Burlingame State Park — Attraction in Charlestown

I'm honestly disappointed in Burlingame. We booked a few weeks ago for two nights - and we'd been so excited! One night alone and the other night, meeting family. The first day was super windy - not their fault... and we got through it while having fun! The first evening dropped down to 40 degrees...it was brutal - but again, we survived! And we had fun! The second day we woke up and made breakfast, taking care to clean up after each step so there was no residue, crumbs, juices... nothing, so we didn't attract animals (just like how we cooked the night before). At 830 am while cooking we started to notice bees, first one, then two, then up to at least 20 swarming the site. They were in our breakfast, in our coffee, all over us - it wasn't good... actually very scary for me. We couldn't do anything outside on our site. Couldn't play cards, couldn't relax, couldn't eat... I even sat down by the water and made a beautiful painting of the scenery that I planned on donating to the main office...but bees followed me down there too!! I have a mild allergy to bees. I don't go into shock but my mouth goes numb as well as parts of my body, I get woozy, irritable, heart palpitations and anxiety... I got stung by a bee while painting my painting and I immediately started to have a reaction, so I took a few benadryl, called the office at 230pm and said our site is swarming with bees, we're leaving early and that I'd like to get a refund for the second nite. The woman offered us another site - no. We just set up an entire site yesterday... we're not interested in breaking it down, moving, setting up again... then taking it down in the morning. That's too much. Especially because I was having an allergic reaction, needed more benadryl and needed to try to calm down! Then I got stung two more times as we packed up. It was sad because we spent a lot of money to come, have been really looking forward to it... and we were having fun! I am a buisness owner, so I never stop working, and my boyfriend works himself to death too - this trip was so exciting to us, we were ready to relax together. When I got to the front desk, I couldn't believe the disrespect I recieved. I walked in and politely explained that our site was swarming with bees and that we had to check out early because of the at least 20 (I think 30 is more accurate) bees... the woman started to tell me off telling me its nature and they can't control wildlife... and she went on and on about that - yes I'm aware of that. I'm not stupid - thanks. However...you as a campground with many many visitors should be checking site 112 for a beehive! And thanking me for making you aware of the situation.... and honoring my request for a refund because of a bug infestation on my site. Had you been aware of a beehive on the site, you probably (hopefully) wouldn't have rented it to me. Yes, you obviously can't control nature, you're obviously not going to chop down a hive...but you can take better care of guests and make sure their safety is your number one priority.... making them aware of a beehive before they check into a site (maybe you didn't know about this one) and if they check in to a site and bees are swarming them out of the site to the point where they have gotten a few bee stings and literally can't do ANYTHING on their site... but they only have one more night so they don't want to move sites - you should be giving a refund. It isn't even about the money for the refund, it's the principal...I shouldn't have my special trip cut short because of clearly a beehive in my site. No one else had bees like that. I also shouldn't have been spoken to like a dog by the woman at the counter. I can't remember the last time someone was so rude to me. I'm so sad my camping trip ended this. I would appreciate if management...

