The Motel at Lake Placid KOA — Hotel in Town of Wilmington

This is now a KOA. We stayed at this new KOA recently and I'm torn on the verdict of this place. There are great things about this place and some improvements that can be made. It currently feels like it's in the middle of a transition and is lacking a lot of amenities other KOA's have. Read whole review for the full scoop!||||Background: We stay at the Whiteface KOA and several other state parks several times in the summer. We mostly tent camp but sometimes rent cabins or glamping at the whiteface KOA. My review is based on my experience with other parks in the area compared to this one.||||Staff: I read several reviews on Tripadvisor and google before arriving here. Most of the reviews talked about rude staff. I experienced none of that during my trip. The check in staff were friendly, corrected a mistake when booking was made and refunded some money due to veteran discount. My kid wasn't yelled at, no one was rude to me at my campsite. The staff delivered 2 bundles of firewood to me after i ordered it on the phone. Super helpful and kind when I ordered a Kayak. ||||The registration office is now the camp store and is located on the 100 acre side. The store that I assume was in the reviews on the resort side is now closed. This was kind of a bummer since I like to walk to the store and poke around at the other KOA. ||||Campground is split into two sections. Which is the 100 acre woods & the river resort side. The 100 acre woods has a ton of nice private and pull through type slots for RV's. There's some cabins in front and tent sites located in the far back. My review only covers my experience on the resort side. ||||The river resort side where we stayed is more tent friendly. There are some small shed cabins, nicer RV spots. and an area just for tenting. That area has nice spots but there is a lack of privacy in the middle area. There is a fire ring and a picnic table at each site. Each site has a tons of shade from the big pine trees. There are no "Sand pads" on any of the sites. There are semi flat areas to place your tent down. Some rocks do come out of the ground slightly so keep that in mind when selecting a spot. ||||We stayed on the waterfront resort side in a tent. The tent site was right on the water near the kayak rental shack. There are only 3-4 sites that are right on the river the other 3 are also RV spots. You can fish right off of the site on the Ausable river. There is also a picnic area that everyone can access to check out the water and fish. There is no swimming there, but a little bit down the highway there is the Wilmington public beach. Besides a handful of RVs and one tent camper, the tent sites were empty. ||||The bathrooms and showers were very clean. The bathroom by the tents/rv area have 4 stalls and 1 shower. The toilet paper is 1-ply and kinda sucks. The stalls are also kinda small and a few of the toilets are off center so pooping at an angle was annoying at times. However, they were cleaned twice a day and always clean! They are also a very short walk from most of the tent sites. There are showers located at the big building in the front of the park, but its a small hike from the tent area. ||||Issues: ||All of the amenities except kayak rental outdoor playground were closed. Pool was closed despite looking pristine and is gated. We had an exceptionally cold weekend when we stayed at this KOA so swimming wasn't really in the plans for a non-heated pool. The whiteface KOA has a heated pool and we could have used theirs according to this KOA. However, it was about a mile away and we weren't in the mood to swim in 55* weather. ||||Mini golf was closed, the mechanical doo-dads weren't on. There wasn't instructions on how to get mini-golf posted. We did inquire about it when we were renting Kayaks on the second day. On our first evening, we inquired about how to play it and were told since the office was closed at 6:00 pm mini golf was closed. I supposed it is available to play, however how the clubs and details weren't readily available. In comparison, the whiteface KOA store and mini-golf are open very late in the evening. ||||Kayak rentals were awesome and affordable. They have 2-3 2 person kayaks but 1 of them looked super busted. They have 3-4 canoes and several 1 person kayaks. 20.00 a person for two hours which is way more affordable than other places i have rented Kayaks. The kayak rental shack is located on the only tent side water site where we were staying. It was super convenient for us to just walk from our tent, launch into the water at our leisure and head up the river. While Kayaking we say Osprey's catching fish, saw whiteface mountain in the distance, passed the public beach, and went all the way up 2 miles to where the river turns into impassible streams due to shallowness. But a cool place to park the kayak and relax.||KAYAK WARNING- this isn't posted anywhere on the water, on the KOA or near the hazard. If you go left 1000 yards from the KOA launch site, there is a town damn that drops down near the bridge. Before renting the Kayak make sure you ask for what to avoid. ||||Overall, it was a very quiet and peaceful campground. We might check this place out in a year or two to see if the amenity situation has improved. It's a good place for families or others seeking a quiet getaway...

