It was a fantastic place to “just hang out”, let the kids run around & do all of the activities available to them while the wife & I did our thing. Well, the past 2 summers we’ve experienced a steady decline in cleanliness… keeping the sites clean, lack of cutting the grass when needed, a mini-golf with stones & clutter throughout, boats (2) that broke down while out in the bay and a NEW lazy river that was non-functional in the summer 2009.

The kicker of it all was this wonan at a “SEASONAL” campsite who went around yelling at people for walking OR riding too close to her campsite. We had to request another (distant) site because of her. This has been witnessed 2 years in a row.

All in all, we will still return because of the location of this campground…but NOT as often & NOT near that seasonal site.

Very few campgrounds afford the surrounding natural beauty and the carefully cultivated beauty within Luray RV Resort – Country Waye. We stayed a full week in the spacious full service site, quite possibly one of the best in which we’ve ever camped. There is genuine interest from the hosts in every camper enjoying the stay.

With a roomy site, a great pool and mountain vistas in every direction, Country Waye is a destination in itself. The Schumacher’s have invested with their heads and hearts into the planning of this resort, which offers peace and tranquility without being two far from other touristy towns and sites.

Although we visited family, took in the sights, rode the parkway, Country Waye is a place to enjoy contentment. Never have I seen a cleaner facility.

If you are going to be anywhere close to Shenandoah or actually Page Valley, plan to enjoy and rest well at Luray RV Resort – Country Waye.

Maybe we’ll see you there.

One of the best things is that there is space between you and your neighbor! They have a lot of outdoor recreation available such as basketball, volleyball, horseshoes, tennis courts, hiking, frisbee golf and a nice outdoor pool. The staff is helpful and friendly. Tents are welcome too.

It is about 12 miles from Colonial Williamsburg but the cost is less than other campgrounds that are closer.

We stayed from July 3-10, 2009. This is an excellent weekend to go because the fireworks are good and this year they had fireworks on the 4th and 5th. This was our 4th visit. The amenities are good. Bath houses, general store, pavilions, cafe, arcade and fresh seafood/vegetable market. The pools are great and the new splash park was a hit. Live bands and bingo and other planned activates like movies, arts and crafts and whole park events like costume contests, sight decoration contests and parades. A bait and tackle shop, boat-bike-paddleboat-golf cart rental. Fun to crab a fish and they have everything you need to get started with helpful staff that knows the rules and regulations and the right way to catch you a crab or fish.

We really like Cherrystone because of the people we see every year, and this is what Cherrystone really has going for them as long as they can keep the park nice and keep the families coming each year. Every year gets better because as you meet other families you can’t wait to get back to see old friends and make new. Cherrystone is for families and hard working families at that. A lot of the campers are middle to upper class small business owners and good for networking too. We’ve made both friends and business partners. Cherrystone has everything we need and want for the kind of vacation our family enjoys, but it’s unfortunate that this year Cherrystone didn’t meet our expectations.

There’s something going on with the management, or assistant management. The park was in disrepair and things that were broken never got fixed. It seemed as though the only way anything was going to be fixed was for a customer to find a manager and let them know, and you had to do a little work and asking around to find a manager. One day while I was at the pool I had a lady ask me if I was part of the staff because I was picking up trash. I said no and looked around to maybe help her find someone and no one was around. This was common at the pool area. I’m not sure what she wanted.

The grass around the common areas and at the campsites you could tell were not trimmed regularly. This shouldn’t be a problem considering you must check-out by 11:00am and you can’t check-in until 2:00pm. This (4) hours can be utilized effectively with good management in place. The day before we left we did see a sight or two being trimmed

The bath houses could have been better. Toilet seats were not fastened properly and the showers stalls could have been cleaner. This shouldn’t be a problem considering each bath house is closed for 1-1/2 hours each day. And when the bath houses are closed they’re closed with the entrance roped off, allowing staff to concentrate on their tasks uninterrupted. Each bath house is closed at different times so there’s always a bath house open. I’m assuming this is to accommodate the campers, but it accommodates the park staff more because it makes it possible for (1) organized and managed cleaning crew to go from one bath house to the next… again, making it possible for the crew to concentrate on their tasks uninterrupted. Furthermore, getting a cleaning/maintenance crew together to get the job done shouldn’t be a problem since the bath houses are cleaned/closed during normal business/peak hours of the day i.e., 10:00 to 11:30, 11:30 to 1:00 and so on. Having the bath houses closed during these times of the day accommodates the owners so they can put the staff to work during normal business hours or straight time if you will. This does not accommodate the guests and you’re walking to the next bath house just to pee because as I said when the bath houses are closed you can’t get in. There are porta-potties, but try getting into a port-a-pottie with a 4year old when it’s 90deg outside you can guess how clean the port-a-potties are… If you really want to accommodate the guests, close the bath houses and do a maintenance/clean to all the bath houses from 10:00pm to 4:00am every day. This would give a (4) person crew (7) 6hr days and then have mid-level management do a once over cleaning with the bath houses open just before dinner. This would allow management to inspect, check up on their cleaning crew and leave the cleaning crew special instructions for that night. You could probably contract out the cleaning if you wanted to keep them off the payroll.

I’m sure there would be problems with trying to work a night shift, but I’m a manager myself in a service providing company and any problems associated with this method I would overcome and make it work for the convenience of my guests, and with the present state of the economy good help is not hard to find. Now would be the time to hire dedicated help and new management at whatever levels are needed. And, having working employees at this time of night might not be a bad idea anyhow.

