Avila Pismo RV Resort & Campground — Hotel in Grover Beach

I have camped for many many years in numerous campgrounds/RV parks throughout the country. This is the first time I have ever written a negative review. The overall campground is nice. The sites are a bit small but that is true of many RV parks. My complaint about the Avila KOA is the staff. They make you feel like you are a bother to them that you are there. We arrived at 12:36 pm. I went to check in. The worker said "check in is at 1:00 pm." I responded "is the site available?" She said "it doesn't matter if the site is available, you can't check in until 1:00 pm." I said "do you have a suggestion as to what I can do until 1:00." She said "you can't wait here, you can go park in the dirt lot next to us." She made me feel very unwelcome. Not a good way to make a first impression. I came back after 1:00 to check in. I was assigned site 25. I could see the site from where I parked to check in. I started to proceed to the site. A worker said to me "where are you going?" I said "to site 25." She said "you can't go on your own, you need to wait here for someone to escort you." A little while later an escort came and had me follow him the less than 50 feet to the site where he then supposedly was going to help me back into the site. I have backed into more sites than I can possibly remember. I started to line myself up to back in. The worker didn't like the way I was lined up to get into the site, so he made me back up on the street and then pull forward on an angle. I easily backed in and thought everything was okay. I was wrong. The escort said "I didn't think you would be able to get in the way you lined up" . He seemed disappointed that I was able to get lined up along the edge of the site so easily without his guidance. I thought we were all done backing into the site. Yet the escort kept having me pull forward and go backwards numerous times. At one point I asked what he was trying to accomplish. He said "I want to get you to the very end of the site." I was finally backed into the site in the exact spot he wanted me. I unhitched my truck from the trailer and was eagerly looking forward to sitting down with a beer. Moments later another worker comes by and said to me "you need to move your trailer, you are backed up too far." I said "I just backed up to the exact spot the escort told me to go." She said "well, I will talk to him, but now you need to move because this weekend you will be to close to another trailer in the site behind you." I said we weren't even staying through the weekend. That didn't matter. I still had to hitch up and move the trailer. The next day we (my wife and I) were in the general store. A boy probably about 10 or 11 years old came in the store. The worker said "you can't be in here without your mom." The boy responded "my mom is the one who sent me in here." She raised her voice and said "I don't care, children aren't allowed in here without a parent so get out." The boy left the store. As he was running back to his site a different worked yelled at the boy "no running." A little while later I was in my trailer and I see a worker knocking on the door of the trailer next me. The worker said to the camper "are you staying tonight?" The camper said "no". The worker than angrily said "check out time is 11:00 and it is now after 11:00 so get out of here now." I looked at my cell phone and the time was 11:01 am. The camper said "we are just finishing breakfast and will be leaving soon." The worker got even madder after that and yelled "we got a lot of other campers coming in today, so you better hurry up and get out of here right now." The entire time at the campground it seems like there are workers everywhere. They never seem to be there to help or answer questions. It seems like they are just waiting to yell you about some rule. By far the worst employees I have even seen at...

Dear Michele R. (Owner) - You all have a 3.8 google review & 2.5 average Yelp reviews for a reason and until you become more open to hearing & making changes to your customer reviews, I hate to say your reviews won’t increase in a positive way. You seem to only believe your Mgmt staff who are not accurately sharing the “facts” as you have said. You may offer a good location but that’s it in many of your customers eyes. Unfortunately, many have experienced a terrible customer experience along with being treated with rudeness by your management staff. They breed a rude and defensive customer response/experience for so many. Alan/Terry Mgmt combo are doing your park a disservice on dealing with many customers with a poor customer interaction, rudeness, and making threats almost as if they enjoy bullying or power trip tactics with their customers. They DO NOT listen or want to listen and be open to constructive feedback. I will share there are some staff who are kind and respectful and some of them have shared they don’t feel or treat people like their management team.

I will proceed in sending a detailed letter to KOA corporate along with the CEO, Toby O’Rourke, on asking for their support and if they hold franchise owners accountable for not upholding KOA customer standards that many members, like ourselves, have received from other KOA locations. We will ask them to help with getting you to take a closer look at what you are defending and to help getting your KOA standards and customer experience up to what your KOA customers/members deserve and expect.

