Thompson / Grand River Valley KOA Holiday — Hotel in Thompson Township

My family has camped at Thompson KOA for several years. We started with camping in the cabins, then as weekenders, then became seasonals. We chose this campground even though it was three hours away from home because we loved what the campground had to offer. There has been new management every year that we have camped here. The new manager this year, Chris, told us that he was sent to straighten the place up. He failed, and brought nothing but disappointment all season. Disappointment began with the lack of activities for our children. Weekend wristbands for $20 per child to make a tie dye shirt and paint a rock or similar craft does not count as child camping activities in my book. It is ridiculous to think a seasonal would pay that every weekend for the same thing. We were disappointed with the swimming pond this summer. The new inflatables from the prior year were removed and old, unmaintained inflatables were put in their place. The beach area was left unmaintained with weeds growing out of control. The entertainment such as bands and dj’s were cut substantially too. It’s as if Chris did not want to see the seasonals having any fun together. The grounds keeping was poorly maintained. It was not hard to miss the weeds taking over at the jumping pillow, around the clubhouse, and throughout the weekenders campsites. Overgrown grass bordered the tree lines throughout the park, where in previous years it was maintained and kept nice. The main bathrooms had broken faucets all year. The bathrooms in the clubhouse were locked during clubhouse events. It seemed that the managers priorities this year was to make sure nobody drove over 5 mph, because he drove around in his 4 seat side by side with red and blue police lights in it, as if he was ready to pull someone over. Although safety was not his main priority because the entrance gate that he promised to fix this year, never was repaired or replaced. Instead he had staff stand at the broken gate during busy hours to make sure people coming in had the correct colored parking pass and to make sure the visitors paid their fee to get in. The manager, Chris, lacks the hospitality skills and professionalism that a campground manager should possess. It was common knowledge that he would threaten to evict seasonal campers due to them voicing their concerns. Therefore, many of the seasonals spent the year walking on egg shells around him and his family. Our final disappointment was finding out that about 80 seasonal campers were either not renewed by the manager, with no reason given or chose not to renew their own contracts for next year. With a $1,000 price hike and a winter storage fee that doubled, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to stay under the current conditions of the campground. I hope corporate KOA takes notice of what...

Families BEWARE: My family has been camping at Thompson KOA for the last 6 years. We loved this family oriented campground because of all the amenities and activities they offered for our kids but most importantly the friendly, helpful and respectful owners and staff. Unfortunately this is no longer true of our favorite KOA.

The new management treats guests with disrespect and the only solution they offer (repeatedly) was for my family to leave. Our first night we had dark brown water come through our RV’s filtration system from their water hookup. They said this would only happen once as it was due to sediments in the well….this occurred multiple times a day throughout our 5 night stay. My uncle (who both owns our RV and made our reservation) came to check the filters on the RV, due to the brown water, and was followed by management to our site and ordered to pay $10 for a visitor pass. After explaining why he was here and explaining he is only here for a few minutes to check the filters they became very disrespectful and told us we could leave if we were not willing to pay. This was the start of the very rude and disrespectful interactions from management.

We loved Thompson due to is close vicinity to home and the ability to have our family visit for dinner and s’mores. We have had my daughter’s birthday party here the last few years as well so in anticipation of this and to follow the new “rules” we purchased ANOTHER camp site. We were given 2 parking passes for that site and when I gave one to my father in law (who was staying for the night) the owner confiscated our passes and made them pay $10 for another visitor pass. They yelled and argued with me, my family and our guests, all who paid for passes to enter and once again threatened kicking us out.

We rented an RV site, tent camp site and a deluxe cabin to accommodate our guests and work within the new rules. We paid for each guest pass per their requirements. We are not loud, we clean up after ourselves, respect quiet hours and practice campground etiquette. This is our favorite week of the year. Due to the new managements lack of respect and complete and utter rudeness we will absolutely NEVER come back here. I hope that the owners take a look at their practices and treat people with kindness...

I have to say this is a beautiful campground but the staff who organizes events has no common sense. When checking in we had a balance and they could not just ring my credit card on file or let us get settled into our campsite I had to go back to my truck and ring in our balance. That started the frustration. On our reservation they charged us an extra $30 for a locked campsite when we did not have a locked campsite. So I had to get that refunded. Then gave us the wrong directions to our campsite. Then for events, my daughter wanted to do tie dye. The flyer stated tie dye at the pavilion. Went to the pavilion and was told by staff to go to the camp store to buy the shirts to do tie dye. Did that came back to the pavilion and staff just stood there and avoided to help anyone doing tie dye. Then there was a potluck at 5pm headed to the pavilion as I saw people going and sat there and waited. Staff moved the pot luck to 8pm over text and not one staff member came up to tell anyone at the pavilion I was told by another guest that it was moved. Granted it had rained but it stopped raining a half hour before the potluck was supposed to start. To make people wait to 8pm to eat is ridiculous. My stay here is not over and I'm not holding my breath for anything to come through on the koa's part. If you come here do your own thing and don't rely on the staff. Nice place to stay but staff is a joke.

Also no water see below message from the office after several complaints. Good morning campers! We have been receiving multiple complaints about water pressure this morning and would like to address the issue. Our campground runs on a well system. Unfortunately, our wells have run out of water this morning. This is something beyond our control, but we are monitoring the situation closely. We will provide updates as our wells begin to regenerate and water pressure returns. We deeply apologize for the inconvenience and ask that everyone be mindful of their water consumption at this...