Erie KOA Holiday — Hotel in McKean Township

The female owner (Sharon) seems to get enjoyment from going on a power trip screaming and dropping expletives in front of kids making them cry. We knew of the reviews before going but figured because we are such well manared family we would not have an issue and boy was that a mistake. We are avid campers and have been all up and down the east coast from Key West up to what I guess to be at least 75 campgrounds and never incurred such an unprofessional, ruthless, and self centered business owner! My brother in law was dropping my sister (they are seperating but are active in the kids lives) and kids off after a fishing charter, which he drove 2 hours to see the kids fish. He picked them (along with my daughter) up at the dock and drove them while me and my other brother in law waited for the fish to be cleaned to camp and was going to stay for a fish fry before going home. When they pulled in his son (who is 7) told him that I always turn right so that is what he did and parked at my sisters camper. They have a rule of registering while entering, my brother in law was unaware of (and quite frankly was the last thing on my sisters or anyone elses mind coming back from a day of fishing). Not 30 seconds later (according to my wife) the female owner came over on her yellow golf cart and started screaming at the top of her lungs and just threw him out instead of informing him of the rule. My brother in law said calm down I am going to pay and appologized several times… she just kept screaming in front of not only their kids (7 and 9 year olds) my 2 kids (7 and 9) and my sister in laws kids (7, 12, 15) and threw him out making him look like a murderer in front of his own kids! All the kids under 10 were bawling crying. Then to top it off as she backed away my other brother (whos camper she was screaming in front of) walked out of his camper and asked her what is going on? She flew off the handle pointing his finger at him stating “you’ll be the next one to leave”After this all hapened the other owner (husband Jamie) came over to talk to me and my sister and remind us of the rules. He seems to be very level headed and is generally a very nice hardworking guy. He admitted they are very strict with the rules (which from a cash flow standpoint and liability standpoint as a business owners we understand and stated to him so). What we do not agree with is how they (she) enforces these rules (flying off the handle at first interaction and going straight to throwing people out). We tried explaining this to Jamie and he just kept reiterating its our responsibility as campers to make sure visters are registered and its theft of services if we don’t. We said we understand but in 95% of every other campgrounds this rule is not enforced, but we don’t have an issue with them enforcing it (nicely). Our complaint was rather than wasting the energy and time (literally a 30 minute ordeal) debating with campers to instead go up (nicely) and reiterate about the rules and ask them to register. I guarantee you (based on my experience dealing with the public everyday) 95% of patrons would go register without incident. And the ones who don’t, thats when you remind them they are tresspassing (without screaming) and call the police if they refuse but it will only escalate to that 5% of the time probably less once you mention trespassing (without screaming). We tried explaining this and he said it shouldn’t be our responsibility and started going into how a gate cost $24,000. Jamie, we weren’t talking about a mechanical means or even a process to prevent unauthorized entries… what we were talking was just go ask nicely rather than fly off the handle. Jamie you weren’t hearing it then but maybe you will understand better now! You are costing yourself both current and worse yet significant future income!!! That guy (my brother in law) your wife threw out I guarantee would have registered if asked nicely and also would went into your store the few hours he was there and spent what I suspect at least $75-100 on stuff for his kids (he always does). That was current but what about future cash flow? Just so everyone knows Jamie is a hardworker and this is a great canpground. He always seems to be out either delivering firewood, cleaning, or doing something. The sad part is other than her antics they have not only a beautiful campground it appears (as an observing outside business owner) to be a cashflowing machine. Apparently they bought this beautiful campground in 2021 and if you read the majority of the reviews since then have something about her either screaming, throwing people out, threatening calling the police, making kids cry, ECT over mild infractions like sitting around a campfire without making any noise after 11pm. Jamie surely you have seen these reviews and know the long term consequences on your business being in customer service over 20 years as you had mentioned. She is single handedly sinking this place faster than the Titanic simply because of her power trip screamfeasts. 2 other nonaffiliated guests came up after the fact and said she did the same thing Thursday night and they will not be back. The sad part is this place is beautiful but I would be very surpised if its around in 10 years with her power trip antics. What happens when everyone eventually gets kicked out or refuses to come back to experience the scream fests? Its having a poor (eventually non recoverable) impact on your reputation and lifetime customer value. Sharon obviously does not understand or seem to care. Take my family as example. My family travels in pacts ranging from 4-7 units and usually once we find somewhere this nice we go back for decades. Just this trip my family spent well over $1600 by the time we payed for firewood, the spots, and all the extra stuff (like water ballons and knick knacks from the store). And we didn’t even have everyone this trip. We won’t be back so its safe to say this power tripping scream fest cost you at least $19,200 in the long run before inflation over the next 10 years and thats only if we went once per year. I hope she sees this. It was labor day weekend and they had a bunch of vacancies, which is odd because it is one of the best kept and laid out family canpgrounds we have ever been to. I wish them the best but I don’t think these new owners are going to make it unless they can learn how to ask nicely for customers (not cadets) to follow their rules instead of screaming in front of a bunch of kids. I would stay away. Happy...