Grass was growing in the concrete seams of the pool area and the fence around the pool area had trash and debris here and there. The pump house by the splash park was painted half way and the splash park drainage was making a heavily traveled path a mud path. The putt-putt golf course needs some attention, but it was free to play this year so should I complain? Maybe not. The putt-putt golf course staff shed was usually occupied by (2) people. Not sure why. (1) Could have been doing some maintenance, but like I said….something is wrong with the management.
We plan on going for Halloween. This is an awesome time and the kids really clean up on candy. We really want to go because like I said…..what keeps us going back is the people. For the money you pay it would be nice to have some good management that takes pride in being a manager and customer service. The families are so nice that it would be worth it to have a good manager on site that everyone knows. I didn’t see Hop (the manager) once while I was there and when I asked Miss Louise at the bait and tackle where he was she said he was around, but he had been across the bay on business the day before.

I’ll give Cherrystone another chance this Halloween, but if I don’t see an improvement I’ll be looking for a new spot and if it’s nice….I’ll ask my friends to come along.

Some of their amenities include: Free Wifi, a heated pool, Free Cable TV, Kamping Kabins, a fishing pond, paddle boats, a playground, horseshoes, a small camp store (with ice, firewood, groceries and RV supplies), a large recreation hall, a laundry and private showers.

There was a nice atmosphere for a campground so close to I-95. The campground staff was very friendly. The facilities were clean and well maintained. The rates were a little on the high side, but I think it was worth it.

The biggest problem with this campground was the intolerable noise at night that goes on until 11:00pm. It was impossible to ignore this when you are camping in a tent. Our first night there, we were unable to carry on a coversation at our campsite because of the DJ performing at a pavillion directly adjacent to our site. It was nearly impossible to get the small children to sleep with the loud music blaring. When we called the office to ask that it be stopped, they said that it would “only” go on until 10:30 and it was our responsibility to check the activity sheet for the night. The activity sheet made no mention of music at that pavillion that night.

The following night was much the same, despite the fact that everyone in the campground who was running in the race needed to be up at 5:00am. The third night was a repeat of the previous two.

When we registered a formal complaint, we were told that they would be willing to refund one night’s stay. However, when we checked out, they had not done this and the person at the desk stated that she was not authorized to do so and we would have to talk to a manager, who was not present. Five days later and several messages later, we finally heard from the manager who implied that it was our misunderstanding that we would be given a night’s refund. He begrudgingly gave the refund after making me hash through the entire scenario again.

One other recurrent problem was the fact that the bathrooms were closed for cleaning every morning from about 8:30-10:00, which seems like an odd time since there were lines of campers waiting to take showers, etc.

The location of this campground is great and may be OK for those with RVs who can close their windows and doors to the noises outside. For the price we ended up paying, we could have stayed at Disney World.

The campground is clean and the staff is friendly and helpful. There are approximately 150 sites, 33 full hook-up pull-thrus for larger rigs. The park is fairly shady with large trees scattered throughout. You’ll find the majority of campers here are just passing through, but that’s what this campground is all about… an easily accessible, clean, comfortable and secure park when you’re just passing thru the area.

Americamps has a small, but well stocked campstore with a limited selection of groceries and camping supplies. Amenities include a laundromat, nice pool, large pavillion, game room and playground.

The only negative… I-95 is fairly close to the campground so it gets to be a little noisy with the trucks going by at night.

They have full hookups (including cable), a swimming pool, nature trails, fishing (no license required) , a playground, convenience store, game room, laundry, and free Wi-Fi. The facilities are clean and well maintained.

NINO’s restaurant is within easy walking distance and is open in the evening and has some great pizza and Italian food to die for.

South Forty KOA is a regular for us.

When I checked in, we were checked in by the manager and some other lady and neither had clue or were very polite to us. On checkout you had to return a gate card, in which was handed to manager which didn’t even say thank you. I would never recomend this campground.

We chose express entry and that couldn’t have gone smoother. Upon arrival to our site we were slightly disappointed. It was located on a corner and our camping neighbor had somewhat crowded our site but it was adequate.

We had a water view and the sunsets were fantastic. Crabbing was great, fishing productive. The staff in the Cafe were friendly, it was clean, and the food VERY good. The restrooms and bathhouses were immaculate and handicap friendly. The general store held a large variety of necessary camping items as well as souvenir’s. I felt the grocery portion was quite small, however, there is a large grocery store close by, so no worries. The laundry facilites were large and clean but I would suggest making sure you can avoid them… somewhat expensive and one large fan does nothing for the heat in August! The vegetable/fruit stand had a very large assortment of each and carries seafood as well, yum!

Our only major disappointment was with the bait/tackle shop. We have a son who is a parapalegic therefore relying on a wheelchair. This building is NOT handicap accessible. The staff were all supportive of building a ramp and mentioned it has been discussed several times. We were advised to bring it to a specific persons attention while “bumping” his wheelchair up the flight of stairs. (Not an easy task with an adult child). The response given to us was “We’re lucky, it’s grandfathered, so we don’t have to build one” This response as I suggested to him is not something the parent of a disabled child is pleased to hear, in fact I thought it was rude.

We purchased a few small items and then took our future business over to Chris’s… not only accessible for ALL of us but very friendly and helpful.

Overall the staff at Cherrystone were very friendly, curteous and helpful. We had no problems with loud campers and overall had a wonderful experience. So much so that we are planning on a 2 week stay next August! We definately give them a ****star rating!

Note: In a prior blog I read a concern that there is no beach. Cape Charles is just a hop-skip & a jump away and has a beautiful, small, very clean beach!