River Riders Family Adventure Resort — Attraction in Harpers Ferry

First and foremost, we had a wonderful time at the campground. We booked a riverfront site and the campground was very quiet and peaceful for our entire stay. In fact, we were the only campers in our area for the entire trip. We camped during the second week of September, for reference.

With all that being said, I do have some information that I would have liked to have known prior to booking and staying at the campground that I think will be helpful for future campers.

When booking through the River Riders website, there is no obvious mention that the campground is in a separate location from the River Riders location or that the campground has a different name. In fact, on the website, the campground is referred to as “River Riders Campground” on at least one occasion. This is not the case. The campground is called “Harper’s Ferry Campground,” and is in a completely separate location from River Riders, and depending on what type of rig you’re driving, is a 15-20 minute extra drive. You first go to River Riders to check in. I bring this up because if you are driving a motorhome or towing a large RV, you cannot take Bakerton Road to access the campground due to the one-way tunnel. GPS directions will route you via Bakerton Road. When checking in, you are provided with a printed map of directions to the campground via an alternate route, however the alternate route is not usually an option when putting “Harpers Ferry Campground” into the GPS. Also for big rigs: there is no turnaround at the River Riders location when you check in. You either need to park in the gravel lot where the River Riders vehicles park, or on the side of the main road, or be prepared to reverse out of the parking lot.

When checking in, the staff was not able to tell me or assure me that the site I had booked was a full hook-up site. When I booked the site, the description states “most riverfront sites have full-hook ups,” but doesn’t indicate which sites might not have hook-ups or what type of hook-ups are available. You are also not able to select your site, you are assigned a site based on the information you provide when booking regarding your rig/party size/etc. I was only able to select the option for “riverfront site.” When I asked at check-in if the site we were assigned had full hook-ups, the young girls stated, “We don’t know what that means.” Upon arriving at the campground, the site we were assigned (site 100) was too small for our rig (reminder that you do put your information into the system when booking regarding the size and type of your rig). Luckily, there were no other campers in our section, so we moved down to site 104, which worked for us (we have a 33 foot motorhome, no slide outs). For Verizon users, there is no cell service at the campground, but there is WiFi. Unfortunately, it was a challenge for me to call the office on WiFi calling to report the change in sites to them. I was eventually able to connect and thankfully, we were able to stay in site 104 as no other campers would be coming in until after our check-out. This process did go smoothly and the staff was very friendly about it. From what I observed, all 5 riverfront sites did, in fact, have full hook-ups. There are other site types available (river view, etc) and I do not know about those utility options.

Lastly, when we checked in, staff informed me that we could purchase firewood at the River Riders store or from the campground host, who is camped in a RV trailer at the front of the campground. There is also a campground store at the campground. The store was not open for our entire stay, and I was not able to get ahold of the campground host either. You cannot bring your own firewood in due to the invasive lantern fly.

All in all, we had a great time! I do feel what I’ve described above is worth mentioning for people considering booking at...

Overall I had a good experience but that was mostly due to the good weather and the fun nature of tubing down the river. The purchase and waiver process was pretty straightforward and the staff was very friendly. I have 3 critiques for the operation which I hope they fix as to not dampen anyone else's experience:

I wanted to add the Mega Zip to my tubing reservation for 2 on 5/25 (Saturday before Memorial Day) but I was unable because their website claims, "This activity requires a minimum of 10 guests to run on weekdays and is always open on weekends from Memorial Day to Labor Day." Did they really not have the staff hired yet to operate the Mega Zip all Memorial Day weekend? Even now, if I try to book the Mega Zip for a weekend between Memorial Day and Labor Day, the lowest quantity of tickets one can buy is 10, which directly contradicts their website claim. It might just be a programming issue with FareHarbor, their online booking service, but it makes it almost impossible to book a ride on the Mega Zip with a small party.

