Fort Collins / Lakeside KOA Holiday — Hotel in Four Corners States

There are a lot of really good things about Fort Collins / Lakeside KOA. The sites are laid out nicely. It's clean, although I haven't used their bathroom or shower facilities. The dog park is fairly well maintained and people actually use it. There's a nice walking / fitness trail around their lake. Some of the dead trees have been decorated with paintings of African wildlife by one of the staff (a work camper, perhaps?), and they are amazing.

My husband has interacted with the staff more than I have, so I'll leave that opinion up to him for now; although, those I've talked to so far have been very nice, including one work camper who I met with her dog at the dog park.

Now, unfortunately, for the downside ...

Their website indicates that they have WiFi, which is very misleading. I'm using my cell phone hotspot to post this review because their WiFi is all but nonexistent. I do volunteer work that requires me to be able to monitor my emails, and I can't get access to their WiFi. Also, because of the location, my cell signal (AT&T) is oftentimes only 4G, which means that it's not very dependable and doesn't always allow me access to the internet.

The flyer containing their Guest Policies that they hand out when you check in states, "Wi-Fi usage is a privilege and is subject to all federal regulations. Campground is not responsible for establishing wi-fi connections. Our internet service is not meant for heavy downloads like streaming videos or movies." If this is the case, then they need to remove that as an amenity on their website. Not only can you not stream videos, which is a minor inconvenience, but you also won't be able to do something as rudimentary as accessing your email.

The second pretty important restriction here is the fee for guests. They charge $10 for any guest regardless of when they arrive or whether or not they intend to use the amenities. Their KOA website states: "Even if your visitors will only be staying at your site for a few minutes, and even if they will not be using any of the facilities, each person must pay the extra person fee of $10, which will entitle them to use all of the facilities." They won't budge on this.

My 89-year-old father would like to come up and visit us, and I can guarantee he's not interested in the pool, paddle boats or bouncy house.

It would be much more accommodating to use wrist bands for people who want to pay to access the amenities. Their current policy makes it clear that they don't want guests here and/or they're only interested in taking in as much revenue as they can. The rate for this KOA is already relatively high with RV sites running from $42 to $95 / night. Tent sites are anywhere from $45-50/night, and their cabins run from $73 to $190/night.

Finally, we travel with two dogs, and we have a lightweight fence that we set up around our RV "yard" so the dogs don't feel so confined and we can have a more relaxing stay with them. This sort of setup is not allowed here because of the sprinkler system. I can't downgrade the campground too much for this because I do understand how hard it is to grow grass in this arid climate. However, people who are coming here need to know that their campsites are subject to a number of restrictions that you might not expect. Besides the dog fence, we are not allowed to have:

screen rooms unless approved by management mats or rugs, even the breathable kind

This is a very nice campground, don't get me wrong, but they should clearly state on their website that the wifi is not to be depended on. If you're like us and spend an extended amount of time in one location and need to have access to the internet for any reason, you will probably want to find a different place to stay.

I'm sorry to say that their $10/guest policy coupled with the very poor internet access has left a bad impression for me despite this being one of the nicest KOAs I've visited. It would be in their own best interest to revise their guest policy and/or improve their wifi connectivity. I'm not the first one to complain about...

