Burlington / Anacortes KOA Holiday — Hotel in Burlington

I was excited there was still availability days before memorial day, that should have been a red flag but I was excited to find a place to camp as our original plans fell through due to weather. I called and spoke with Carol to get a few questions answered and she was very unenthusiastic each time I called (3 times). I wanted to put a tent on my RV site, as I have done at other KOA locations, but was told this isn't allowed and that I have to book another site if we wanted to have a tent despite my site have enough space and occupants to accommodate a tent. We ended up spending an additional $168 so that we could have a tent for a couple that was with us. I was unhappy when the site next to us put up a tent on their RV site, which was hidden and employees apparently did not notice it. If you have a policy ENFORCE IT for everyone. The store was ridiculous and had limited supplies. I understand it's memorial day weekend but wouldn't an established KOA know what to expect and have sufficient inventory? Not this place. The hours of the store are ridiculous as they do not open until 10. As check out is at 11 I would think they would open up earlier so purchases can be made for breakfast supplies and such. I often choose KOA because they have a pool and hot tub at many locations. This KOA does as well and a wristband is required to use this amenity. During 1 of the times I was in the pool an employee questioned why my child did not have their wristband. I told them we did have it with our towels as it had come off. This seemed to be enough as they did not ask me to show it but I did see adults in the pool without their wristbands and the employee said nothing to them so why was I singled out? Their hot tub is just odd. There is a wall dividing the hot tub and one side has jets while the other does not. There are signs all over saying no one under 18 is allowed but I saw children in them everytime I went to the pool. They also say no one under 16 allowed without supervision but I definitely saw kids in there alone. There is a bathroom inside the pool house and when I tried to use it on Sunday morning around 9am the main door was locked but I did not notice it as it had a padlock at the top of the door and there was no sign saying closed for cleaning, there was also no sign outside listing the hours that cleaning is to be done, like they have on the other bathrooms and at check in I was told this particular bathroom is open 24/7. I understand it has to be cleaned, but a sign informing guests when it would be unavailable would be useful. On Sunday afternoon a foam activity was put on for guests in the grass field by the basketball hoops. I assume people went to shower off after this muddy grassy event was done as there was grass inside the pool house showers afterwards and this was not cleaned by the late evening so they clearly don't check bathrooms throughout the day.The men's room in the bathroom by the office had a dirty/disgusting stall (according to my husband) Sunday morning and it was still dirty on Monday when we checked out. The womens bathroom also appeared to have water damage, as their ceiling tiles have a very large brown ring in the corner near the showers (these showers had been redone recently and are much nicer than the pool house showers). This KOA seems to only care about making money. They do not allow you to bring your own wood. I am local and the wood we brought was purchased from a store and was pest free wood so I do not understand why I should have to buy their $6.50 bundles. The final issue I have, which to my husband is the worst off all, was when we went to dump, there was no water to rinse off your sewage hoses. We did find an employee and we were told apparently they had a leak so they shut off the water. They did turn it back on so we could rinse our hoses but I saw 10+ RV'S before us who likely were not able to rinse their hoses and that is UNACCEPTABLE. This KOA is open year round so I am baffled why there were so many issues on the biggest camping weekend of the year. We will...

I have never written a review for any business or negative experience I have had in the past.

However, I feel that it is important to write a review about our experience at the Burlington KOA this last weekend. In doing so, I hope to spare another family the negative hostile treatment that we received from the lady owner.

We were looking forward to going camping with our extended family and had reserved 3 campsites, and 1 deluxe cabin. Our family loves KOAs and has been camping at this particular KOA many times. My mom made the reservations for all of us. Since we have been there before, she requested the corner camp site for her RV and two tent sites right next to the corner.

My parents arrived a day early and set up their RV. When we arrived there was confusion on our camp sites. The office staff was thinking that since we requested the corner site and my parents parked in the middle site that we would need to split up our tent sites on either side of their RV. We have 4 teenagers and reserved 2 campsites for 2 tents. The campsites are small and we wanted to have 2 for more room and we did not want our kids to be split up on either side of the RV.

Our kids went to go get my mom to help sort everything out. We arrived on a Thursday and the campground was very empty, there were open sites open all around my parent's RV.

