Payson Campground & RV Resort — Hotel in Payson

If you are dealing with Michael for check-in or reservations, BEWARE he has no common sense or business ethics. Here's our story for Payson RV Park:

Let's be honest, when you're thirsty for water, a puddle will do. With that said, we were coming in from the New Mexico desert, and at first it seemed good because we were thirsty. Now, when reality set in, it was a different story. 1. the dust is unbearable. 2. The internet is non existent, and falsely advertised as it being there. 3. The customer service from Micheal, is harassment. 4. Sites and roads are very narrow to maneuver.

We originally were going to stay in an RV Park 3 blocks away, but once we got there it was 55+ only. We have a 3yr old, so they suggested this place and we were in a bind. We had to find a place that we could park the rv for at least a month because we had to fly home to Florida for a several weeks. When we registered, we paid a monthly fee of $440 plus electricity. Anyway, when we registered, there was no sign of daily, weekly, or monthly rates. We were also, only given a copy of the contract, and never got an emailed confirmation or receipt from them.

Fast forward, to 2 weeks before we are scheduled to fly back from Florida and check out, we started calling the office. We tried every day, two and three times a day. Every day we tried at different times, never was there an answer, not an answering machine. We looked at our credit card statement, and we had been charged on the 14th of April. So, come April 11th, we get a call from Michael, asking why our rig is still there when check out was at 11:00 am. We say, we aren't supposed to leave until 14 April. At which point he says, absolutely not your check out was today. We explained to him that we were in Florida and we had been trying to contact him numerous times to extend our check out because we needed one more week in Florida. He became accusatory in his tone, and said we could have emailed. We said we don't have an email, you never sent us anything. He then said he had a full park, and had to rearrange other people because we didn't move and he was going to charge us the daily maximum because he had "no way of knowing if we were going back". Did he think we were just going to walk away from it? Needless to say, we argued until we were blue in the face, and he went and charged us $673 for 2 weeks. We did not need two weeks, but he said two weeks on a daily rate was the minimum he was going to charge us. I told him this was abusive and taking advantage of us due to not being back in Arizona and could not move the rv right away. We pleaded with him to charge us the monthly fee again, which is obviously a lot less, and he was not pliable. We asked to speak to the owner and he said he was it. I find it hard to believe he is, or ever has been. If he is, he will run that business with his bullying attitude. By the way, when we got back only a week later, the park had plenty of space available. Almost every other site was empty. What a lie and rip off!!! Later I learned from staff that he inherited this RV park from his parents but sadly he has no idea of running it while keeping campers happy. I even asked him if he even cared about customer satisfaction, he could not even answer "yes". He told me he had to do what he had to do. I do not see this place being in business for long.

On the positive side, the staff (a married couple) who drive around in golf carts, are very sweet, knowledgeable, and serviceable. For that reason they are getting the one...

We made the best with what conditions we were given during the Two nights we stayed at the Payson Campground. Here are some of the positives of staying at the campgrounds:

-very quite, peaceful and dark great staff that are laid back and willing to accommodate to your stay even if its means to give a complimentary fire ring -the other patrons on the grounds are extremely mindful, helpful and pleasantly neighborly -you can pick up as much of the dead wood and fallen branches for you campfire, arts and crafts or whatever, ONLY PICK UP WHAT Is already dead/dried branches and leaves/pine needles -not crowded or cramped up spaces there are restrooms and showers inside a brick & mortar structure As well as a clubhouse -pets very welcomed and there's a pet park there are picnic tables in every space you can pay and lock in your choice of a space and confirm your reservation online and checking in online is available

Now for the negatives:

the spaces are not arranged in a way that is easy to locate ( like 82 and 82 A which is confusing in itself) the signs for each space have no lighting and are near impossible to see when driving into the grounds and to your space there is no lighting to see what's what and where things are. They could put in some dim road lights and sign lights there are no power hookups in the spaces for tents witch is a bummer because you can't run generators so to keep warm while sleeping you have to have a lot of blankets, sleeping bags , battery operated heaters or have a campfire going all night witch isn't good to do _ when we went to the campgrounds they had locked the showers and bathrooms so we had to find a place to go for restrooms

So far that's what we have to say about the Pros & Cons with...

This seems to be more of a 55+ community, not a true "campground"...This was our 2nd time staying at this park, and we will not go back. It seems to now have more permanent residents, which are of retirement age. The spaces are very small and close together. If you don't go to bed at 10pm, don't plan on talking to your friends/family or there will be complaints. We honestly were not loud and did not have music blasting; we are in our 30s/40s and we were camping for pete's sake. The man (resident) across the way was very nasty and literally yelled at us to quiet down at 11:30. The following night, we stayed in our camper because it was too cold to sit outside (no campfires right now due to wildfire restrictions). We did not have music on (didn't even bring a radio), yet the same nasty person complained to mgmt that we did. The camp employee came to scold us the following day, threatening to ask us to leave, until we explained our side of our "party" and then he was nicer; it was the same resident across the way complained to management. Note it was Memorial Day weekend. We left Sunday afternoon instead of staying another day and will not be back. This campground is right off the main street, so when you sleep you don't hear wilderness, you hear cars going by. Yes, it's convenient to town if you need something but next time we will find something more remote and less cramped...