I bought the Full Day River Tubing pass which includes a few hours of whitewater tubing and a few hours of flatware tubing. My party of 2 did whitewater tubing first (had a great time) and we were waiting at the whitewater pickup point at or just after 2 PM to take the bus back to River Riders for the flatwater tubing part of our day. They had told us the last bus leaving River Riders for flatwater tubing would leave around 3 PM so we originally were not worried about time because they said the bus picks up from the whitewater pickup point every 30 mins or an hour and on Memorial Day weekend with many people coming out of the water, we thought they would pick up us in 30 mins of less. After 40 mins of waiting, another party waiting with us called River Riders (I didn't have my phone on me) and they said they would arrive in 10 mins. Another tubing company's bus, I think it was River & Trail Outfitters, stopped by twice while we were waiting on River Riders and when we asked their driver if there was crazy traffic or anything going on, he said there was some traffic but "that's River Riders - always running late." After almost an hour of waiting, we must have amassed 30 River Riders customers at the whitewater pickup point (which is just a pulloff on the side of US-340 with no shelter nor bathrooms) before a van came to pickup half of us and we made it back to River Riders at 3:05 PM. I was very annoyed by the wait and stressed about missing the last bus to go flatwater tubing. We visited the front desk and they apologized for the wait and said the last safety briefing for flatwater tubing would start at 3:20 PM. The last safety briefing then started at 3:30 PM and the last bus actually left at 3:45 PM. We had a relaxing flatwater tubing experience after that stressful wait (minus the deflated cooler, see note 3) and there was a bus was waiting for all the last tubers of the day at the flatwater pickup point when we finished.

I bought the "cool float" from River Riders for $25 so that I could have a cooler on the river and reuse it next time I go tubing. They gave me a used one when I checked in (not a new one because it had mud on it already and looked used) but that was fine because they never claimed it would be a new one. After the bus ride to the river, staff assisted me in inflating the "cool float" but we discovered it had a small hole in the bottom and would not hold air in the main inflatable chamber. I put the broken cooler in another inflatable and went on my way down the river. When I got back to River Riders, I exchanged the damaged "cool float" for a newer one without a hole. We're near the start of the tubing season still so I was surprised to see that this cooler was damaged and had not been patched over...

The tubing itself was a great experience; beautiful scenery, peaceful water, and just what we hoped for in terms of relaxation. Unfortunately, everything surrounding the river rider experience left us stressed out and will look into other companies next time we go.

First, the good: river riders was able to easily reschedule our appointment from 11:30 to 12:30 prior to the day of our trip, and that was amazing! It was easy to book our flat water tubes online. But that’s the end of the good experience with them. Parking was chaotic but we finally found a spot. Then we followed everyone else towards the building but generally had no idea where to go. When we found the signs for check in, we waited in line for over 45 minutes behind large groups, some of who were doing other activities, like whitewater rafting or the water park and needed to sign waivers or do god knows what else that would take upwards of 15 mins per group. Despite only needing a quick check-in for flat water tubing (which took less than a minute once we got to the counter), we were herded like cattle through a long, slow process that felt chaotic and poorly managed. I’ve had smoother, more efficient experiences at the DMV.

Once we were finally set up, and had our safety briefing shouted at us (a megaphone or PA system would be an obvious choice for speaking to hundreds of people at a time instead having someone shout directions out. Completely baffling and unprofessional ) we were handed life jackets that reeked of sweat and mildew—definitely not what you want to strap to your body for a relaxing float. At the end of our float, a storm was rolling in, prompting a mass exodus. This led to more delays, including waiting well over 20 minutes for another shuttle bus to come. And while I appreciate the hustle, the bus drivers took those narrow, winding roads at speeds that didn’t feel very safe.

Overall, it felt like River Riders is seriously overbooking and is underprepared to handle the volume of customers they’re taking on. What should’ve been a relaxing day turned into a stressful ordeal. I’d consider tubing again—but only if they drastically improve their logistics and customer experience. It seems like they could really benefit from some operation, logistic, and customer service consultants. it very much seems like they pull in enough profit that there’s not a reasonable excuse to have such a floundering check in process. If this were river riders first year operating and they didn’t realize what an influx of people they’d have during peak season I could understand, but when we do tube next, I’ll have to see if any of the other river operators have a better grasp of their customer volume and can deliver a smoother and more...