We stayed at American RV Park from 06/16 through 06/19 (4 nights) on our 2 week summer vacation. And although the facility was very nice as far as landscaping, amenities and the rest rooms, we did have several issues that I thought needed mentioning. Had I known about these peculiarities prior to our booking, I would have chosen elsewhere…Let me preface by saying I am not trying to nitpick, but we were on vacation and were unprepared for these events and issues. We stayed at several parks during our trip and only had issues at this park.
Pool hours: 10am to 8pm. Considering it is summer time and it doesn?t get dark until after 9pm, we found an 8pm pool closing to be quiet early. Especially considering this park boast 24 hour on-site management. Every other park we stayed at for our entire vacation had much later pool hours.
Pool closes at 8pm: but the management runs you out at 10 minutes till. We would spend the day doing stuff in Albuquerque and kill our selves trying to get back in time for the kids to splash in the pool for a few minutes, only to have the staff order everyone out 5 to 10 minutes before 8. This might sound petty but when you didn?t get to the pool until 7:30 or 7:45 thinking the younguns had 15 to 30 minutes to swim, closing the pool earlier than the posted time only frustrated the kids more than getting to the pool so late.
The pool closing early happened every night that we were there. On the 19th of June the park manager Garland Wright was the one that ordered the pool closed. While I was at the camper tinkering and preparing for an early departure in the morning, the wife was at the pool with our kids. Mr. Wright?s comment to my wife when he laid down the order to exit the premises was, and I quote ?Are those your kids?..Get them out?. This was happening at 10 minutes before 8. When the wife returned to the camper I joked about the eviction happening earlier that night than previous nights, and she proceeded to tell me about her conversation with Mr. Wright. I immediately headed to the pool to voice my displeasure and he proceeded to argue with me and in so many words (the ?F? word included) told me that was just too bad. He also slammed the door to the lobby in my face as he locked it. The time now was 7:55pm. The office was supposed to be open until 8:00pm.
Another problem we had was with their un-posted specific rules about beverages by the pool. It seems they only allow collapsible water bottles by the pool. For our entire stay they were constantly hassling people about their beverage containers. My wife had a blizzard beach beverage jug (from WDW), that was plastic, had a sealed lid, and was full of ice water. She was charged by Dave, one of the staff and ordered to remove it from the pool area. I had a big plastic cup and was also rudely approached. One lady had a diet coke; another had a collapsible squeeze bottle with the big straw? all guilty and ordered to be removed. We stayed at 7 parks during our 2 week vacation and all of the other pools did have rules about food and glass containers, but no one was ever assaulted because they had a can of diet coke or a squeeze bottle full of lemonade or whatever.
Another item to mention, when we checked in we were told that our kids were not allowed at the playground unless they were accompanied by an adult even though our site was 3 or 4 down from the playground, our kids were 10 years old and we could see the playground from our site. I found this to be a little upsetting but did notice during our stay that the playground constantly had kids playing with no parents in sight.
We did find several staff members to be very friendly and helpful, but we also found several that made you feel like you were bothering them. On more than one occasion I heard staff arguing with customers. I heard Garland?s name mentioned more than once.
I was actually appalled at how Mr. Wright handled customers (namely me and my wife) and questioned Legacy?s decision to have a person like this in the management role. He did tell me that he must be doing something right because in his one year as manager their occupancy percentage was way up. This certainly sends the message to me that putting people in the sites is far more important to the Legacy corporation than how you treat them.
I seems to me that this is a perfect facility as long as you quietly come and go and only minimally use the amenities. To me an RV campground is a 24/7/365 job. This is not Sears. Closing the office at 8pm, or rather 7:54pm does not mean that the customer goes away. Further I do not think that this staff cares a lot for families. It is my impression that they favor the retired customers over the family customer, even though this customer paid for 4 nights and spent quiet a bit of additional money in the office area on ice, souvenirs, cookies, news paper, soda?s and ice cream.
I believe we should have only stayed at this facility for one night. That way the little quirks of this parks management would not have been as noticeable nor had the opportunity to fester. On my next trip to Albuquerque, my RV will definitely be parked at a different camp facility.
