Santee Lakes Campground — Hotel in Santee

My husband and I have been here for the last several months with no problems. We have been in several different campsites throughout our stay. We enjoy having a campfire a couple of times a week and have reviewed the campfire policy on your website and have abided by it. Around Christmas we moved to a new site and checked in. We were not informed that in this particular site campfires were prohibited. Over the course of the month we continued to enjoy our evening campfires and were never told that it wasn’t allowed even though we seem to be surrounded by volunteers. On January 26th, an employee of the park stomped into our site and said”I hope you have a bucket of water”. We were puzzled and asked why. He got very aggressive and stated that there are signs everywhere saying no campfires in this one area. After some back and forth he left. The fire was very low at this point and burning out. He came back about 30 minutes later and started yelling at us and said if we don’t put it out then he would! I kept asking him to show us where it said no campfires and his response was “ I don’t have to show you anything “! WOW! I kept asking. He then put his hand up in my face and said “ I’m done with you”! He said he was going to call the fire department and left! I did manage to get his name as this was a VERY unprofessional way to handle this . I would love a supervisor or manager to reach out to me! Not sure I will ever come...

We've been camping here since the late 90s on an almost annual basis. It is a favorite local, urban Campground. Most recently we camped here in July. For some reason they decided to close part of the pool for a construction project and we were subjected to jack hammering for the better part of a day, not to mention one of two pools was closed for the duration of our stay and during peak summer usage. The rules say no tents, but tents abound. The number of long-term campers comes with a lot of extra vehicles at campsites, which can make navigating narrow camp site roads a challenge. The rules say no car repairs are allowed, yet every morning there was someone working on a vehicle with a pneumatic wrench and on our last night the man replaced brake bads on both front wheels so using a pneumatic driven wrench. So not at all a quiet Campground. Overall, we've noticed a visual decline in the appearance of the Campground. Campground speed limits are not enforced and the preponderance of e bikes and Golf cart style vehicles adds to the challenge of navigating the Campground, either as a pedestrian or in a vehicle. It was our observation that the rules and regulations are optional.

T-Mobile service continues to be terrible and the free Tango internet is unreliable and the speed is so slow that it's useless for anything other than basic email and...

We stay at Santee Lakes a few times a year because it’s close to home and a good place to open up the RV, connect to hookups and get organized for our next adventure. The lakefront spots are our favorite and the fishing is also nice. The campground has a lot of amenities and several spots for long-term campers, which is great! But over the years, it seems like more and more spots are being used as living quarters. There are dilapidated canopies, dusty furniture and so much clutter, you’d think it was a homeless encampment. Given the site cost seems to average $90 a night, I would expect better. One of the sites is a few spots down from us and they appear to have at least three cats that are allowed to wander outside. My dog has to stay in the RV with curtains closed so she won’t annoy other campers, so much for the lakeview I can barely enjoy! I have talked to campground staff about this before and they don’t seem to think the issue is problematic so I guess we will save our money next time and stay at a county campground or...