As I've written about in the past, you never know what you're going to find when you select a camp ground. We've had delightful experiences in somewhat dingy camp grounds and miserable experiences in nice camp grounds. Unfortunately, Winter Garden RV Resort falls into the latter category.
We needed a camp ground close to the Orlando airport so we could fly home for my daughter's wedding and found one in the town of Winter Garden, about 20 minutes west of Orlando. Perfect!
The town of Winter Garden much to our delight, is this quiet, pleasant place with a quaint historic downtown district. It's a perfect blend of old (1950's decor) and new (trendy eateries). Sort of a modern day Mayberry, USA. It is a pedestrian, family (and dog) friendly place with a unique charm. We loved it.
We spent many enjoyable evenings strolling along its streets.
The town also has an amazing Farmer's Market every Saturday. We found a large selection of regional vendors selling everything from locally grown produce and baked goods, to homemade soaps, coffees and fresh flowers.
Later that week the town sponsored a Ford Model-A car show. Really cool!
Other pics of Winter Garden:
And now for the bad news...
Unfortunately, the camp ground we stayed at, Winter Garden RV Resort (again, the word RESORT is used way too liberally in the RV park community!).
Although the park was clean and the grounds were well maintained, we paid for a PREMIUM spot (or so I was told). Expecting the "white glove" treatment, we found we were placed on a tiny lot at the end of the street about 25 feet from a busy highway, which meant we were treated to a constant barrage of road noises (muffler-less vehicles, motorcycles, tractor trailers, and emergency vehicles --with sirens blaring even when the highway was deserted at 3:00am--).
Some other "premium" privileges were: cable tv that didn't work, poor water pressure (where the spigot was facing upward), and a sewer connection that sat about 30 feet from our RV! (standard sewer tubes are about 10 feet long, I carry a second one just for emergencies such as this but even with that I couldn't reach the connector. Fortunately, my neighbor let me share his, which sat only about 10 feet away from my RV)
When we first pulled in, I asked for a different location because of the proximity to the highway and because of the distance to the sewer line, the lady at the front office responded as if I should be thankful because: "Some people like listening to road noises" and of course she added the unverifiable: "we are all booked". I brought it to her attention that there was a vacant site a few lots down from us but after much hemming and hawing she said somebody is on that site. After asking my neighbors, I was told that the tenant had vacated a day earlier. Grrrrrr.. This employee obviously did not want to do ANY work to make our stay more pleasant.
When I later went back to inform them that our cable tv was not working, her response was an infuriating: "Nobody's ever complained about that before"... And when I inquired about the lack of water pressure, I received the same lackadaisical response.
It wouldn't have been so bad if she had been the least bit apologetic. But to belittle my concerns and make everything "my problem", was particularly frustrating, making the thought of pushing her face deep into her computer keyboard particularly appealing to me.
Lastly, the pool by the front office had mold growing on the chairs and concrete surfaces.. which to me, disqualifies them from using the word RESORT in their name!