Horseshoe Cove — Hotel in South Bradenton

OLD Review 2017: Nice RV park. Space is a little tight, but lots of activities and things to do, a pretty private island with nature trails, and a lovely pool! Haven't played shuffleboard yet but we hear their courts are great. Close to everything, and park is gated, which is nice for safety.

EDIT: NEW REVIEW 2018...i don't leave too many negat reviews, but this place used to be higher rating with us. We have lowered it to 2 stars. Last time we stayed here for 3 weeks... This time for 5 months. Um, yeah, we won't be returning.

First off, the staff has had some recent change overs...cuz people quit.

Secondly, the new people have give us 3 nuisance write ups in 5 days because we have a nasty neighbor who doesn't like dogs or us, apparently. And we are being written up for stupid things that loads of other people are being left alone on. When we pointed that out, we were told we have enough problems of our own without pointing out other people. Really? For example, it's ok for 30 other cars to park on grass, but not ours. Really?

Not to mention, they bang on the side of your camper rather than knock on the door like civilized folks when they come by with a nastygram...it's very off-putting, and drives our dogs crazy. Never been anywhere people did that before! It's kinda rude...

Thirdly, all of a sudden like 1/3 of the places in here are for sale. That usually indicates people are having trouble with a park or it's parent company ... We are under 55, and really starting to feel like the office is trying to drive us out. Other than the jerkface neighbor, all our other neighbors are great, and we haven't had any issues in 4 months, til the new guy with the bigger camper moved in next door 2 weeks ago.

But...with the nuisance write ups and camper banging, the hot tub being broken once a month, the rude dog owners who take their dog to the dog park but won't pick up after them, others with aggressive unsocialized dogs that lunge and bark at ours, and the fact that SunRV is trying actively to get rid of RVers, wellllll... screw this place, kinda - We are paying $1400 a month for the privilege of getting harrassed, and paying over $4 a load for laundry because the dryers are crappy. Someone else will get our money next winter. SunRV also wants older RVs and park models GONE - in lieu of replacing them with new trailer units they can sell for $65,000 or rent for higher $$$ than a basic RV site. And we hear from insiders that you can't sell your unit until you complete a list of things the office determines necessary. What if they don't like you? Does that mean your to do list gets longer - the way troublesome RV neighbors can get you written up?

According to annual renters here, SunRV also stopped paying for a lot of things your rent used to cover, and have changed a bunch of rules here, too. Unpopular from what we have gleaned so far...

Don't be surprised to get a good deal in here... so much for sale, you'll get one cheap. But ask yourself, tho...do you really want to? There are reasons that there's a fire sale on locations in this park...and that people are unhappy at their sister park up the road, too....

The response from Horseshoe Cove ignores the issue that we previously stated. THEY DO NOT PROVIDE CABLE ACCESS (HOOKUPS) AT MANY Of THEIR SITES. So, it's not a question of contacting/paying the cable company to just "turn on" the service. If there's NO CABLE HOOKUPS OR WIRING FOR CABLE on those sites, the cable company can't "just turn" on the service. Horseshoe Cove knows this but continues to avoid the fact that there are no cable hookups on some sites. Instead, they reply by talking about turning on service even though if you don't have a cable box to plug into, you're not going to have access. When customers are trying to book stays for a few days or weeks, they want honesty as to the routinely available amenities. A site with no cable hookups is different from one that has hookups and just needs to be turned on. As such, maybe Horseshoe Cove should update what they show as amenities on their websites to reflect reality.

This RV park advertises cable tv as an amenity. However, some sites are not wired for cable tv. We were given a site that has no cable tv hookup for our 1 week stay. When we told campground mgt that our site had no cable, they became indignant and told us to have the local cable co come out and wire they site for cable. We ended up leaving that campground a few days earlier. We thought it was dishonest to advertise an amenity which they don't offer and then expect a short term guest to pay to have their sites wired for cable tv. Now that we've submitted some negative online reviews of their campground, they're responding by saying that cable tv is only for their long term guests and full time residents. Really? Then if that amenity is only intended for long termers, at least be honest in your advertising and don't give the impression that every guest (short term & long term) will have cable tv available as an amenity. And don't try to get short term guests to absorb the expense to have your campground sites wired for cable. It's...

The staff is not knowledgeable about the size of the sites. We reserved a site over the phone with staff at location. We were told that the site was a pull through and plenty big for our 37ft fifth wheel. the site they tried to put us in was indeed a pull through but for maybe a class C not a fifth wheel. the second site they tried to put us in was mostly sand and had a broken sewer pipe. We were told these were our only choices. They then told us they could place us at another RV park just a couple miles away. This turned out to be a transient back row to an "RV Resort". No one was parked in the proper site nor did anyone know what site any one should be in. The turn was too tight to get to the row and our back window ended up getting busted out. when we returned to that front office no one was there. We then called Horseshoe Cove back and they had all left for the day. Our friends who were also staying there called the emergency number and were told that they left us hanging because it was 4pm on Friday. Our friends and other RV'ers were able to find us a site for the night and then one became available the next day (magically). We had numerous problems during our month long stay but none this bad and we could not find anyplace else that had openings at such late notice. BTW the sewer lines and water spigots are just barely out of the ground and are not 4 ft apart but barely 6" apart. The people who live and stay here were very friendly and also had many complaints about the...