Living Forest Oceanside Campground & RV Park — Hotel in Nanaimo

Located minutes from the heart of Nanaimo in a beautiful wooded, oceanside setting the Living Forest Oceanside RV Park and Campground leaves me with mixed feelings. This is a large (300+ sites), well established and well maintained Park. All sites are of a good size, gravel surfaced, level and supplied with a picnic table. The services at each site vary from no services at all up to 50 amp power with water and sewer. There are a lot of trees throughout the Park and most sites offer some privacy. Some sites are tiered up and down the hillside, some have great ocean views and a handful are right on the ocean. The Park has their own hiking/walking trail system and there are other trails available right outside of the Park. There is a small, seasonal café overlooking the ocean as well as many green space and playground areas. The Park provides shower and laundry facilities. The Office is open extended hours; 8 AM to 8 PM daily. The biggest issue that we had at the Park was power. We had booked a 50 amp site, however only 30 amp sites were available when we arrived. We can make do with 30 amps, provided that there is a good 30 amp service. In this case, the electrical backbone of the Park just wasn’t up to the challenge. We seldom had 120 volts available and as soon as we put any draw on the system the voltage began to fade away. Our EMS cuts out at plus or minus 10% so whenever we got below 108 volts we lost power. It was very seldom that we could draw even 20 amps, let alone 30, without losing power. There is a Wi-Fi service available, at a reasonable price, which is supposed to be adequate for handling email, etc. but not streaming. At it’s best the service could handle email and possibly even short videos. Usually, the speed was painfully slow even with plain text email and often the service just did not work. If you are going to be staying long or need reliable high speed internet Shaw cable is available at most, possibly all, sites and you should contact Shaw to have high speed internet made available at your site. Finally, both good and bad comes from the forest. The views, the privacy and the atmosphere are all great. However, there was a constant dropping of leaves, twigs and branches. It was a steady job to keep the site and the vehicles free of tree debris. You could not retract your awnings or slide toppers without first cleaning them off. Also, there was a yellowish, dust like material that constantly settled on everything. It was necessary to wipe off tables and chairs prior to use and the windshield of the vehicle had to cleaned every morning. Overall, the physical Park is very nice and would normally receive a 5-star review. However, the inadequate electricity, woeful Wi-Fi and constant cleaning made our stay a bit...

The campground itself is beautiful. The sites are lovely and the staff were friendly. However, I was really disappointed that I wasn’t informed about the front gate closing at 11pm. I would argue this is something that should absolutely be mentioned at check-in.

I arrived on Saturday, got everything set up, and then went out with my team (we were in Nanaimo for a softball tournament), not realizing there was essentially a curfew in place. The only timing mentioned to me was that the office closes at 10pm if I needed firewood. So, it was quite a shock to return and find the gate locked, with all my belongings still inside the campground.

Thankfully, some friends let me stay at their hotel overnight, and I returned in the morning to pack up.

Again, beautiful property and friendly staff, but I’d strongly recommend that the gate closure policy be clearly communicated at check-in or in booking confirmations to avoid future confusion or stress for guests.

Edit after business response:

Thank you for your response. I appreciate you taking the time to clarify the procedures, and I’m glad to hear you’ll be reminding the staff to mention the gate closure moving forward.

That said, I do feel it’s important to emphasize that relying solely on small signage is not sufficient communication for something as important as restricted access to the property. As a first-time guest, I relied on the check-in process and the website to understand key details, and neither made this information clear. Having this information buried in an FAQ section or on small signage (which I only noticed after I was packed up) isn’t enough, especially when it involves an access code guests wouldn’t even know to ask for without being informed.

In my opinion, critical details like gate closure times and after-hours access should be clearly highlighted on the website, mentioned during check-in, and included in booking confirmations...not left to signage that can easily be missed, especially when guests arrive excited, distracted, or in a rush to set up. This isn’t just about avoiding inconvenience, it’s a significant safety and security issue. Thankfully, I had friends nearby, but otherwise I would have been in a much more difficult and unsafe situation as a young woman alone at night, with no where to stay...simply due to a lack of information which is very easy to rectify. I don't understand why this detail is not more clearly outlined on your website.

I hope this feedback is taken constructively, because as I mentioned, the campground itself is beautiful, but this was a significant miss.

Thank you again...

We stayed here for three weeks in July and enjoyed our visit. We find the staff super friendly and they Do a great job of keeping everything clean and tidy.

We love the fact that the cafe Donates all proceeds to a charity - this is the first Campground cafe that we Saw that did this, and we have travelled 55,000 km the past year.

The sites are very spacious and although it is a big campground you do not feel like it is. There is great trees that gives you that sense of privacy, lots of room in each site to move around.

There’s lots of trails to explore. The river is great for taking your kayaks or SUPS down for a paddle and if you do not have one they have kayaks to rent which is a bonus.

There are basketball courts, and lots of Campground “Roads” for kids to ride your bike around or you can venture two minutes From the campsite and bike under the Hydro lines.

There’s great swimming spots to bring your dog as they are not allowed on the campground beach. Close enough where you still feel like you’re in the campground.

It’s a very quick drive into town or a 20/25 minute bike ride. Close to the fairies to go check out some of the islands; one of our favourites is to go to New Castle for the day. However we did make a quick trip over to Galiano, picked up a pizza and watch the sunset :-)

There’s a grocery store, liquor store, pharmacy and hardware store within walking distance.

The only couple of issues we had were as follows;

there was a short trail behind our campsite that led down to the path that goes along the water. People thought it would be a good idea to use our campsite as a cut through. We did make a suggestion to the staff to have a sign or something at the bottom that reminds people that it is a private campsite and not a walking path. They were very receptive so I Believe that this will be corrected.

The second item is the traffic on check in and check out. It’s not so much the traffic but there’s a lot of times when two trailers are head to head and there’s nowhere to move over for one to pass. I’m not sure how this can be fixed as it would be very difficult to make some of these roads one way. You just have to make sure you go very slow and be courteous...