This was our first stay at a KOA in the 5 weeks we have been on the road and of all the campgrounds we have stayed in, this was the most disappointing. We decided to splurge on this one at $160 a night (most we have ever paid by far and we have stayed at some nice places). The reason for the $160 a night was because we would have our own private hot tub in our site. At $160 we had really high expectations of a nice campground with a clean hot tub, we were so wrong. Driving into the park you are met with conveyor belt machines on both sides of the entrance road. Like driving through an aggregate mine. OK, so the entrance is was a bit ugly, we were still looking forward to seeing what $160 a night campground site looks like. Registering was easy and the staff was friendly (the only reason they got a second star). After registering, we drove to our site and the whole place felt more like a run-down trailer park than an RV park, complete with clothes lines and stacked up junk in some of the sites. It was obvious that they have many long term residents living in the park. After we got backed into our site, my wife had touched the fence very lightly and the plastic post cap fell right off. Much of the fence in our site was missing some basic maintenance. I’m thinking “No big deal, we are only here a couple of nights, just get me to the hot tub.” I had to pull 4 large cobble stones off the top of the tub just to get the lid open, and once opened all you could see was debris floating around everywhere in the nasty water. There was no way my wife or I would dare get in that tub. We went to the office and told them the issue, they responded by sending a guy to work in our camp site until after 8PM draining and refilling the tub, only to start it back up and even more debris came out of the jets and he said. Just go to the office in the morning and they will make it right. The next morning I went to the office and they said they would only charge me the cost of a perimeter site without a hot tub, I was not happy with the response as I remembered that the non-hot tub site were $45 less and there was not a site in this campground worth $115 a night. But it didn’t end there. They did some hocus-pocus on the refund placing very odd charges and then deducting them on 2 different receipts that were emailed to me, the receipts made no sense at all, so I went inside the office when I was leaving to clarify the charges and credits they were placing on my credit card. They explained that they compared the cost of my site against another perimeter site that didn’t have a hot tub and there was only a $40 difference. I told them that online it showed a $45 difference, and not only did we not get to use the hot tub, we had a campsite with staff working in it on the first day until the last day I was there. I told them this should not be considered some sort of premium site given everything that we have been through. They repeatedly stated “I understand” but they were not willing to do anything to correct the cost. I would not recommend anyone staying here unless they are super desperate for a night while you look different place to stay. BTW we found a much nicer place south of Fort Collins for $60 a night. The surprise was that this MUCH better place only...

I wish there was a negative star rating. This place is a nightmare with some rude and unplesant office staff. I strongly believe that they are deceptive and take advantage that other KoAs or RV parks get booked full and travelers have no other option but to booked with them. Their main concern is taking your MONEY. Care for service and providing a good customer experience is not in their list of priorities.

We booked with this campground because all other KoAs were full. They advertised wifi services and I was in need of doing some work. But the entire 3 days that we were there, the internet service didn't work AT ALL. Zero connectivity. On the first day, I went into the office and spoke with Susie. She proceeded to tell me in a very condescending tone that the service is less reliable as more people get connected. When I told her that there was no connection at all, she said, again in a rude tone, "well is free. You are not paying for it ". I was taken aback by the comments. I'm an IT professional and know very well how wifi works and if I needed to pay to obtain this service, I would. This was not about whether I paid for the wifi or not. She also said that their KoA is unique and offers amenities not found at other KoAs. I didn't see anything unique about this KoA and as a matter of fact, I have seen much better quality and variety at other KoAs. At the end, I upgraded to a hotspot package with my cell service provider and used that to connect. I asked to talk to a supervisor and I'm thankful that she did called me back. She advised me to contact the internet service provider directly because they didn't deal with the wifi issues. Once I explained to her that I wanted to talk about the way I was treated not so much about the wifi, she apologized for the way I was treated and said she will speak with Susie. Not sure if that happened because the lady saw me the next day and didn't even acknowledge that I was standing there.

The other incident that left us with a sour taste in our mouths was how they charge 10 dollars per person per day for guests. To me, I thought that meant for people that come to stay the night with you. I had family that drove 2 hours to come have dinner with us (just a couple hours tops) and they had to pay 10 dollars each. We were told that there are no exceptions and that with the $10 fee, they could use the ammenities. Well, it was raining and ALL of the ammenities were CLOSED. I understand that there are rules for a reason but this should be clearly posted on their website so that people can make a conscious decision when making reservations or inviting guests to visit.

I would stay away from this place if you can find a reservation somewhere else. For my fellow RV travelers, don't believe the lie that this...