PirateLand Camping Resort — Hotel in Myrtle Beach

This was our first stay here, and I will admit that I was withholding judgement until the end. We usually stay at Ocean Lakes and LOVE it, so Pirate Land had a lot to live up to. I will set this up in pro and con format so that it is easy to read, and see my points. PRO: It i s a smaller campground than Ocean lakes, so nearly all the camp sites were 'good' spots. Our site was four spots back from the beach and still closer than many of the ones one the front one or two rows at Ocean Lakes. CON: The sites are sand. That was not a huge deal over all, however, there was not concrete to clean the sand off on, to sit and relax on after the sun goes down. No where to turn that you do not have more sand on your feet to track every where. PRO: There is a wonderful pool area for the kids to spend time in, complete with a lazy river, spray park, indoor and outdoor pool, and a hot tub. It was a great addition to the campground. Warm, clean, and somewhat over seen. CON: The outdoor pool closed way to early, if there is no life guard on duty, then what is the big deal in leaving it open till 10 like the indoor pool? All the pools are swim at your own risk, however, there are "Patrol" officers who enforce the rules, they see fit. Which brings be to my next one. PRO: There are rules, and they are enforced. There are many "Patrol Officers" who drive around on their little golf carts all day and night. If they see ANYTHING THEY THINK , key word they think, is untoward, they will let you know. CON: The officers are blind to very vital things going on! One of my children, 10 years old, was singled out as I suppose a trouble maker. (Side note here... I have three boys and I know what trouble is, I refuse to put on blinders and say 'not my child' and I am the first one to correct them, usually when my husband or parents are telling me they are not doing anything.) He was "escorted" back to the camper because he was riding his hover board! By the way, there is NOTHING in the rules about nor being allowed to have one, we read them very carefully to make sure before we allowed him to bring it. Then he and my middle child, 13, were in the lazy river, sitting on top of their tubes. NO ONE was around them, well my husband and I, and he flipped back off of it. The lady comes out and walks around the lazy river only to chastise them for 'ruff housing.' Then there was the hot tub. He was sitting on the edge with his legs in the hot tub. Something his father and I had no problem with! Well, again, he was chastised. Ok, fine, but let me tell ya what I witnessed that was over looked by the "Patrol." The rules are posted everywhere about the alcohol. No glass containers, no alcohol out in public. Well, the same time my kids were being yelled at in the lazy river, there were about eight adults that were DRUNK! Open containers, coolers and cozies everywhere. Not to mention they were loud and obnoxious! Talk about ruff housing, they knocked into my husband and I several times, but nothing was said to them. Then we were at the hot tub, the night he was chastised for having his feet in it, and there was a couple with liquor in gator-aid bottles while their kids were terrorizing everyone in the pool. You guessed it, not a word was said to them. Scooters were ridden in the pool area, electric mini bikes were ridden, drinking was all around in this "family destination" but they chose to pick out a 10 year old boy not once, but three times! PRO: Laundry mat, clean, affordable and air conditioned. CON: Many of the units were out of order. PRO: The price was great! Because of the number of nights we stayed, we even got a night for free. We were able to stay here for 2 weeks for the same cost as staying at Ocean Lakes for 1. CON: Kids had to pay, in addition to the stay, to play the putt putt course inside the campground. All in all, we had a great vacation, but the way they chose to pick out a child and overlook the adults bad behavior left me wondering,...

We just returned from a two week stay so I feel good about writing a solid review. We decided to try staying here instead of our regular Ocean Lakes this year just to give these other campgrounds a try. We have now stayed at all local Myrtle Beach campgrounds with the exception of the KOA because its not ocean front. My opinion is as unbiased as I can possibly make it. We will start off with the biggest questions we always have about a new campground in no particular order.

