Encore Paradise — Hotel in Peoria

We stayed at Paradise RV Resort for 3months. We were (well, one of us) just shy of 55 yrs and were granted access. In all fairness, this was our very first park. We sold everything we owned to be nomadic.

We were spoiled with back in service by security. Something I have come to learn now, is a luxury.

The resort itself is beautiful and well maintained. Lots of greenery and palm trees. The RV’s are intermingled with mobile homes, with some having side-by-side RV lots. Another luxury is a nice pice of concrete!

We were here during the colder months and were able to keep our windows open to allow the cooler breezes. At night it is quiet with noise control after 10pm. But, honestly, as the sun went down it became quite quiet except for the odd army jets flying above.

If you like to be in an active community, this is the place for you. There are tons of activities including meet and greets. Some activities are included, others you pay for including off-resort activities and sight seeing tours.

There are also volleyball, pickle ball and tennis courts, a ballroom, a small exercise room and steam saunas. The exercise room air conditioning is lacking, so, early morning workouts are the way to go — we got there for 4:30 am.

There are restrooms with saunas and a laundry room.The heated pool is enormous with tons of lounge chairs, and a nice hot tub. There is also music and small cafe off of the pool. There are tons of places to lounge and relax and you can try your skills at shuffleboard or how about the billiards? There is wifi at the main buildings and is not bad. There is also a limited computer room. If you want wifi in your RV or dwelling you will need to provide your own.

Some may point out the buildings are a little dated. They are aware of this and are working on it. However, it is extremely clean no matter where you go. And, don’t let this stop you from rolling on in here.

This park takes their animal area seriously. There is a designated RV area for dogs (cats) with a limit of 2 pets. They do not have a dog park, rather tons of grassy areas with signs clearly indicating no animals beyond this point. They also do not charge you extra for your furry friends, which I appreciate.

You do have to pay a security deposit for a mailbox and name tag. Be aware, you do need to return the name tag (and keys) at the end of your stay or you will lose your deposit.

My only one gripe is the name tag. Where in the real world do you walk around with a name tag on? No! I refused to wear mine. It is ridiculous. Not only this, but it has our last names on the tag as well. It is no one’s business what my last name is. If I want to share my first name, I will do so when I want to!

It is my only complaint-petty, I know! I can not complain about anything at this resort! The front staff are patient, accommodating, friendly and super helpful.

If you want a slow pace, with no interaction with others, this is your place. If you want to be in a 55+ resort plus community, this is the RV resort for you. If you want tons of interaction with tons of actives, this the resort for you. You are close to all shopping venues, activities and hiking!

You seriously can not go wrong here. I much enjoyed my 3 months stay and look forward to returning. I give this place 3.5 stars out of 5. They are also an Encore and Thousand trail...

Before writing this review, I need to give some information about us and our trailer, which is something Scott and Duke at Paradise RV did not afford us the opportunity to do.

We are full-time mobile living in a fully self-contained off-road RV trailer (kimberley kamper). Our camper has no black tank and has a composting toilet. We had to come back to Phoenix for a funeral and to move things to and from our storage unit that is right around the corner from this RV Park. We have a dog, and the temperatures are still in the low 100s, so needless to say, we needed 30 amp electrical hookup to run our AC efficiently.

We originally planned to stay nearby at the Sunflower RV Resort (where we stayed in April 2023), but their office was closed for lunch.

While waiting, we called Paradise RV Resort to see if they have any open spaces. They did, and they were $200 less for the two weeks we planned to stay. So we decided to go over to check out their facilities. We had already talked to Janet on the phone and told her we had previously stayed at the Sunflower RV Resort but thought we may try their location while in town. We looked around at the amenities and our potential site they were going to assign to us, and it seemed very similar to Sunflower RV park, just a little older. When we returned to the office with the intention of staying there, we were immediately confronted by Duke (in the front office), basically accusing us of trying to sneak in a trailer that they don't accept. He said we couldn't stay there because "we are not self-contained." We said we are the epitome of self-contained and were wondering how he drew that conclusion. He asked if we had a black tank, and we said no, we have a composting toilet but do need grey water hook-ups in addition to the water. He said exactly, "That's why we don't take trailers like yours." He added that he called Sunflower RV Park, and they won't take us either. We asked him if he was calling us a liar about staying there earlier this year, and he stammered around the question. So basically, he not only was calling us a liar, but he was trying to keep us from having an alternative place to stay.

We asked to speak to his manager, who ended up being Scott. Turns out Scott had seen our truck and trailer outside when we first arrived and assumed we were a homemade trailer and didn't want us at his facility. Instead of asking us some basic questions or looking at our trailer for himself, he apparently sicked his dog (Duke) on us to get rid of us. Our trailer is an Australian made overland trailer shipped to a dealer in the US before being delivered to US customers.

In the end, Scott apologized and kinda handled the situation professionally and invited us to stay. But with the unwelcoming mat that was laid out for us, we chose not to stay at Paradise RV.

We subsequently returned to The Sunflower RV Resort, where we knew it was nice. They looked at our trailer and welcomed us back with friendly smiles.

We do not recommend anyone to stay or have to deal with Paradise RV Resort, but we do recommend going down the street to the newer RV park, Sunflower RV Resort.

I also feel that both Scott and Duke would benefit from some needed customer service training. They...

We stayed there because I had an important job to do close to this park. I felt like I had done all I needed to do to check in online but when I got there, there was more paperwork. If there's going to be a VIN number and license plate for the trailer involved. How about a sign out in the waiting area that says you need that information before you go in? Never been asked for that in the 50 RV parks that I've stayed in in the last 2 years.||It took us almost an hour to check in, 43 minutes of which was waiting for a security person to come and park us, because the guy ahead of us in line apparently can't back his trailer up, and witness that I was parked okay. The security guy was surprised at how well I was able to park the trailer on the passenger side, this after he didn't go down the street he wanted to to take us in the right direction. ||The site was obviously not raked, had weeds 12" long in it, or tended to. Gravel on the concrete pad, etc. The hose bib was leaking like a sieve on both sides, needed repacking. Security would not leave until we made sure that we had electricity. Backed up to a wall where there were security lights shining on a public park all night and people were playing basketball and being noisy way late into the night. Definitely not worth the money I paid for it. ||And what made it even worse was that the project I was working on took much longer than I thought, so we got there late and left early and were unable to use any of the facilities that were probably awesome. None of that was the park's fault at all. Just unfortunate events. ||Now that we know the lay of the land we might go back just to check out the fun stuff in that Park, but we really left with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. We've stayed in much nicer places for less...