Jellystone Park™ Birchwood Acres — Hotel in Town of Wawarsing

I had very high hopes for this campground/family resort. The reason for the only star is because of the water park included in our stay. It was big enough for our children to enjoy while we were able to sit and watch them from a safe distance. It wasn’t crowded and it was clean.

Now the worst part of our stay was the RV Camper we booked with them. Our friends also stayed at YogiBear but they booked a cabin not too far from our site.

In our past camping trips we usually did tent areas so we believed this would be a much more comfier/convenient experience for our family. But we were quickly given a reality check once we arrived to our camper.

Our camper was filthy and filled with dog hair. There was dead bugs on the sofa and smeared wasps/beetles on the ceiling of the camper. The shower and the toilet area was disgusting. There was hair from previous campers in the shower drain.

Oh and it was infested with huge black ants all over the rooms, cabinets and bathroom. The vents are covered with spider webs and dead bugs. The sofa bed had black markings in the crevices of the padding indicating there were possibly ticks around. The whole night I would stay awake checking in my kids making sure there were no bugs crawling on them. They have no shame in the presentation of their cabins/RVs.

The beds were the next problem we faced, I expected nothing super comfortable but it was literally 3.5 inches of a foam pad on plywood. We ended up using the sofa pull out and stacked it with the pads that were not being used. Additionally, all these pads were covered in dog hair and the carpet right under the sofa was a horrible excuse of filth. For 4 nights, we spent about $1,500 total in our stay. I know it’s camping, there will be bugs and firewood scent throughout the day. However, I expected the camper to be ready to sleep in, clean and smelling good. My husband slept on an air mattress we brought with us just incase and I slept with all my 3 children on the sofa bed. It was truly the worst part at the end of each day.

We dreaded coming back inside because every morning we woke up with dog hair on our clothes, the smell of sewer (which we called to get it checked out but nothing was fixed!). We gave up and stayed so our kids could enjoy the waterpark.

The kitchen/cabinet area also truly disgusting. It’s as if nobody even bothered stepping in before we arrived for quality control and cleanliness. I kept thinking of what a waste of money this was for us- we could’ve stayed at an Airbnb instead.

I hope my review can help them improve in house keeping/maintenance of their cabins and RVs. There is really no excuse for the experience we had and for the money that was spent on this campsite - we expected the bare minimum of a livable camper experience. The floors were so black. I’m still in disbelief about everything. Then I saw there was a broom in our camper! Guess what? Full of dog hair on the broom it was so bad I wanted to cry. How can people be so careless where they work? How s management not care that employees aren’t doing the basics? Whoever used it prior to our arrival, left the dog hair in the garbage scooper and on the broom’s end. I had known this would’ve been the case, we would’ve camped at our past campsites but we wanted to experience Yogibear with our small children. I can only say the positive side was the pool area and thank God for that because then it was really not worth it. Our friends cabin was also filthy but I will let them speak for themselves in their own review.

I’m disappointed and annoyed that I did not check the 1 star reviews because they are true. I really wish we did not spend our money here.

Besides our disgusting camper we enjoyed the waterpark and walking around as well as the kids activities they have in the rec center.

What I would recommend if you plan on camping there:

-take your cleaning products/disinfectants -take a small vacuum with you -bring an extra...

Let me start by saying- DO NOT COME HERE! Now, let me explain why- It has taken me 5 months to finally write and post this review because I'm still not quite through processing my experience this summer at Jellystone Birchwood Acres.