We understand that your Avila management team may have endured plumbing issues this summer but the best way to handle it is to be kind and respectful along with saying “I’m sorry for this inconvenience”. A sincere apology goes along way. We did not receive one. In fact, we received immediate defensiveness upon our arrival with the situation. We all pay a pretty penny for being able to use ALL the amenities including your bathrooms. We understand situations arise but how you handle your customers is key and you are failing based on so many negative reviews.

I want to highlight my biggest reason for this negative review and would say the most significant issue we had was shockingly very rude customer service which lead me to being very frustrated because we felt either not listened to and/or yelled at by your staff especially Alan and Terry. This treatment was often for so many customers, including us, that myself and so many witnessed. I will say, I, the customer, took the higher road, went to try to explain my frustration, apologized (but no apology from him for his actions) and tried to calmly explain our customer issues we experienced and he kept saying “keep it short” or “we are done here” and continued to threaten my stay. Whatever happened to giving the customer the benefit of the doubt by listening or better yet “the customer is important/right” attitude? I have never been treated this way and we vacation often and stay in many 5 star places along with KOA campgrounds.

Other issues besides extreme rudeness by Mgmt, poor customer experience, and plumbing listed above were:

Dirty bathrooms - never have we seen dirty bathrooms on any KOA location including yours until this time around.

Dirty sites - When you clean up the sites, how hard would it be to clean an over abundance of webs on partition fences?

Serious ant infestation - can your park please obtain regular, safe pest control for your ant infestation that you may want blame on customers but please look into the root of these ants and you will notice they are coming from the sites and running up the stabilizers of rigs and getting into...

It's been a couple weeks since our stay at the Avila KOA. We stayed in one of the KOA cabins and it was my husband, toddlers (ages 3&4), and myself. I have so many positive things to say about this place. FYI this will be a long review.

The campground is clean and quiet. -This is definitely more of a family site and I really liked that. No smoking which is great considering I have two small kids and I'm pregnant. -Our cabin was clean, floors swept, no cobwebs, no dust, beds made, towels folded in cabinet, everything was wiped down and ready for us. -The shower rooms, which we ended up not having to use since we had a full bathroom in our cabin but we did go in a couple times to use the bathroom and they were always clean. -The dumpsters were never overflowing and everything was maintained nicely.

The campground is set up really nicely especially for family. -They have movies behind the pool on a projector screenand have candy and popcorn. -The pool is a pretty decent size and there is a hot tub although the kids can't use it (which was fine by me). -There is a dog park for anyone staying in a camper or rv (pets aren't permitted in the cabins). -There is a outdoor play ground which my kids enjoyed. -There is a nice walking path and along the path there are picnic tables, lawn chairs, grills, and fire tables. (the campus is no wood burning but anything else is fine) -Nothing is super far away on the campus and there is also a little store that has basically anything you need. We had to buy a couple things we forgot there.

The location is fantastic. -It is just a minute off the freeway, 5 minutes from Avila, 8/10ish minutes from Shell & Pismo, The Barn petting zoo is right across the street, and downtown SLO is only 15/20minutes. -Even though it's close to everything you still feel like you're tucked away. It's really nice.

The staff was incredibly nice. -When we checked in the lady was really sweet and gave us a bunch of information and went over all the rules with us and made sure to answer any questions we had. -We had the pancake breakfast and the guy who was making breakfast was really sweet and the breakfast was only $5 a plate which included two huge pancakes, sausage, and fresh fruit. Pancakes were so big we only got 2 plates and we all shared. -Any time we had to buy something from the store there was always someone there to point us in the right direction and answer questions.

What we got for the price was a steal. -For us, staying at the cabins was cheaper than renting an air bnb. -The cabin we stayed at had a master bedroom with a small TV, and closet. -There was a full bathroom that was stocked with towels, wash cloths, tub stopper so we could give the kids a bath, and even a disposable shower cap(luckily since I forgot mine). -The kids also had their own bunk room which is a tiny little room but has a twin bunk in there and a small closet. My kids were both small enough to share the bottom twin but they loved having their own little room. Sheets and extra blankets we're provided for all the beds. -We also had a full kitchen which they provided everything besides food and drinks literally (utensils, pots pans, plates, bowls, cups, mugs, pizza cutter, toaster, coffee pot, microwave, fridge obviously, sponge, dish soap, trash cans, and a broom and dustpan) -There was also a cute little dining room table with 2 chairs and a sofa and another comfy chair in the living room. There was also a tv with cable.

Overall, we had a great little relaxing get away. We will definitely be back maybe with friends and family next time. I highly recommend this campground if you're looking for a quiet family vacation and you're not trying to...