Mountain Vista Campground — Hotel in Smithfield Township

August 25-29 Site PT8

Staying here at the recommendation of a friend. They described it as a quiet mountain get away. Lol

Checked in with the staff at a bit past 4 pm. they were friendly and helpful. They require a $75.00 deposit and the remainder upon check in. Be warned, they do not accept credit cards. Only cash. Okay, minor inconvenience as they provide an ATM.

Went to our site, which was spacious. I didn't even mind all of the cigarette butts left in the fire ring. Or the piles of dog hair all over. After a few minutes I was immediately aware of how close we are to the main road (Taylor). It's LOUD and was busy from when we got to our site until about 9 pm. The general traffic in the campground is a heavy. Cars on gravel, constantly. Peppered with the occasional staff member on a maintenance cart. Everyone drives fast too.

This campground is LOUD. Dogs barking, music blaring, TV's outside on blast. Kind of disappointing. But who am I to say how people should camp. I DO believe in being courteous though.

Group of tent campers across from the dog run had their music blaring from when we pulled into our site until 10:30 on the dot. After that it was yelling and kids screaming until around midnight when I fell asleep.

Dogs- Definitely a dog friendly campground. nice dog run with double entry/exit gates and some benches, along with dogi bags and disposal. However, the dogs in the campground, in general are very barky. They bark at people walking by or the stray cats that live in the campground or the acorns falling from the trees. I love dogs. We brought both of ours along. But they're trained, and they listen to commands and don't bark at everything that moves.

TVs. Everyone has a TV outside and sits outside and watches them. Well except for our neighbor, who decided to turn theirs on at 8 am, as loud as it could go and then go visit other campsites to have coffee... Kind of obnoxious. I took my dogs to the dog run - at least 5 or six sites away and could STILL hear every word from their TV.

Positives I can say are that the pool looked nice. Lots of kids playing and having fun. The canopy cover keeps it shady and cool. The dog run is one of the nicer ones I've seen, wish more more places would offer the safety gates. The staff was very nice and there is a nicely stocked store in case you forget or need anything. I plan to do a little more exploring today to see what else I like.

So far I'm not impressed. If it wasn't for the beautiful weather, we would probably leave. Unfortunately, we...

7/8/2019_ MY family and I visited this camping site for this 4th of July weekend 2019. It was the most unpleasant say we have ever had. My family and I are Americans from West Indian decent. I hear other people talk about racism but it’s the first I have ever endured racism. We were at the game room and I put $4.25 cent in one of their shooting game and the game machine was not working, so we called the attend over to let him know, well he was not happy that we bother him, I lightly touched the game machine to show him which one was not working, and he caught and attitude and told me no need to bang the machine which I was not doing when he left we realize we was not happy with us at all. After that incident the next day they had a tie die tee shirt day for the kids and adults, the instructor keep saying if you need help just raise your hand. Well we were the only dark color people there, she would not even look or walk our way to see if we need help but she was walking around to all the other people and kids there. On our last day and night to spend there, one of the attends came up our group and asked if we have a bibi gun, we answered yes, he said we cannot use it and they will have to take it and hold it until we are leaving, my husband said no problem and we are sorry and you can hold it. Then he left and came back with some else, and they both had attitude and said he was the owner and they are kicking us out and we are trespassing, and we have 15 minutes to leave, the then turned the power off from our cabins. Well at that point we give attitude back ask for a copy of their camping ground rules which they could not produce, they were not happy about. We had to get our kids out of the pool and dress them in the dark and parked up our stuff in the dark. The kids were so scared and emotional it was hard to explain to a 5year old what was going on. They said they were going to call the state troop for us, we told them to go right ahead. We took our time and packed up which took about 3hrs. The state troop never showed, which I wished they did so I can show the trooper, how me and my kids were being treated like animals, we had to get dress and pack up our stuff in the dark in 90 degree weather, kids scared and crying. This was our worse...

Are you white, over 65, own an expensive trailer? Then Mountain Vista Campgrounds is for you! Because what they don't tell you is that Mountain Vista Campgrounds is NOT a campground. It is a FANCY TRAILER PARK where people ACTUALLY LIVE--complete with racist hicks, wifi, and power outlets.

The "campgrounds" are a set of forty gravelly parking spaces the size of two parking lot spots. Each trailer parking spot is five feet away from each other. Say goodbye to privacy! A few trees are interspersed everywhere for ambiance, but you can't see the stars through the foliage. There's no nature here--no grass, no soil, no wildlife. The closest bathrooms were a group of dirty, feces littered stalls a fifteen minute walk away because there's people everywhere and no nature to just walk out into and take a piss.

Looking back, I should have seen trouble brewing. We were warned that throwing ping pong balls into water-filled cups would "set the wrong example to kids" because of how "immoral" it was. But it was totally okay for other "campers" to smoke weed and give their underage kids alcohol. When we sat whispering around a table playing poker, we were asked to stop because of the noise. That's fine, but could the permanent residents to keep their dogs quiet? No, apparently, they would not ask. The next night we were warned at 6:30 while cooking steak for being too loud.

Based on my sore back from sleeping on gravel, the rude staff, racist attitudes of the people living there, lack of sleep from dogs barking all night, the inconvenience of the facilities, the lack of privacy, and the misadvertisement of the place as a "camping" ground, I would strongly advise against coming here--unless of course, you live in a trailer.

If you're interested in entertaining some masturbatory fantasy of camping without actually camping, do it in your driveway, or do it in your backyard. Don't do it at Mountainvista...