Austin Lone Star — Hotel in Austin

Overall: I originally booked an annual agreement to stay at Lonestar as I was relocating from Tampa, FL to Austin, TX. After driving halfway across the country I arrive during a downpour to find that even though I had called THAT DAY to confirm my reservation, gotten the confirmation text message and responded to it, that my welcome packet and access keys were not in the overnight box. After came a comedy of errors: incorrect info on my camper, my arrival date, unleveled sites, water outages, and constantly having to move sites because no one could figure out anything accurately because one person was on PTO - if Mary is on vacation and you’re looking for long-term stay, caution! On top of all it, I was blamed for the problems and not even apologized to by the manager until after multiple conversations I had to bring up that he hadn’t even apologized for all the problems - then a low toned insincere one was offered. I had to apologize for being frustrated just to get them working on a solution, instead of offering to refund me and for me to leave!

Service: Disorganized, zero accountability, poor communication, key man risk. If the response to all of my problems I encountered had been even remotely acceptable, it could have changed my experience but time. Problems happen, things go wrong - we all get that, but having been in client facing roles for over a decade I can definitively say that if I treated my clients the way I was treated here, I’d never work again. Especially if I had been the one who erred. The lone bright spot (or lone star, get it) is Mary. So if you must stay here, and you’re a long term stay, work directly with her and no one else.

Location: horrific. Frontage road of the busiest highway in the state of Texas, with construction going on for the foreseeable future. Even the simplest of errands can have you gone for 45 minutes, and due to the proximity to the highway and construction, the noise is constant and the banging sounds start quite early (now I was the closest site to the entrance/frontage road, to be fair)

Sites: Not great in my limited experience. I’ve only stayed at about 10 sites in my time with my camper, but these sites were the tightest, shortest, and closest to your neighbors than I’ve ever experienced. And on top of that the 2 I stayed in were not level. So even after parking and getting the stabilizer bars down the entire camper was slanted. The large gravel rocks were also a strange choice, so if I wanted to grill or be outside in my seating area I had to have shoes on. Should be grass or small gravel IMO.

Bright Spots: Mary, valet propane, and the bathhouse. Texas summers are very hot, and the bathhouse was pretty well taken care of - clean with nice cold A/C that they kept at a great temperature. Always smelled nice, looked nice, and good facilities that were pretty well taken care of. Valet propane, just set your tanks out they pick them up, fill them, and drop them back off. Kudos here.

Clearly some people have enjoyed their experience here, but my experience was extremely poor, and most of it was due to people who lacked accountability, empathy, and problem solving skills. To their credit, they (Mary) did ask me to leave a review knowing I had a poor experience, and waived some costs due to my experience. Do your due diligence, and make sure you triple check everything if you need to stay here. Everyday I was here, I felt like they wanted me gone, so that’s the...

It is difficult to rate this campsite since there were things that were good and things that were really bad.

Pros: Location is close to it all. The staff were friendly. The area is secured by a gate that requires a pin to enter the campsite for additional security. The perimeter is double secured by wood privacy fencing and wire fencing with barb wire for security. Lots are fairly level, and roads are pretty good. Amenities are reasonable but lack a few extra things. Pool is at the front next to all the traffic and homeless people walking by!

Cons: First, reservations for sites are odd since I reserved 3 months in advance and was not offered a better lot for a bigger rig with trees for shade. When I arrived, there were decent lots with trees and some that had older gravel and some lots that have posts way too close to the rv parking and may prevent slides/awnings from completely opening. Second, there are full timers that live there, and some people look fairly questionable. I had an old man follow us around when walking the pups, and when I turned to ask why he's following us with binoculars, he turned away like he was bird watching. Some of these full timers were moved to the back, which appear to be clean, but the perimeter of this campsite is still surrounded by apartments and trashy areas outside the fences. Third, there are very few grass areas, and one of the dog parks at the front closest to the highway has large ditches that bring all kinds of garbage from rain into the area. We found all kinds of nasty things! Fourth, and something they can't help, is that they are right next to a XXX store that is open 24/7 and has people in and out of there at all kinds of hours! Fifth, and something they can't help, is that their location off of I35 frontage road is under severe construction and backed up for miles, and the only way back to the campsite is back through 20 minutes of traffic. So if you forgot something, you will have to swing back around Slaughter Lane and down the frontage road and wait for 20 minutes in traffic since they closed down to one lane for about a mile right before the campsite. Seriously, Austin has been under construction for 20 years, and it does not look like they will be done with this place for another 20 years!

I hoestly would not stay here again due to the traffic! We spent most of our time in the car returning to the campsite. Traffic in Austin starts at 0630 and dies down after 2200 hours. I forgot my wallet one day and had to wrap around and come back to the campsite at around 0930 and took me 30 minutes because of traffic and my mistake. This spot may be nice once they finish up construction, but by the looks of progress, it will not likely happen for years! It would not be so bad if there was an access road to swing around from behind, but there are no roads leading to...

The first thing you see is a sign telling you to watch out for your mirrors as you approach the gate (which requires a code). My wife had to get out and walk around our truck to enter the gate code--I could not reach the touch-pad from the driver's seat w/o hitting something while our mirrors were extended. Roads are narrow with tight turns. We have 37 foot 5th wheel, and I was worried at times. Not sure how the big RV's made it through narrow driveway to their sites. Because of tight turn getting into our spot I had to back up and pull forward several times to get straight enough for slides to clear and to avoid large bushes and tall trees. Almost clipped electrical post that is very close to the main roadway. I took photos of previously damaged plastic table so we wouldn't be charged for it. No grill in our spot; saw grills in several other sites. My wife did laundry in nice clean facilities (a bit cramped, but sufficient) that are available 24/7. Glad we did not have to find laundromat in town. Layout of site was a bit awkward. You have to go all the way to the back, then drive the "wrong way" (as directed by signs) through the entire facility (facing incoming traffic) to get back out. I would not have made it past if I was pulling my trailer when I confronted another vehicle entering. Disappointed there was no cable. WIFI was too slow to use Amazon Prime for viewing. Okay for email and Google Maps though. A little hard to spot the entrance from freeway access road. Came upon us suddenly and couldn't stop fast enough the first time we saw it. We had to loop around again on freeway access roads. Can't blame RV site for the freeway construction, but that made for a very tight turn to enter the park while manoeuvring around barriers. Obviously we made it in and back out of the RV park. Just a little too close for...