Wow. My encounter with owner, Sharon, has left me wondering whether she's got some rabies going on. I went to the camp office to pay parking and visitor's fees so that I could visit with family members who had rented campsites. Sharon took my cash payment, and gave me a parking pass. She told me I "absolutely" could not leave the car where I had parked it in front of the office, even though I followed signs that read "parallel parking only, pull forward," remarking that there is "no parking for visitors." She told me to move the car "over there," gesturing towards the other side of the driveway, where there was no identified parking area. When I asked for clarification whether she wanted me to park on the grass by the trees, she instantly began a confrontational tirade. She shook her finger at me and accused me of giving her "attitude" from the second I stepped in the door. This was bizarre and unfounded. She repeated several times that she has "complete discretion" over who gets in, and also threatened to eject me from the premises. I don't know where this came from, I had only asked a question so that I could understand where she wanted me to park. I pointed this out, said nothing further, and waited out the rant. Once she wound down, I moved the car, driving the whole way through the park to get to the opposite side of the driveway because it is one way only, 5 mph, as she told me. I was observed the whole time by owner, Jamie, from his 4-wheeler.

I found out my camping family members also had issues with Sharon and Jamie. The family had rented four RV spots for four days. One of the four had to cancel last minute for a medical issue. They had expected to forfeit the deposit for that site, but had paid for the whole stay in advance. The owners tried to keep the whole payment, not just the deposit, even though they had reassigned the unused spot to another unrelated camper. Nobody understood why the owners would put an unrelated RV in the middle of the other three reservations. The grounds didn't even look to be half full. I wonder whether it was meant to be spiteful.

Jamie, on 4-wheeler, had also followed another visitor's car into the campsite. He yelled at her for getting a toddler and an infant out of car seats to leave them with the family before returning to the office to register and pay. She only wanted to avoid repeated transfers in and out of carseats for this process. Did they really expect her to walk back carrying two babies and their diaper bags?

Had I read the other reviews before going there, I would not have been surprised at the way the owners behave. As it was, I contacted KOA Corporate because I thought they should know how these owners are treating paying guests and representing the KOA name. I don't think they care. I got back a stock response, suggesting I should "speak directly with the campground for resolution" because it is an independently owned franchise. They also offered this gem, "Please know that this experience is not necessarily indicative of the experience you will have at this campground again, nor does it reflect on what your experience will be at another KOA campground." Judging by the other reviews I've now seen, it is EXACTLY the experience I should have expected, from Erie KOA, at least.

"Erie KOA" is actually registered as a "fictitious name" being used by the "Sharmie Corporation." It seems to me that good customer relations at Erie KOA are also fictitious. I will never go there again, my family will never go there again, and I'm pretty sure the fellow RV-ers they network with will never go...

If you are looking to enjoy time away with friends or family, do not book at Erie KOA. I have been a camper for over twenty five years and if this would have been my first campground I visited I most likely would have sold my camper. We booked at Erie KOA due to having a local tournament. We didn't get to enjoy the amenities of the campground until approximately 4:00 p.m. on Saturday as we were away for games. We decided we were going to play gaga ball, tether ball and volleyball upon return to the campground. We played gaga ball with our boxer pup beside us for over an hour with no problem whatsoever. Jaimie, the owner was working on the swimming pool and hot tub located beside us without ever greeting us or asking us how our stay was. When we went over to play tether ball, my son swore and Jaimie immediately came over to address him. He apologized and Jaimie said I understand that that can happen during competition. We then went to volleyball and while at volleyball our boxer pup barked at the ball. We were not even there ten minutes before Sharon stomped over yelling at us that the dog is not to be barking, she heard him at the camp store and if we read the guest guide book we would know that. I apologized to her and we packed up to leave to go back to our site. As we packed up she added there is a sign that says no dogs at the playground(we were at volleyball, not the playground and that rule isnt listed in the guest guide). At that point I thanked her for making us aware and apologized again and reminded her that this was our first visit and would be our last. She then followed us to our site on her golf cart before driving away. Jaimie then arrived to our site about ten minutes later to ask how our night was going. I let him know it could have been better. I let him know I was not upset with Sharon for addressing us but her approach and execution was not necessary. He then asked what was going on with our registration, he said you have four guests registered and five at our table. We realized we didn't put my sons girlfriend on the registration as we didn't think she was going to make it with work. We apologized and said we would be glad to pay for her. He then told us that that was stealing and they used to read the guest brochure to everyone but people complained about that so now they do a quick review and expect everyone to read the guide and they spend their time circulating to make sure everyone follows the rules so everyone has a good time. He finished with saying that he hopes we enjoy the rest of our stay. But that's not the end of it, Sharon comes flying back onto our site to say, Jaimie informed me you said I was disrespectful so I am going to say your guest has to leave because it's disrespectful you didn't register her and you are a cheater and I'm giving you ten minutes for her to leave before I call the cops. I called the emergency number hoping to get Jaimie as he said it was fine for our guest to be there. Problem, she answered with what do you want. I said I needed Jaimie and her to come back together so we could discuss the fact that they both said different things to us. She refused and told me ten minutes and she was calling the cops. I am sorry that this review is so long but I want to make sure you understand that these two owners look for opportunities to engage you in conflict and hope that they can say you are disrespectful and need to leave without refund. The local police get frequent calls from the owners to enforce people leave the campground for being disrespectful on the daily. Please save yourself the aggravation and...