but more than half of those are vacant. There’s plenty of kids’ playground equipment, and there’s a pretty good sized open field for walking dogs. A nice pool with hot tub, and a game room with some great vintage/retro machines and a pool table.

It takes us twenty minutes to get to the north end of the Strip or to the Borgata (Marina Bay area of Atlantic City). Not hard to get here either: It’s off exit 12, on the Atlantic City Expressway, go north and it’s about three miles and change from the exit, big sign on the left. Route 30 is right up the road a mile or so north of the campground; take a right and there’s a nice diner down a mile toward AC on the left, and then take 30 east and it’s a good straight shot to the casinos.

The campground borders the AC airport, but we have not heard any excessive noise since we got here yesterday. (Mostly the airport is used by highrollers and gulf streams, etc…, so it’s not as busy as a real airport.)

The sites are pretty tight… the ones next to us are empty, but if they were occupied, it’d be very close here. Probably fifty percent occupancy now, on a hot August Friday. We’ll definitely return here.

A part of the Onieda Casino complex, one-half mile from the Casino and numerous golf courses, Turning Stone is one really fine campground. The park offers fast WiFi, generous cable, and great amenities including a heated pool with lifeguard and jacuzzi. Also nicely landscaped sites, daily trash removal (including new can liners!) from each site, wonderful jogging paths, and best of all: one phone call gets you a site-to-casino (and back again) shuttle service 24/7.

The odds felt a little worse than usual on the video poker, plus the payouts are a bit more complicated than at other casinos, but waddya gonna do?. Try the Italian restaurant… four stars! Also the spa offers a great fullbody massage. At about $55 a night on weekends and $45 on weekdays, it’s a little steep, but the amenities (and the generally child-free and upscale clientele) make this one of the best campgrounds (along with the Key West MM12 KOA–an excellent place!) we have ever visited.

We lost a steelbelt in one of our tires and had four new tires (at a good price) installed with no hassle. For economy-minded campers, there is an overflow lot that is perfectly acceptable to drycamp at and use the free shuttle service.

Highland Campground is a nice place at a good price (about $32 a night). The campground is located about six miles off I-81 North, but not too far. We had a nice, level private site, with a clean pool, a great arcade with excellent 1980′s vintage games, and a really pleasant owner.

We stayed at Drummer Boy Campging Resort for four nights in the second week of May of 2007 in our Class C. Before we left, we had read a review that discussed highway noises in the first 50 sites, so we called and they put us out back in a 300-level numbered site. This isn’t a complaint, but the campground property runs for about a country mile, down route 15 (very busy 24/7 with a 65 MPH speed limit) and the property is closer to 15 at the low sites (near the store and mini golf), but we heard the low roar of traffic even from our site. There’s really no avoiding some of that highway noise anywhere at Drummer Boy b/c of its location. The back sites are almost all pullthroughs and are pretty wide, pretty darn level, with a nice heavy gravel cover, and have nice new tables on them. There’s a waterslide out back (extra fee and probably loud… it was getting ready to open as we left, so ask where your site is in relation to it).

Aside from some C’s, it was pretty split between expensive Class A’s and trailer/5th wheels. Someone has done a great job with the roundup on the poison ivy… lots of it in the woods, but virtually none around the sites. Not so much as a cigarette butt or any trash anywhere. Very clean!

There were too many toy-hauling bikers and burners for our taste… loud and smoky smell, but some types just aren’t camping unless they’re making smoke and/or noise.

For breakfast, there is a Perkins Restaurant up Route 15 one exit and to the left. Down Route 116 (where the CG is) is town. Go to the rotary in the middle of town and eat at the Pub… classy and good portions/good service. Try Enterprise rental.. they offer a great rental deal and deliver a car to your site and they have an excellent, helpful staff. Their sign is at the front desk.

When you visit Gettysburg, try the Ike Farm (6 bucks a head–good price) and at the main Gettysburg visitors center, rent a battlefield guide for 45 bucks for in your car.

Here are the three main problems with the camground:
1) The WiFiRV service absolutely sucks! You literally will not get slower internet service anywhere… it’s reminiscent of 1995 AOL dialup, but even slower. The campground says they are not a part of it and make no money on it. Talk about a blatant lie!
2) Also when five washing machines (all of them in one "nearby" building, a half mile away) were out of service, we went to the main desk to use the three overused ones there.
3) When we told the teenaged staff at the front desk about it, we got the expected "Who gives a damn?" smiling attitude we’ve come to expect from rural/suburban middle class teenagers nowadays. Don’t waste your time at the front desk. Look for retired-age people in the non-rental golf carts if you need anything. The kids at the front desk offered us nothing but snarky, eye-rolling behind-our-backs country yokel kid two-digit IQ sarcasm.

