Echo Valley Campground — Hotel in Tremont Township

Let's start out first with the most important part of the review- I do not personally know the lady Judy at the front counter-though from all the reviews on here; I've heard quite a bit about her and not in a good light. I'd like to take a minute to say that we did not have a bad experience with her. In fact, we arrived about 10 minutes after 7:00 (when the office closes) and she still waited for us. It was pouring down rain on that Friday night and she was on the phone before she let us in but that was because she was trying to call another couple that hadn't shown up yet- so I can understand that. While in the office she was accommodating and did give us info about the local attractions.

Our site was Site 26. It was large enough to fit our 31ft trailer and Ford F-350 truck without having to unhook. She did give us a sewer site like we had requested (however, she did warn us we may not be able to use it since the heavy rains were affecting everything pretty badly.) Since it was pouring down rain and we couldn't do too much at the site, we opted to go get dinner. We went to a really nice restaurant 5 minutes down the road called Buddy's- food was really good and atmosphere was awesome!

Next morning was fine. We woke up made some yummy farmer's breakfast and took a walk around the campground. The grounds are kept well in most areas i.e.; the plants planted around the sites, the wood beam/dividers that separate some sites, the picnic tables, fire rings and roads. The few bathhouses they had were clean and modern. I'm assuming they don't need very many as it's not a large campground. Only area that needs some attention was the playground; weeds growing up around good portion of play set.

The main reason we came to this campground was to use the pool. Our boys LOVE swimming, they mine as well be fish. The whole pool experience caught me a little off guard. They don't open the pool until 12pm. When they open it I really mean you go into the office ask it to be opened and they have to unlock the chain around the entrance. Then the guy locks the gate as soon as you enter it. There were two areas to get out of the pool area but no way to get back in without bothering the owners again. I get that they had issues with the public using their pool access (since they are not far off the main road, but that's a little extreme) especially when one has to go to the bathroom; as the bathrooms that were inside the pool area were ancient looking from the outside and the doors were all locked. Boys stayed in the pool for about an 1hr 1/2. They had the entire HUGE pool to themselves which was pretty neat for them. Pool does need some major surface repair like others had mentioned, but the water was clean, clear and warm per the boys response. We even had a picnic table with an umbrella to sit under (thank goodness because it got hot out).

We ended up sitting around at our campsite then with not much to do. No activities going on, no music playing, no people walking around. A large amount of sites unoccupied and the seasonal sites that were there, no one around. We were the only family there with children. We saw a total of 6 people all weekend including the two owners. We ended up going to the local fair out of pure boredom the last night there.

The morning we left, the water levels had gone down so we were able to use the sewer, so that was a plus.

PROS- nicely decorated campground Owners were direct not rude Beautiful little area tucked away in nature Creek was pretty No riff-raff people to deal with Pool was nice- was all to ourselves

CONS- Not really a family campground; no activities or things geared toward children Pool rules were a bit awkward Didn't bother having a fire

I think at one time this campground was probably really booming and a great place to spend your summer, but it seems like it's gone downhill in certain ways and the owners are having trouble keeping it up. No disrespect to them by any means I'm sure it's difficult to run a campground nowadays. Overall, we had...

Echo Valley Campground, Tremont PA Sucks

Run away from this place – we just did!

The owners are rude, especially the woman (Judy). Actually she’s beyond rude, she’s arrogant, and thoughtless.

We rented a “cabin” for a period of one month in July 2014 while looking for permanent housing. It was no cabin, nothing but a crappy trailer. Filled with spiders, ants, and mold. A/C didn’t work at all but we’re thankful for this once we discovered what’s growing in the air ducts. Yuck!

The Echo Valley Campground owners are the King & Queen of nickel & dime BS - they wrote (or are writing) the book. $2 for every visitor who steps foot into their campground “without exception”. If you stay here and have a visitor coming you best be quick to get them down to the office and sign in (pay up sucker) or Miss Judy will be chasing them down with her golf cart. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if she’d charge you a $2 fee should you have need for a paramedic to visit you on site. Also, don’t forget the $6 fee to go swimming and be sure to keep your fingers crossed that they’re at the office to unlock the gates when you arrive to swim. It’s going to be a 50/50 chance of you getting into that pool if you have pool privileges included in your rent, but your chances will be much higher to get them to open the gate if you’re bringing along your $6 fee.

