Monterey Fairgrounds RV Park — Hotel in Monterey

This is NOT an RV Park. This is a fairground parking lot with hookups. And it is important to note that, unlike most RV Park campgrounds, they do NOT allow after hours check-in without a seriously lengthy process (multiple forms filled out online and a copy of your drivers license).

Passing through from Santa Cruz to Monterey, my family & I decided to stay here due to price and accommodations for 3 motorhomes, for 1 night stay, as we were looking forward to checking out early to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in the AM.

They don’t allow you to choose from their available spaces, but rather, randomly assigned spots. And while they were overly nice over the phone, showing up was a complete 180!

They parked all 3 of us over a dozen spaces apart, with my sister and her husband at the furthest spot in the entire campground, despite there being an obviously overwhelming availability. And when my brother-in-law asked to park closer to us, they told him “that or leave.”

In addition to this, there seemed to be an overwhelming amount of “live-in” guests, many of which had kids that, very sadly, looked to just be all alone & just wanting someone to talk to, but also tried making there way into our RVs with our own kids without an invitation .

Many of these “live-in” guests were also so rude, questioning our every move & making rude remarks. We were literally there for less than 15 hours.

THE WORST PART THOUGH… at 5:30am the next morning, somebody tried checking our RV door!!!!! With two kids with us, this was extremely scary. We DO NOT recommend this place. Pay for the higher place campsites...

Okay, if you’ve read any of the other reviews, you know this place it under the flight path of the Monterey Regional airport. I’ll further that a little bit for you; it’s at the end of the runway, so the planes are under full power to get off the ground and they are super low to the ground. It’s not a “busy” airport, but there is regular aircraft traffic. Now you know. If those facts of life about this location bother you, don’t make a reservation here and don’t stay here.

With that said, we had a great stay here. The staff was friendly, welcoming and helpful. The grounds were clean and the other campers were friendly. The bathrooms were “dated”, but they certainly appeared to our eyes to be clean and maintained. Yes, they “only” have one washer and one dryer (both coin operated), but they looked clean, smelled clean and cleaned our clothes just fine (which is more than I can say for A LOT of actual laundromats). Their location is exceptional. Close enough to anything you could want as a camper or a tourist (Costco, aquarium, restaurants, etc), but far enough away that you don’t feel like you are surrounded by people and traffic.

If I had anything negative to say about the place it’s the fact the upper paved area is very, VERY sloped downhill. So, if you stay here and in the upper lot, be prepared to do A LOT of front-to-back leveling. They offered us a spot in the lower lot which is pretty flat, but also gravel, not paved. I wouldn’t detract anything from the campground because of this, but it’s something to...

We've stayed here a few times on and off. I've always thought the management seemed nice, however there is a coach frequently here, occasionally it comes and goes, however evidently these visitors seem to think they are running this place. I say this because they take it upon themselves to water the parking area every evening. Yes, they run a sprinkler in the parking area - I suppose to keep the dust down off their coach - in spite of the fact central California has been in a drought for years. I have heard management ask others not to run water in this fashion - but these people can? Also clearly in the Park guide it states where you can and cannot walk your pets. However these frequent visitors have put up some makeshift NO PET signs along the entire grassy strip which is near their coach. It wasn't there when we first started staying here, and the management never said there are areas on this side of the park that we couldn't walk pets. We were only told you couldn't walk pets anywhere on the other side of the park. And we complied with the stated rules. Someone even had the nerve to run out from the coach telling us we can't walk our dogs there - even though we had being doing this in the past before these makeshift signs. Who are these people making up their own rules? Where is...