Your belongings are totally safe and the whole place is spotless b/c of the older, retirement-era previously mentioned staff. Bring your car or rent one. There is nothing within walking or bicycling distance. (You can bicycle to Benner’s Hill, a third-level artillery spot about two miles away.) Halfway decent cable and it’s 45 a weeknight/55 for weekends, when it fills up. The battle is July 1-3, so steer clear of the HUGE crowds in Gettysburg then, or else, book early.

Fiesta Key KOA is located at MM 70 and long-rumored to be sold for condo development. We returned here for one night on the way home from Key West (we stayed here for a week last year before Christmas), and while scenic, this is a campground whose transitional status makes it an unpleasant place to camp, with some caveats.

They’re not booking or people aren’t coming, so there’s a lot of open sites and open space now. Plus the camp store has closed and moved to the smaller marina store, where 50 percent off clearance sales make some items very affordable. Last year, we stayed by the water ($110 a night) and stayed next to this rude family from Michigan (with their over-leveraged-equity-credit Class A, with clunky Buick-y tow car and obnoxious Christmas snowball item in front of their RV, and two terribly behaved teens making noise all hours of the day). Well, sad to report, there they were in the same spot! Then on a visit to the pool, there was no supervision (b/c the KOA is closing, and the staff has been cutback severely), and the obnoxious teens dive all over the pool trying to impress the midwest jailbait. In one case, a boy literally punched another boy in the face right in front of us all (about 50 people there) and no one did anything.

Then there was the Ohio contractor (with his home-siding quality trailer and dump/pickup truck) parked next to us who began complaining (while I tried to set-up) about KOA and how they put us in an adjoining site. Within an hour of listening to this ridiculous tirade, he had pulled his second vehicle into our site (since we have no tow vehicle). No staff said anything about this and complaining about this incursion into our site was futile, since we were only overnighting it.

This is a beautiful campground and the hitherto large staff has previously kept the Ohio/Michigan/western PA carny types in check, but, sadly, the place is now overrun with trash and KOA Corporate (this is a major moneymaking KOA campground, owned by the corporate holding company) is just trying to suck as much money out of it from unsuspecting good campers, who expect better from KOA.

Also, still no wireless. Why can’t all the KOAs get wifi routers and offer free WiFi? This place is supposed to close in May, and from the look of it (i.e., all the permanent type travel trailers that held the earlier staff have been pulled out), we’d say this KOA is almost history. At this point, good riddance.

Interstate Inn RV Park is located a tenth of a mile to the east of I-95, exit 173, and behind the Interstate Inn. This campground is a good bargain for an overnight stay. 18 bucks gets you cable (and HBO) plus good fast wireless.

There are three rows of sites… get into the first or second row (the ones nearest the motel) because the last row has a pronounced slope. There is no dump at the sites, but there is a dump station. While we would think twice about staying at the motel (a little too old for our taste), the group of RVers make the campground a nice place to overnight.

Lake Harmony RV Park is located about an hour south of Savannah, just far enough off I-95 so traffic noise was a faint and acceptable hum of background ambient noise. This is really a nice place. Good prices and an exceptionally friendly young couple runs/owns (?) it.

There’s another campground next door that looks nice, too, but we didn’t stay there. At Lake Harmony, there’s a one-acre-sized pond with free fishing, and some affordable canoe and kayak rentals, and a nice little beach, and there are a few rows of camping sites out back, plus a dozen or so on the lakeside as you drive out back. We stayed out back. Any site here is good. There are some monthly people there, but it’s a nice place to stay overnight or for a couple of nights, and the semi-permanent residents are friendly and acceptably semi-upscale. (As a note: We normally are not in favor of travel RV campgrounds that have more than ten percent semi-permanent residents… there’s a tipping point somewhere around that number that changes the feel of a campground to the feel of a trailer park.)

What made this a nice experience for us was the proximity of Lake Harmony to I-95 (closer than the half hour rides each way to those nice Georgia state parks in Crooked River and Fort McAllister… see our other reviews). The quiet ambience, the scenic view and pleasant walk around the lake, plus the attractive young couple were nice. We’ll definitely go again.

Located at MM 20, The Sugarloaf Key KOA has a lot to offer, with a few caveats. It’s filled up since we got here about nine days before XMas when it was wide-open, which was nice given the exceedingly narrow site we rented (at 110 a night, plus 6 bucks a day extra for wireless access) right on the beach. But being on the beach has been great, with some really nice neighbors.

A nice clean beach, volleyball set-up, lots of lounges available, plus our site backs literally right up to the beach. The staff puts everyone in at a different angle, so you open your door looking right at the door of your neighbor… don’t know why. The utilities are easily accesible, though, so if you don’t mind close or think the beach access is worth it, take advantage and spend the extra thirty bucks and go beachside. There’s the usual good pool and hot tub, plus the KOA nightclub/lounge (oxymoron) where the nerdy types and workers frequent. They have a nice store… pricey, but waddya gonna do? They have a nice, friendly staff.

