Bald Ridge Creek Campground — Hotel in Cumming

It's painful for me to have to rate this place so poorly. I've been camping at this beautiful facility with my family for 20 years. The Corps let it really go downhill the last few years, and our first visit with Forsyth County in charge last spring was incredibly improved. Everything was clean and the installation of gates made everything much smoother. There was an employee who accused the group of families who were camping with us of defecating in the showers, but we were eventually able to show her that the feces was backing up from the pipes and they probably needed to get a plumber out.

Well, hold your horses. This time we realized at the beginning of the week a hurricane was coming. A few of our friends had decided they couldn't justify the expense of camper rentals for their four-night stays if 2-3 of the nights were going to be too dangerous, so a few canceled. A few asked if they would be able to come on Saturday and the gate attendant said no. Fair enough; they hadn't paid to come. Somehow, however, the attendant decided that our group intended to cram the campground full with all the families who had canceled in order to cheat the campground out of their facility fees.

She started harassing every family who checked in, accusing them of nasty things from scamming the campground to adultery (I wish I were kidding!). She told the park rangers we had exceeded capacity, when the average number of people on our sites was only 5. She claimed we were blocking bathrooms even though there were always at least three spaces open. One family who had paid for a reservation came in on the second day because of medical difficulties and she told them she was not going to let them in because they were over capacity - they absolutely were not - and threatened to fine them $200 and ban them for a year! When she relented and they asked what time the gates were closed because their adult son needed to come in after work, she refused to tell them. She told several of my friends, who are literally the sweetest people I have ever met in my life and I've never heard raise their voice or be rude to anyone in decades of friendship, that they were the rudest people she ever met. She kept making up rules that didn't exist, like banning us from parking at the beach or from bringing in visitors even though they were pre-planned official visitors of sites that had plenty of extra capacity and the rules specifically allow visitors until 9:30. If she decided to grant an exception to her made-up rules, she acted like she was doing a great favor to a truly offensive transgressor, and that they were lucky they weren't getting fined $200 and banned for a year.

This woman is in the wrong job. She has no business working directly with customers. I see from other reviews in the past year that she has been abusing other guests, as well. Several of the vendors who delivered RVs for some of our families also said she is the rudest person they've ever seen at a campground.

Forsyth County has to do something about this situation. She either needs retraining or...

After deciding last minute on Wednesday to go camping this weekend, I found that this place was the only place with 1 site left to reserve within 200 miles. So, I booked it. I took my daughter (8) on Friday night after work and my wife was to join me on Saturday afternoon after soccer games with the other kids. The campground is amazing! Very nice and clean. The sites were filled with families enjoying their weekends! Kids making new friends and playing together and grown-ups swapping stories about life. HOWEVER, as it seems to be the case more often than not lately around the Corps of Engineer campgrounds, the "Campground Hosts" are a couple of battle axes that have the personalities of a freshly kicked badger. They were the talk of the campers in our loop...one guy had a large group of family with him and the host REFUSED to rent him a site to expand to because he "already had a site in his name". This site and about 4 others on our loop alone remained EMPTY all weekend. I don't want to hear anymore crap about this campground isn't making enough money! Are you kidding? At $32/night, they are already expensive, but to have someone wanting to rent a site for the weekend and be refused??? Only to keep it empty all weekend? After the camper expressed his feelings on the situation, it became the hosts priority to harass this guy all weekend...constantly driving by his site, looking for anything to hound him about...1 tire of the six on his vehicle/boat trailer was off the paved drive and on the dirt...key word dirt. The host called a park ranger 2 days later to make sure he was ticketed. (Park Ranger only wrote a warning, though). Constant harassment about where he could park his boat, his family’s vehicles (site limit is 3, so we allowed one to stay on our site). Mind you, he TRIED to get another site to better accommodate his group and was REFUSED. We'll stay there again, and make sure the "Gate Nazi" has a job for the season, but the Corps really needs to screen these people. THE HOST chose this career path, if he doesn't like it, go do something else!!! Quit making our weekends miserable because you...

The campground itself is beautiful, and under normal circumstances I would give it 5 stars. Unfortunately, my recent stay was overshadowed by the conduct of the host, Cindy.

Because of a family emergency, I arrived the following morning at 9:00 a.m. According to the posted rules, sites are held until noon the next day, so my reservation was valid. Instead of honoring it, the host blocked my entry, accused me of being “rude,” and told me I had to wait until 2:00 p.m. when the gatehouse “opens” — a rule that does not exist in writing. She sent hostile text messages and even threatened to cancel my stay and " You can also be banned from ALL Forsyth County Parks".

When I was finally allowed in at 2:00 p.m., Cindy invented another rule, saying I had only one hour to set up my tent. She then drove to my site during the thunderstorm, shouting that I was “breaking the rules” by waiting in my car for safety. Moments later, she called the Sheriff’s Office again — and three patrol cars arrived. Deputies pressured me to set up my tent while lightning was still active, which was unsafe and i refused. They also thoroughly inspected my site, found no violations, and eventually agreed that I could set up the tent later, once the storm had passed.

The host repeatedly fabricated rules not found in the guidelines, created a hostile and intimidating environment, and misused law enforcement.

I have filed a formal complaint with Forsyth County Parks & Recreation and with the Sheriff’s Office. I also see many other Google Reviews describing similar problems with this same host.

This campground deserves 5 stars — but not until there...