Old Federal Campground — Hotel in Buford

We’ve gone to Old Federal for years. The campsites are really large and spacious and you’re not on top of other campers. This is ALL this campground has going for it. First, the campground doesn’t have sewer hookup so if you’re staying for more than a few days you’re going to have to dump. That means either unhooking and dragging the camper to the dump station or using a portable bladder. We always stay close to a bath house so we can limit the amount of water we use which brings me to the second issue. The bath house we stayed by has been out of order all summer. We were not alerted to this until we arrived, set up and then had to run to the restroom. Yes, there are other restrooms in the campground, but we picked our site for two reasons 1) proximity to the bath house and 2) a beach to slide the pontoon up on. That brings me to problem number three. You can no longer slide the boat onto the beach areas. You can’t tie to the rock walls either. The only option you have is to tie one end of your boat to a tree and anchor the other end in the water. Not real convenient when you have little ones or if you’re going out on a night time cruise without the intentions of getting wet. The issues I’ve listed so far are all new issues. The ones that have bothered me from years past are this: the “no alcohol” rule, 3 car maximum rule and the staff. I’ll come back to the staff and the 3 car minimum rule in a minute. The fact that my husband and I can’t sip a glass of wine outside our camper while watching the sun set is ridiculous. Why can’t we have alcohol? I mean, I understand if people are getting drunk and crazy, but you just deal with those people as the need arises. They can easily contact the park ranger to report disturbances. It’s just an absurd rule that I think is broken every single day. Now, as promised, let me get back to the staff. These people are not friendly - period. When you arrive, you do not feel welcome at all. They spout off the rules and send you in your way. If you just show up and request a site, they can’t help you. They don’t know how to use the computer that’s sitting on the counter. You literally have to call some other place to get a reservation and then they’ll let you in. The three car rule makes sense if the park is packed, but they won’t flex a little on that rule even if the park is empty. We usually leave a car at the boat ramp with the boat trailer attached to it - so we only have one car at the camp site. If our two adult kids come up, one has to park at the baseball field up the road and we have to go get him to keep from breaking their three car rule and remember one car is at the boat ramp which is right in front of their guard shack in full vision. It’s dumb. They’re hateful. And I’m mad. These people clearly don’t understand that people go there to relax and vacation. Nobody wants to deal with a stubborn, unhappy person who has a million rules their entire vacation. We won’t be back and I’m sure if they were reading this that they’re really happy. And while I’m at it, let me mention their curfew. 10:30 pm is when the gates are closed and locked. You can’t come or go without going to their camper and knocking on the door. We have stayed at other Lanier campgrounds where they leave the “out” gate unlocked and suggest coming in through that gate if it’s after hours. No problem. But not Old Federal. And get this, we had some people come up for the day to celebrate my daughters birthday (no worries - we booked three sites to be sure we had enough parking!) and the staff harassed them every time the came or left through the gate telling them that the curfew was 9:30 and that they had to be gone by then....??? Huh??? 9:30? Posted on a sign at the entrance it says 10:30. Whatever. We...

Worst camping experience of my life! Beautiful grounds with racist attendants. My friends and I were chased off the grounds by the older couple that works the gate. They came down to our campground from the office to lie to us. They insisted if we left the campground early they would charge us $600! I had made it clear that we were only using the grounds during the day, initially a couple people were supposed too stay over but stuff came up. They told us they didn't handle money or cancellations either, which they did cancel my reservation later so this was obviously not true. After much panic, an actual ranger was sent to us, at which point we learned everything the older couple had told us was not true. This was appalling, they had made up fees and things just to get us to cancel our reservation and leave. The ranger was extraordinarily helpful, got us checked out and everything. On our way out I went to confront the older couple, at which point they said the ranger was lying.... I've been camping enough to know there's no $600 fee. So at this point everyone was angry and shouting. The older woman screamed at my friend "do not speak" as I was the one who booked it so she refused to speak to anyone else. At this point I brought up the fact that I felt it was based on discrimination, as we hadn't even been there long enough to even have done something wrong. The couple at this point insisted they did not know what our group looked like, even though each car had to check-in at the office individually for our specific campground and the older man had been down to our campground. When I pointed this out they ordered me and my friend out of the office and off the grounds. If they weren't racist, I would've expected an apology, rather than a get out! And if they're not racist, they're finding a way to charge campers $600, so they've got a scam going then? There's something just so off about the way they handled the situation. Absolutely disgusting! The older couple running the gate should not remain working for a federal park if they cannot serve the community equally, as the community equally pays for the park. Oh cherry on top, it...

The good: many many beautiful views of the lake from almost all of the campsites. Even though the water may not be accessible from your campsite, you can be sure there's a nearby beach to swim or paddle from. The waterfront areas are cleared with mowed lawns: this gives you a breeze and keeps the bugs down.||||The bad: this campsite is run by the army corps of engineers and while they do have some good campsites, this one is not well run. It receives a lot of weekend traffic. The campsite hosts are running the gate and they don't have access to the ridiculously restrictive registration system on rec.gov. so they can't change your reservation, make adjustments or even tell if you've GOT a reservation until the day of. Really the only thing they can do is look up your reservation and give you a gate pass, and then hassle you if you don't check out on time. ||||The campground has almost a hundred sites and just three bath houses, one of which is not working and has been out of order for (I am told) about a year. Since the second bathhouse is overused and doesn't smell very clean, I made it a point to use the third bath house, which was farthest away from my campsite. I got into the sad habit of driving the 3/4 mile whenever I had an urgent need to go to the bathroom. ||||The ugly: the overworked and probably untrained Campground hosts of this busy Campground develop an attitude & tend to get snippy. One day I had to move campsites due to reservation restrictions. There is a three-hour window between check-out and check-in, and the campground host adamantly refused to allow me on-site parking even though there were about 30 extra spaces available. My impression from camping at various campgrounds this summer is that army corps staffs their campgrounds with volunteer retired people who are untrained and unsuited to work with the reservation system - then doesn't give them the tools to do their job. It also looks like they're cutting corners on maintenance and upkeep. Can you say...