When my mom arrived, she explained that the site that they parked in is what she considered the corner camp site; this is what she had in mind all along. Carol, one of the KOA employees was extremely helpful. She realized what the problem was (they were thinking my mom wanted the entire corner). It was just a very simple misunderstanding that was very easy to fix. She said it was no problem at all to move things around.

However, the owner overheard our conversation and got involved saying that my mom parked in the wrong spot, therefore, we had the two sites on either side of her motorhome. She was extremely hostile, loud and rude and would not back down. She pointed her finger at us saying that we could leave. My mom said we are not leaving we reserved four campsites and we just need to get it figured out. At that time the owner received a phone call and we were able to finish up with Carol, who was very gracious, apologizing and trying to make up for the extremely rude behavior that we had received from the owner.

The campground is very pricey; our family dropped off close to $1,000.00 for four sites for 3 days. This KOA charges $5.00 for each extra person, extra vehicle, etc. They had a root beer float night and charged for the root beer floats even though they were being sponsored by a local business. They gave out 1 scoop of ice cream and half a cup of root beer.

Please don't get me wrong, there are many nice employees at this KOA. However, the new owners (the lady owner) give the campground a hostile, prickly feeling. Not anything like warm fuzzy, happy feelings that we have experienced in the past.

If you are looking for a quick place to pull into to spend the night, this KOA might be a good place to stay. As long as you do not need anything extra, have any concerns or need to deal with the lady owner in any way.

But, if you are looking for a warm, friendly, place that cares about people, has good customer service then I would suggest that you find another campground. We heard from another source that the owner often reacts in a hostile manner. If we have a problem or concern while we are camping, a hostile, rude attitude is not something that we want our family to have to experience from the KOA staff. During the remainder of our stay the owner never acknowledged or apologized for her very rude and unacceptable behavior. She continued to be rude, glaring at our family, etc. We will be looking for other options in the future. And I would encourage you to do...

Checked in for two nights on Friday 18th . Checked out the next morning due to excessive , continuous barking dogs. All night. All morning.

Went to reception with a migraine & asked if the barking stops and another customer had beat me to it as he was also complaining & asking what the issue is with the dogs.

The lady had the audacity to say ‘ oh it’s because you are stood here ‘ and every time someone goes past it sets them off. This is as in reception so where else would we be stood. lol. She asked us to call the police and report it but we are on a weekend away so why should customers be the ones to deal with an ongoing issue they are having. While I sympathise to an extent as the dogs are not on the Koa property it is clearly an issue that is affecting customers & it shouldn’t be up to us to confront the dog owners or call the police. One of the comments from reception was ‘ you can confront them but I wouldn’t recommend it ‘ But owners that allow their dogs to bark excessively 24/7 tell me exactly what kind of people they are and I certainly wouldn’t be confronting them. It’s a really hard one as it clearly is damaging the business but there was no apology or sympathy from the older lady and they should put something on the website to warn of this noise and if they are getting so many complaints they should re-think where the tent pitches go. The property is big enough but you allocate the tents right by where the dogs are and right by a kids playground. I won’t even get started on the delightful parents that allowed their kids to throw loads of stones from the ground down the plastic slide first thing in the morning also making excessive noise. As annoying as that was it wasn’t a continuous noise like the dogs. But reception refused me and the other customer a refund for the night we chose not to stay. No refunds no refunds. That’s all we were told so customer satisfaction is not high on their agenda and now will be disputing the entire charge through our credit card complaint for goods / services not as described along with the many videos I recorded at different times of the dogs. They could have just refunded the night we weren’t staying as a goodwill gesture but they instead chose to be dismissive and do not care at all. The younger girl on reception was more apologetic and sympathetic as we were leaving but other older woman had already left us deeply unsatisfied with the whole encounter. If you are considering tents in pitches 90-100 then honestly don’t bother. Advertised as relax & play & going by other reviews very strict on the rules and we had to Laugh at the ‘don’t allow your dogs to bark ‘ and the quiet hours yet they cannot even show example buy doing this themselves. Ruined our whole weekend Could have been lovely had they allocated the tents over the other side of the camp site & again while I sympathise to an extent for having to tolerate that kind of noise continuously you cannot penalise customers for not being willing to put up with it after paying to stay here. Regardless of who is at fault it was very clear that this is a major issue and has been for a while so the customers should have the right to request a refund if this is the experience as it’s not what is advertised & not what we come away to listen to. I will be contacting our credit card company on Monday to dispute for a full refund and submitting the videos as evidence...