We visited this past July with my parents, my sister and brother in law, and my husband and our 2 daughters. We were celebrating their 1st and 2nd birthdays and making a family trip out of it. We grew up camping all over the United States and had always enjoyed our stays at Jellystone parks. I was SO excited to be able to share this experience with my own daughters! We got the luxury cottage and set out on what we were thinking would be a fun-filled, activity-full 5 day stay! It WAS NOT. We opted to leave 2 days early! We were met with what felt like a footprint of what once was...the playgrounds all had multiple broken and worn pieces of equipment left in disrepair and rusted over. The damage was so bad and dangerous, we weren't able to let my daughters play much in any of their playgrounds and spent our time at the swings instead. The schedule listed exciting all day programming for kids and my mom woke up early and excited to take them to "parachute with Yogi Bear"... When they arrived another family was also there looking forward to activity. The activity room was closed with the lights off. After 5 minutes a young staff member came out and asked if they were there for the activity. When they said yes he told them to come inside and turned on the lights. He went to get the other staff member who then donned the yogi costume and they pulled out an old dusty parachute and gave everyone a handle. In silence they began to raise and lower the parachute. No introductions, no songs, no greeting the children. Just silence… my father who could hold his disbelief no further just raised his phone to capture a video… they asked the staff if they had any activity planned or songs and they replied “no, this is what we do”... My parents left. This is ridiculous and unacceptable. The other activities matched in the same order- staff expecting no one to come, setting up late and running the activities as hands off as possible. It is especially sad because we booked during Christmas in July week and instead of Christmas magic we experienced broken, lackluster, and surprisingly dirty facilities and activities. The pool would be a saving grace if not for the chemicals being so high that all of our bathing suits were permanently discolored after the first swim. So sad to report- don't come here unless they renovate or at least repair the damage and re-train staff. I have to edit my review to include two more incidents or note that took place during our stay. 1- we paid for the birthday package for 2 girls with a visit from Cindy bear, cake, tshirts and more...it's over $60... I called months in advance with the requested information and the shirt sizes... The day arrived for the surprise visit from Cindy bear. The bear and a staff member arrived 10 minutes late and awkwardly hand us the cake and goody bag in silence. There was no "Surprise!" "Happy Birthday" or song. The staff member explains that they are out of youth XS shirts so they brought us two youth XLs... My girls are 1 and 2 years old?! The next day when we went to the tie dye activity I was shocked to find youth XS shirts right there in a huge pile... Did they even take the time to check? Lastly we ordered pancakes for breakfast. They are given to us and when we ask for syrup they say they are out of syrup...now why would you sell pancakes and not tell someone that you're out of syrup...also why not run to the camp store and get syrup if you are serving pancakes? It was just one let down...

So, 3 years ago we came here and were coming here every year because my whole family and I really enjoyed this place. We would all come here and rent out 3 deluxe cabins for 4 days as well as renting out the golf carts for the duration of our stay. We would spend money here and didn't care because the service was spectacular and it was a way for us to begin/end the summer with our loved ones. However, THIS YEAR is the last year that my family and I come here EVER AGAIN!! I give this place 1 star because I can't do zero stars but I would also say that I give this place just 1 star because they were still very nice to us. I am a very hardworking mom and due to the nature of my job, I am always working and working hard overtime hours, but I do it so that I can do things like "take my kids camping to end the summer for 4 days" and this completely ruined what I had planned. We arrived here Friday morning and spent the day doing activities with my children, but in the evening I put my children to sleep at around 10pm. At around 1am, my daughter wakes up because she can't sleep and my son wakes up not too long after her and when I see my daughter scratching and I look at her arms and legs, I was shocked, to say the least, at the sight of all the bed bug bites on her body. She must have had about 100+ bites on her. My husband walked into their room and lifted up the mattress on their bunk beds and saw the bed bugs swarming on the wood. It was truly DISGUSTING, and traumatizing to my kids, my husband and I because there were so many! After that, we spent the rest of the night throwing our belongings out and packing what were were keeping, because we couldn't sleep after that and since we had to wait until someone arrived at the office the next morning! So finally someone came in and we explained the situation and the staff was very understanding but when I mentioned the room number, the girl was kinda like "oh, ok." I felt as if she knew that this was an already infested cabin. They reimbursed us everything on the spot and they also gave us $200 cash for the things that we had to throw away. They even offered to give us vouchers to stay for free for 4 days along with the golf carts for the next time we wanted to stay but we're never returning. But the reimbursement, the vouchers, nothing made it better because the ones who were really disappointed were my kids. They were so excited about coming here, we even had a calendar counting down the days and when we got there they were so happy that they had their own room with bunk beds and to tell them that were were leaving, they were so sad. They are still sad, and I am just traumatized. Never come to this place and if you do, make sure that they clarify their bed bug situation to you. They had a bed bug situation a couple of years ago, according to previous reviews. I guess they never rectified it or maybe they dont rent out this cabin but got greedy and rented it anyway. I'm not sure. Just make...