So we paid up front for one month ($700) including a security deposit of $250. Upon checkout we were informed that we would be losing our security deposit (even though they admitted that the cabin was “extremely clean” and they were “pleased with this”) because we did not give them 30 days notice! Yes, these idiots expected 30 days notice on a one month rental in a campground….if you’re following this that means we would have had to give them 30 days notice the day we checked in which technically we did as we only asked for 30 days lodging –DUH! Upon hearing this I threatened with a lawsuit (which isn’t my style) but when confronted by scumbags one must sometimes resort to scumbaggery themselves. The owner (Judy) didn’t flinch though and let me drive away mad. That was until we received a cell phone call 30 mins later telling us that she had discussed the matter with her husband (the other owner) and that we could return for our deposit. We turned the van around and headed back to find that we were not to get our deposit – we were to enter a haggling session where the owners belittled us and told us how bad we treated them because of not notifying them of intent to vacate in 30 days time. They cried the blues and tried every trick in the book to get out of paying the security deposit. Finally I gave up and accepted their offer of $100 security deposit refund. I felt that something was better than nothing and by this point all I wanted was to see Echo Valley in my rear view mirror.

During our stay we met many RV’ers who stated that this was the worst place they’d ever been to, that the owners were rude & cheap, and that they’d never return. We saw the owners fighting with their customers, we listened to them tell stories of how awful and stupid RV’ers are.

I will say that we had one good night at this campground and that was July 4th. They showed an outdoor movie projected onto the side of their building. My family loved this. Unfortunately earlier in the day wasn’t so great as they blew off the scheduled children’s activities without notification.

The bottom line here is that the owners (Judy & Pete) simply have no respect for the people who pay their salaries and keep their broken down doors open. If you stay at this campground after reading these reviews about this place then you deserve what you get because the only good reviews have to be from these two clowns as no one who’s been to this place would write anything but a poor review – they offer no other...

In order for patrons to gain a full, honest understanding of this campground, please read all reviews that are 3 stars or less. They may sound belligerent and exaggerated, but I assure you that the reviews of 3 stars or less are brutally accurate. The cons outweigh the pros immensely. Please read this review further because my story tops all. The facts are as follows: Pete (owner) switched over our water lines to their winterized lines without our knowledge or permission. 5.5 hours later, the trailer flooded, and was later deemed a total loss by insurance. Note that this trailer was a 6 week old Denali 287RE Travel Trailer (very nice). The reason the trailer flooded (noted by a non-biased third party/RV Shop) was because the campground turned the water supply on that served the sani-flush in the black tank. [They should not (EVER) touch someone else’s property, let alone do so without knowledge of what they are tampering with.] The black tank filled up in a maximum time of 45 minutes and pressurized the tank to the point of breaking the seal of the toilet p-valve (flusher). Thus, allowing black water to back flow through the toilet bowl for 5.5 hours, destroying everything touching the floor. They denied it and changed their story 3 (three) times. [First-they did not touch anything. Second-they only switched the lines and turned one line on (not the sani-flush line). Three-they switched over both lines and turned on both water supplies, but the trailer was leaking before they did so.] I took them to court to gain back expenses caused by their carelessness. Turns out lying under oath is no problem for them (and the Judge is corrupt. The Judge stated after 4 minutes of court commencement, that I “would not like his ruling, but to continue”. I hadn’t even begun my explanation before the court had its mind made up.)

Please note that Pete and Judy (owners) have zero: accountability; Integrity; and respect; and have minimal: Intelligence; fair pricing; and tenants. You WILL be on their time; at their convenience; and nothing more. You WILL be yelled at. You WILL be scolded. You WILL be called names and cursed at. You WILL not feel welcome. You WILL pay extra for everything. You WILL have confusion and disorganization by the campground. You WILL have your personal belongings at risk for tampering by the campground. You WILL have bugs flying up from their holding tank into your black and gray tanks (and making it in to your trailer from each of the drains). You WILL NOT have TV channels through your antennae. You WILL NOT have a strong WIFI connection. You WILL have consequences if there are leaves left on your site (No joke. Judy said in court that I left my site ‘trashed’ with litter, wood, and leaves. Luckily I had pictures of the electrical meter, and the CLEAN site after I moved off the premises, minus the leaves being cleaned up.). You WILL NOT be having intelligent conversations with Pete or Judy (owners). You WILL NOT have very many trailers around you, as word of mouth travels and people have grown to understand how terrible this place can be, and no longer stay there. You WILL be told one thing, and then find that information to not be true (they do not say what they mean, and mean what they say). You WILL be left out in the rain (literally) alone to choose/find your campsite, because it is not convenient for Judy to show you around when it is raining (you are on your own!). You WILL have muddy grounds to walk on every inch of grass if it rains for over 2 minutes. This information is purely factual from my personal experience, and is set in place to educate fellow...