Getting to Key West (begins about 14 miles away but is really at MM 1) can be done in two ways. Take the KOA shuttle for 15 bucks roundtrip, per person, from noonish to 8pmish or go out to Rte 1 and jump on one of the busses (currently waiving the two buck fee) that takes you down to a Publix at around MM5 and get on a connector… a simple operation. Driving is a pain and parking is tight and limited. Getting a rental car is virtually impossible, so tow yours or use the public transportation.

There’s a road right out and to the left from the front gate that ends in a half mile, then proceeds as a semi-wide deserted abandoned road for about a mile and a half to an abandoned bridge that makes a super run or a nice bike ride. They also have excellent tent camping sites. Last night there was a subdued drumming thing going on around a campfire. Nice to see other eclectic campers. Speaking of diversity, this is a gay and * friendly campground.

There were lots of families here and no issues. While there are plenty of kids here, from as far north as Quebec and west as Montana, there is an equal number of boozing-couples that just hang out by the water with the ubiqitous red plastic cups. It’s a good mix and a nice crowd. Might overwhelm the red state people, though.

Key West is seriously not as exciting as it presents itself. Maybe on Fantasy Fest or something, but when we went, it was your typical urbany destination tourist trap with hundreds of tee-shirt stores, expensive restaurants (we went to a nice Sushi/Thai place off Duval that we would recommend), plus a few dozen semi-risque stores selling predictably middle class risque clothes and stuff… like a outdoors mall where nipple slips are somewhat common. Mostly a big old yawn, but fun for a few hours. We would also recommend visiting keysail.com if you want to charter. Nice folks and a super-fun afternoon and nightime sail, very safe and fun and affordable!

We would definitely recommend this KOA, since they are once again rumoring that the Fiesta Key KOA is going to condos in March (something like what they said last year, which was inaccurate then, too).

OK, while walking around with the dogs, a guy from Texas, in a nice Class A (maybe a Monaco) with a reasonably sized tow vehicle gave me a couple of complaints about this KOA campground: The road in (off 11) is a little winding and tight for big rigs (there was little to no traffic when we came in and we think Class As can get in pretty easily, but watch your speed and corners), the sites are not level (he was pretty high in the rear and low in the front to get level), and the place charges a premium for big rigs yet does not provide big rig needs (level and road in, he meant).

OK, so those are the problems. It is a LONG 3 miles in; it’s more like 4 to the A-frame/main office, but it’s a huge campground and that counts for something, and some of the back-ins (which we were offered first but declined) are definitely not contractor-level. (Since the plastic levelors are way in the back of our spare-tire trunk and are a pain to get out, we avoid sites that require them, and look for pull-throughs all the time). That’s it for “issues”:

THIS IS A GREAT CAMPGROUND! There’s a solid mile (there’s another half-mile in trails) of wide open riverfront/water-accessible (for rafting and fishing) river here. The sites are wide, the cable is good, plus the WiFi is normally strong. There’s a really nice pool, with separate wading pool, plus very clean bathhouses and banks of empty trashcans throughout.

They have food and the regular stuff in the store, plus a little cafe. There’s a three-tiered waterfall at the end of the campground riverfront, and there was a copperhead there by the water when we went walking. If your dogs are crazy like ours are, they will get all uncontrollable when they see all the fat, semi-wild “escapee,” (i.e., formerly domesticated) rabbits running around. 40 bucks gets you a good pull-through with 30 amp. It’s a nice place to stay for a night or a week or more.

While we were here, a roofer (his signage on his business deduction pick-up told us this) with a basic-housing-siding-clad trailer was using a LOUD remote-controlled four-wheel drive (who would have guessed) Remote-controlled toy vehicle for his and his son’s pleasure, and, thankfully, management came right over and got him to act like a camper again in no time. Nice touch.

When you approach Knoxville East KOA campground, engage your four-wheel drive. Just kidding, but the truth is the gravel driveway is loose, the hill is a bit steep, and there are numerous washouts. I wouldn’t bring my hundred grand-plus land yacht up here until they get some pavement in. This is the main weakness here. There are deluxe sites, but for some reason the team chose to get a basic one tonight. The regular sites are mostly level and all shaded with mature trees. Nice, dependable KOA clientele. The cable is wonderful if you like Fox News and evangelical broadcasts, and only want about eight more channels. There’s no other news here, and the entertainment channels are exceedingly limited; we would call this BASIC cable for the KoolAid drinkers. The Wifi is a little weak, too.

The grounds are clean and the pool is nice. The staff is pleasant. It was $32 and change with a KOA card. Our review: Do an overnight in a short rig that has a solid suspension; avoid this place with anything longer than 36 feet.