This campground has from all accounts that we could see very newly renovated bathrooms that I would say were a 9/10. They were very clean in comparison to most other bathrooms but could be somewhat cleaner. The laundry area was clean and always had some broken machines for whatever reason. We always found some units though so it did not cause any issues for us. It was not convenient that it was closed until 10am on Sunday though. I know they cleaned it real good that day but it is nice to be able to go do laundry early so you do not waste half your day. They have a nice arcade with pizza and ice cream onsite. They had the normal things you would expect like basketball and playgrounds for little kiddos. They have a very nice outdoor pool with lazy river and a splash pool for the smaller kids with a pirate ship in it. They also have a nice indoor pool with hot tub that we went too every evening we were there. Nice fishing lakes as long as you buy a local surf fishing license. We did surf fish and lake fish here and caught many species of fish. The roads in the campground are narrow in places and require a good bit of watching especially when pulling your rig into and out of the campground. They could also benefit from a new coat of blacktop on the roads as they are very worn and very rough. They have a very small number of concrete sites and the rest are sand. We stayed on a sand site four spots back from the beach. The location was excellent we only wish they had concrete pads or at least some concrete to escape the sand a little. We had mats that cut down some of the sand but I do think these ocean front campgrounds should have concrete pads everywhere. It would be a very modest cost to make a pad for these sites.

Now for the bad. I am very surprised they do not have lifeguards at the outside pool. My kids can all swim very good and I am more worried about some of the other kids that were not being supervised at the pool. The few times we did see someone at the pool they were harassing kids more than enforcing the actual rules the campground has. Kids were playing and being kids and in my opinion not causing an issue. And on a few occasions I saw older guests complaining and taking pictures of things they did not like and I suppose called the security staff to come and talk to them. On those same occasions we saw MANY very drunk adults in the pool acting worse than the kids were and security did nothing to them. We also saw on almost every occasion we went to pool adults with glass bottles of beer poolside drinking. When the park has many signs indicating its against the rules. However we never saw anyone say anything to the adults that were in my humble opinion acting much worse than any of the kids we saw here. One of my kids was targeted by security staff many times for almost anything they could catch him for.

We would camp here over other local campgrounds again if Ocean Lakes is full. It would be good if the facilities security staff would enforce the rules especially with the adults as sad as that is to say. My guess is that kids are easier for the staff to approach than a drunk or drinking adult. If my kids are able to spot all the people drinking around the pools then I would assume a security person should be able to see them as well. If they cannot then they should probably be replaced with someone that can. Its important for these campgrounds to remember that the families will keep them...

There are a couple of OK things about this place, so I can't give it zero stars.

Pros: The beach was clean and not very crowded. I like the site trash pickup versus having to haul my garbage to a dumpster every day. Most of the other campers were very nice and helpful, which is absolutely necessary since you won't be able to get in and out of your spot without the help. Most of the staff I dealt with were nice. I didn't go to the pool, but my daughter said it was OK.

Cons: The spots are extraordinarily tight. I drive a crew cab truck pulling a 37' trailer, and it was almost physically impossible to get into the site. My site and the road next to it combined was shorter than my rig, and it required multiple people moving vehicles, and very nearly having to move their campers to get into the site. The sewer connections are not threaded, meaning your sewer hose has to be taped onto the drain if you expect it to stay. The WiFi is basically non existent, which is typical, but because the campground has 1,600 sites, it also means the cell towers are overloaded due to the lack of WiFi. My Verizon phone was basically a brick until I left the campground every day. Quiet time was not enforced at all. The music, cooking, hooting and hollering went on deep into the night. Golf carts are $60 per day, and you are not allowed to bring your own. There is only one dog walk area, and it is a corner of the campground, so it can be up to 1/2 mile away depending on where you are. Turning left out of the campground without a red light is basically impossible with a long trailer. It's the main 4 lane strip along the beach, so plan your route going right out of the campground. No polite way to state this, but there is a bit of a low class element present. Spent most of my last day there not allowing my young daughter outside because the guy who moved in behind us spent the day dropping F bombs to somebody on the phone. This was not an isolated incident or person. The laundry room hours are posted to be until 10:00. We went up one night at 9:30 to try and get our bedspread washed due to my dog getting sick on it, and the staff member ran us off and told us we didn't have time to do a load. He wasn't polite or apologetic about it. When we made it back the next day, the washers only use cold water, and didn't even get the load clean. The daily trash pick up usually didn't happen until around 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon, so the streets are absolutely lined with garbage most of the time you're there.

Bottom line, this wasn't our first choice for a campground, but the one we wanted was booked. I know now why that was the case. If you are young, single, have a pop up, and generally don't care about your environment, this place may be OK for you. If you want some relaxation time with your family,...