Las Vegas KOA Journey at Sam's Town Journey — Hotel in Whitney

Mixed Bag

Stayed here for a week 11/14/19 through 11/22/19, in the North/Nellis lot, in a patio pull thru space for our 42’ 5th wheel. The reviews are why we chose to stay here, but after being here I can’t understand why they are so positive.

Pros: Friendly, helpful staff. There was only one phone exchange that wasn’t friendly or very nice, otherwise everyone we encountered made our stay more pleasant. The pool was open and heated, the hot tub nice and hot. Due to the time of year, I had both to myself entirely. Very cool! Multiple off leash dog enclosures. Sam’s Town within walking distance - not a five star casino, but decent and clean. Easy access in and out of the park, just 2 miles from the freeway.

Cons: Lots of old, run down campers. A lot of accumulated stuff around some of them, indicating long term residencies - much of the stuff could even be called junk. They also seem to be storing RV’s and more. A couple of days into our stay a horse trailer parked in the spot next to ours, and nobody is staying in it (seems to have a small bunk area); the sites are directly on top of each other, so this trailer was not a nice thing to be parked next to. There was a “resident” a couple of spaces away who cursed and threatened to kill our F*n dog, who wasn’t even barking. He ranted at us at least 10 minutes. Staff in the office was sympathetic. The employee who visited the ranter seemed to be familiar and unconcerned about him - and he never came back to reassure us that the mad man will leave us alone. His ranting continued with another camper the next day, but I guess since he lives there...well, I can’t actually figure out why they’d let him stay. I worried about him the whole time we were there. The area outside the campground has a lot of people around, many who seem to be down on their luck. Some of who actually come into the campground and have to be chased off. The last night we were there someone tried to open our door. Not the safest neighborhood, but the staff tries to keep the grounds safe. I’m confused why they don’t have the whole property gated and fenced - much of it is, but anyone can easily walk in and around from the front. Not a fan of the gravel sites. Overall, not likely to...

This is our second stay at the Sams Town KOA, and plan on returning again on our reverse leg of our trip, which is as much an endorsement as we ever give. It is a very good value for being so conveniently located between The Strip and the more nature / recreation oriented stuff like Lake Mead, the Dam and Valley of Fire.

Quick hits:

Spacing: As long as you get one of the mid to higher rate spots (at these prices you might as well), the spacing is good for urban parks. (WAAAAY more space than others!) Set your expectations. This ain't the wilderness.

WiFi: Good for campground service. Decent upload speed for your vacation pics, but not quite good enough for Zoom for work / school. Slows in the evening.

Hookups: Good water pressure, reasonably clean tasting after filter. No electrical problems noted. No sewer smell noted.

Park cleanliness: Inside the park was spotless. Never saw a flying piece of trash. We never went in the bathrooms or used the laundry this trip.

Noise: The campers were quiet. But... It's an urban park. In outskirt Vegas. The siren, hot rod street racing, etc noise was VERY noticeable.

Convenience: It's a bit of a drive to get to the Strip, about 15 mins. Coming from SoCal, you have to loop east and around Vegas on the freeways which are... Sporty?... In high volume periods. But you're conveniently located to hit the freeway and head east towards Lake Mead, Valley of Fire, etc.

Surrounding area: It's an urban park. But RV park and casino security does a decent job. The Sams Town casino nearby is pretty nice for a very-off-strip resort.

COVID: Pretty good mask use and distancing all around between the RV park and the...

When we checked in the check-in staff doesn’t notify you of the high crime rate a bums that come through the campground and steal items from campers. So we were unaware being that we are not from Las Vegas and have never been there before. We left a few of our kids items out one night and our Wonderfold 4 seater wagon was stolen along with a few other small items that were left in the wagon. It left us with no wagon/stroller for our 4 young kids to get around during our trip. We contacted the front office and filled out a complaint form and they said a manager would call us asap about this situation. After 2 days of numerous attempts of trying to get ahold of the manager we finally ran into her. She pretty much said it’s our own faults we should have known and picked it up and KOA is not responsible. This family trip now went from $250 to costing us $1000 to have our wagon replaced. When we asked if there was anything she can do the make this better because we were very unhappy with this whole situation she said she could maybe do 50% off one night but that’s it. We have stayed at numerous KOAs in the country and this was by far our worst experience. The sites are narrow and leave little to no room to spend time outside your camper an clearly the campground is not in a safe area. Our remaining stay we were afraid our camper would be broken into if we left or more items would be stolen. We are very unhappy that we decided to spend our family vacation at the KOA Las Vegas and we will never be going back to this specific KOA...