Amazing location, absolutely terrible staff! (Must Read!) Our family of 10 drove 7+ hours & stayed at 3 trailer campsites in the 100 Acre Woods. While the location was perfect (& we very much enjoyed our time away from the campground), the staff seemed to find every opportunity to make our stay unpleasant; so much so, that we will never return. Ahead of our stay, I called to inquire about the check-in process along with our site location & the man on the phone was incredibly rude. He was curt with me & did not even answer my questions. My husband handled check-in while I waited in the truck with our dogs. He described his experience as being unpleasant & confusing, as the office was unorganized. One person started to help & then he was passed off to another staff member who did not know what to do. He said he did not feel welcome & the staff was rude. Our campsite was narrow with two cut/exposed wires coming out of the ground. There were also many small tree stumps which I tripped over multiple times during our stay (as did other members of our family). I did call the office to inquire about changing to a different site but my request was quickly dismissed by Debbie b/c she said we were only staying for 3 nights (which was incorrect, as we stayed for 6) & other guests were staying for 10+ nights; after saying this to me, she promptly hung up on me. So, we proceed to set up & make the best of our stay. With all that being said, over the course of our stay the campground was wide open & so I found it very hard to believe that they couldn’t make any accommodations & my only conclusion is that they were just being lazy. Also, there is profanity carved into their shower stall walls which really should be addressed. In total, our stay for one site was $552 for 6 days. As I looked closer at our invoice, it came to my attention that they over charged us for extra person & vehicle fees. I stopped up at the front office to inquire & once again, my request was immediately dismissed. The man at the counter treated me as if I was absurdly wrong & even proceeded to read the ‘notes on file’ to prove to me that I did not specify the correct booking details. He said that they do not give refunds & that I needed to come back the next morning at 7am to discuss further with Debbie. The way I was treated was so off-putting, that I did not even bother to follow thru with my request. I shouldn’t have had to explain myself & it absolutely disgusts me that they got away with over charging us for services that were simply not rendered, as this was not a "he-said, she-said matter;" they simply chose not to do the right thing. Funny thing is, my husband wanted to get some souvenirs at their gift shop but I refused to give them any more money. It’s just so sad that they had an opportunity to make things right & we likely would have spent more money but they handled it very poorly. Here is the icing on the cake, the staff at the North Pole Resort just doesn’t know how to be nice. On our last day, we drove to the main resort for a short walk with our dogs through the 4 Paws Trail. Our dogs are small & they were already very tired from a busy week, so this walk lasted 15-20 mins. We parked on the grass next to another car that was already parked on the grass & did not think anything of it. On our way back to our site a staff member (Aldo?) in a golf cart stopped us & said “You’re in trouble, you parked on a septic tank.” My husband apologized & explained that we did not know (after all, there wasn’t a “no-parking” sign). After our apology, the employee proceeded to say in a confrontational tone “Never in 25 years have I seen someone park on a septic tank.” Ok I get it, we made a mistake but why did this guy need to carry on the conversation just to prove us wrong? Every single interaction we had with the staff at the North Pole Resort was terrible, yet every interaction was also an opportunity for them to create a positive experience. Just...

Our family of 10 drove 7+ hours & stayed at 3 trailer campsites in the 100 Acre Woods. While the location was perfect (& we very much enjoyed our time away from the campground), the staff seemed to find every opportunity to make our stay unpleasant; so much so, that we will never return.||Ahead of our stay, I called to inquire about the check-in process along with our site location & the man on the phone was incredibly rude. He was curt with me & did not even answer my questions.||My husband handled check-in while I waited in the truck with our dogs. He described his experience as being unpleasant & confusing, as the office was unorganized. One person started to help & then he was passed off to another staff member who did not know what to do. He said he did not feel welcome & the staff was rude.||Our campsite was narrow with two cut/exposed wires coming out of the ground. There were also many small tree stumps which I tripped over multiple times during our stay (as did other members of our family). I did call the office to inquire about changing to a different site but my request was quickly dismissed by Debbie b/c she said we were only staying for 3 nights (which was incorrect, as we stayed for 6) & other guests were staying for 10+ nights; after saying this to me, she promptly hung up on me. So, we proceed to set up & make the best of our stay. With all that being said, over the course of our stay the campground was wide open & so I found it very hard to believe that they couldn’t make any accommodations & my only conclusion is that they were just being lazy. Also, there is profanity carved into their shower stall walls which really should be addressed.||In total, our stay for one site was $552 for 6 days. As I looked closer at our invoice, it came to my attention that they over charged us for extra person & vehicle fees. I stopped up at the front office to inquire & once again, my request was immediately dismissed. The man at the counter treated me as if I was absurdly wrong & even proceeded to read the ‘notes on file’ to prove to me that I did not specify the correct booking details. He said that they do not give refunds & that I needed to come back the next morning at 7am to discuss further with Debbie. The way I was treated was so off-putting, that I did not even bother to follow thru with my request. I shouldn’t have had to explain myself & it absolutely disgusts me that they got away with over charging us for services that were simply not rendered, as this was not a "he-said, she-said matter;" they simply chose not to do the right thing. Funny thing is, my husband wanted to get some souvenirs at their gift shop but I refused to give them any more money. It’s just so sad that they had an opportunity to make things right & we likely would have spent more money but they handled it very poorly.||Here is the icing on the cake, the staff at the North Pole Resort just doesn’t know how to be nice. On our last day, we drove to the main resort for a short walk with our dogs through the 4 Paws Trail. Our dogs are small & they were already very tired from a busy week, so this walk lasted 15-20 mins. We parked on the grass next to another car that was already parked on the grass & did not think anything of it. On our way back to our site a staff member (Aldo?) in a golf cart stopped us & said “You’re in trouble, you parked on a septic tank.” My husband apologized & explained that we did not know (after all, there wasn’t a “no-parking” sign). After our apology, the employee proceeded to say in a confrontational tone “Never in 25 years have I seen someone park on a septic tank.” Ok I get it, we made a mistake but why did this guy need to carry on the conversation just to prove us wrong?||Every single interaction we had with the staff at the North Pole Resort was terrible, yet every interaction was also an opportunity for them to create a positive experience. Just...