So I'm give this one star because in the 30 years of coming here they have not impoved any. The land and the site are great room to talk around and put ththings up. But the bathroom are horrible you go in there and they're full of bugs and spider webs and they're not cleaned we've gone in there we've seen diapers we've seen ladies pads we've seen the poop on the toilet and on the seats the showers half of them don't work and you have to pay for the showers it's $0. 75 for 3 minutes which is awful because like I said the showers don't work half the time they're Rusty. they stay on the bathrooms at they clean them for 2 hours 3 times a day which is not the case I've done in there during cleaning time and they don't have anyone in there cleaning them or working on them the prices are getting a bit outrageous to do things in the park. I love the pond that the ponds great except the entrance way that they have for swimming is full of rocks and they're not nice rock they're big rock they hurt your feet to the point where my kids won't even go in them we actually leave Burlingame campground to drive to the other side of the pond to go over to that side where it's a nice Sandy Beach there's no rocks the kids can go in and play so that's. also I feel like they just kind of nickel and dime you hear you're only allowed one vehicle per sites and you're only allowed six people so if your family is bigger than 6 you have to pay either for another campground or you have to pay for that person and it doesn't matter what age the people are and if you're out of state it is $10 for an overnight pass or $6 for a day pass per person that's staying there that's extra and then if you have a car if your Road Island resident an extra car is $4 and if you're out of state out state it is $6. so a larger family that may need two cars with all their camping gear is going to look at paying possibly an additional $20 a night for their car and their extra person and then you have to pay for the showers but what I don't like is I have no problem paying those fees if I saw them improving the campground and they're not I've been going here since I was 10 over 30 years and the showers of the same way as a kid besides don't have electric there's no water at your site and you're paying if you're out of state you're paying $20 a night if you're in state you're paying 14 which has gone up. And half the places that you can go that's are the sites are at there's not even a bathroom or water spicket there you have to walk probably three or four minutes to get to a bathroom there's tons of Porta-Johns all over the place which tells me that they know they need more bathrooms but the Porta-Johns aren't clean their only cleaned once every two weeks maybe once a week but when you have 45 people using one porta-john for a week in 90 degree heat you need to clean it more than once is disgusting we stayed on a road that didn't even have water we had to drive down the road probably three or four minutes into a different area to find a water spicket because we were in like a new area so that made it really inconvenient yet we paid the same price as people who are right next to water and a bathroom bathroom so overall I think a money trap for Rhode Island I think they're just collecting money for it and not really putting everything back into the campground which is a shame because the the sights and the scenery is beautiful the forest beautiful and they really could keep it still beautiful and upgrade the bathrooms and the water and they don't even need to put Electric in I mean that would be totally up to them but there's a lot they could do to upgrade and make it a little bit nicer in a little bit more...

We were not happy with our stay here. For the 5 days were were here our biggest issues were the bathrooms/showers and the very late night noise. This is a "No Alcohol" campground and "Quiet time 10pm-7am Strictly enforced" signs all over when you enter.. This is not true. During the day an employee on a golf cart comes zooming around a few times a day, 2 hands on the wheel staring straight ahead like "I'm suppose to check things out but I just want to get out of here so I'm not going to look around" Maybe if they looked they would see people a few sites away from ours with the red solo cups, nope they never did and so night after night the LOUD laughter and yelling conversations went on and on - usually quieting down about 3-3:30 am-- No golf carts then!! There are very few "bathrooms" at this location for the amount of sites they have and so we got stuck close to one of the many 'port-o-Johns" - Which we didnt use because the "pile" was only a few inches from the seat- I asked at the office about this and was told "Well they get emptied 2 times a week!!" while at the office I also asked about the real bathrooms and showers as we had arrived on a Wed, checked them out and saw soggy bar of soap and Pebbles/rocks in the shower which was still there on Sat. They said they would look in to it. We were also suprised that not only do you have to pay for showers but there is a SURCHARGE if you are handicapped. Yup the Handicap "stall" cost more than the regular stall which by the way neither has anyplace to hang anything or even place your soap or shampoo- it all goes on the dirty wet floor which is next to a floor drain which I found out backs up and then everything is really wet. Other problems with the showers? yup- One ate quarters by the handfull with no water the entire stay, and the handicap showerhead had a break in it in shot water up into the light fixture on the wall- during my above mentioned visit to the office I reported this also and was told " that is state run, we can not do anyting about it and the 2 people in charge of that are off today and yesterday ( this being a Friday)- I assumed that meant nothing would be done untill Monday. I said I hope no one gets electrocuted and the reply wa "OHHH!! I hope not!" - I dont understand why the exact same person that I saw "leafblowing" the dry clean pavement leading to and passing my site for at least 20min spent less than 5 combines minutes "cleaning" the Mens AND womens bathrooms/Showers while I waited for my wife. Maybe that person could put "out of order" sign on the coin op or broken shower head? nope, they are not "state" employee and can not do that. - I will say that the rest of the campground was clean and I could not believe how well behaved ALL the kids were, and there was A LOT of them. They were all friendly and polite. they would step off they road if someone needed to pass and they were not loud. - So to sumarize, the EMPLOYEES here need to step it up and do ALL of thier job, not just the fun parts and someone needs to be in charge of EVERYTHING not just...