Lost River Valley Campground — Hotel in Woodstock

Highly would not recommend. We've been a LOT of places camping and this was one of the worst places thus far. There are more rules on what you CAN'T DO, that you have to constantly worry if you're allowed to do something. It is close to Lincoln, which is nice - but the roads in the campground are narrow and with the location of trees it's hard to make wide turns when you're over 24 feet.

Here are the top things (there's more than what I'm writing) that drove us to never return: Visitor Policy: They have a ridiculous visitor policy. Not always do you know ahead of time when booking that you will have visitors stopping by but they expect you to notify them then. They speak to you like you're a child to remind you about the policy when an extra visitor shows up who they did not know about. This is not what it says on the website, but when my mom & aunt came to visit, my sister went to register her and got yelled at for it. Going along with the visitor policy, when you do have visitors the have to pay a $4.00 fee for the vehicle BUT they cannot drive their vehicle to your campsite because they have a strict ONE CAR policy (even though I could have parked 3 cars at my site). So you pay $4.00 for a vehicle on top of the visitor fee to leave the vehicle parked near the store. No River Access: No access points to the river without falling down a cliff to get there or walking through someone else's site (which you're not allowed to do - and why would you, it's rude.) See Something, Say Something Policy: stapled around everywhere with a number to call, but they have little to no reception to make calls and no WiFi to provide WiFi calling. I guess we could have walked to the store to complain about a few things or tried to stop someone on the golf cart (definitely going faster than their 5 MPH policy HA) when they occasionally went by....but none of them were overly friendly or personable towards the campers that I noticed. Site/Cleanliness: The site was not even close to level (I had to go buy a stool in order to put underneath my final step because that's how much farther up the front of the camper had to be) and there were leaves everywhere. My sister also found a tampon on the bottom of her shower floor. Extras: Not much to do for children's activities. They had a small game room which was fine for older kids, but younger kids there wasn't much to do. They didn't have a lot of activities going on that were advertised at least - they did do a scavenger hunt thing for "Pirates and Princesses Weekend" but it was not the most fun thing. They just asked for selfies to be taken at certain places within the campground and then posted online (which you couldn't do with no service). They have one playground, not two like the map shows. The 2nd "playground" is a singular dome object to climb on and the blow up house that was deflated look like it'd be left there all weekend and it's all located on the leach field for their bath house. The Final Thing: A few weeks before I noticed an automatic payment (that I did not manually do) to pay for the remainder of the reservation. This brought me to a $0.00 balance. I paid an original price for 3 adults, 2 children and 2 dogs. I went to add on an additional child 3 days before our reservation and was told that I had an overdue balance that needed to be paid 14 days before our arrival. I was so confused, so I questioned the balance and somehow the cost of the reservation after adding on the additional child went down from when I originally booked and I was actually $-7.00.... so I overpaid. I questioned the overpayment when I cancelled our next reservation with the campground because they also kept $15.00 from that reservation cancellation (even though they owed me $7.00). I was told that it'd be passed along to the owner but it's been over 24 hours and I haven't gotten a word back on it and don't expect to after this review.

Would be great for people who have no visitors/family and need the bare minimum - but not if you're looking...

It pains me to leave a negative review for this campground as I am all for supporting small family businesses and always try to give others the benefit of the doubt. However, there is no excusing what we endured here from the owner, Lisa. Anytime there was an issue, Lisa was very unprofessional and spoke rudely to us; she was not interested in solving the problem, but was more concerned about being right. The first instance we had conflict with Lisa, it was partly our fault and we apologized for it. She told us that she tried to contact us prior to the start of our vacation to make check-in easier- we never received any calls or emails. We were a large group (20 adults, 6 kids), but we had 7 sites. We could have done a better job of communicating and coordinating with our group as they unknowingly broke the rules about one car per site and the campground speed limit. After we apologized, Lisa did as well and though we didn't feel welcomed due to her aggressive and rude tone with us, we chalked it up to a miscommunication. We had hoped this would be our only instance of conflict. Unfortunately, it was not. The next day she came to our site yelling at us and telling us she was going to call the police because we had multiple visitor cars parked at a site that wouldn't move, even with warnings. We never received any warnings, this was the first time she spoke to us. We went to investigate for ourselves and found out we only had one additional visitor car parked to unload groceries. The other car accidentally received a visitor's pass instead of an overnight pass, which was Lisa's error. When we went to correct it with her and get the correct pass, she blamed her mistake on us not answering her phone calls (that we never received). We told her we would not be returning to her camp again once our reservation was done because of the stress she caused us due to how she spoke to us. She told us if we felt that way we could leave right then and literally told us to get out of the office. She additionally refused to refund us the money for the extra visitor car she was charging us for, despite it being her mistake. We have been camping for many years, with groups larger than this, and have never had any issues with any owners. Lisa did not know how to handle her stress and resolve a situation while speaking respectfully to others. We regret choosing this camp for our adventure simply because of Lisa. The rest of the staff were very pleasant and respectful with us. In addition to the rudeness from the owner, this camping was not cheap- something we could have overlooked had the owner been kinder. They charged for every little thing- even the showers cost money (which was not advertised on the website). If you have more than one car per site they will charge a fee for the car and the adult driving the car, even if the adult fits in one of the two tents permitted at the site. The playground that we specifically picked a spot near for the children in our group was only a bouncy house and a small piece of climbing equipment (pictured below- to be fair bouncy house was blown up as long as it was sunny). The showers in the women's bathroom began to pool with water as soon as you started them. The men's bathroom only had 2/4 showers working the 3 days we stayed there, in addition to frequently dirty toilets. Previous negative reviews spoke of the prison-like style, we ignored them thinking people were being dramatic. They were not. Do yourself a favor and go 5 minutes down the street to Maple Haven Campground. The owners were understanding, respectful, and we had a much better time there the previous year.

UPDATED REVIEW BELOW: FYI - Spanish was the "different language" our party spoke. If you knew Spanish, you would have just said it was Spanish and said what we called you, not said something vague and racist like "different language" as if it's something otherworldly or alien. We had our suspicions that this was racially motivated, thanks for confirming it. I repeat- stay away from...

Review: Lost River Valley campground

Pros: large wooded sites- beautiful with lots of trees and shade. This was the best part of the place. We loved the old school rustic sites. They have a state park kind of feel and are very large.

Quiet campground- also loved that there is no rule on putting your fires out at a certain time. It was a very low key vibe.

Great location and close to everything in the area.

Cons: This one was a big one for us and the main reason we would not return. Bathrooms were disgusting, only cleaned once a day and even after being cleaned it was still dingy and in disrepair. The showers were so gross and at one point there were no functioning showers in either of the women’s bathrooms. The mens bathroom near us was out of toilet paper for at least 24 hours. Many showers were missing shower heads or had no water pressure. 1out of 4 toilets didn’t flush correctly and often was filled with waste. When all the women’s showers were broken, they took the shower heads from the mens room as a quick fix leaving them less showers. The coin machines were often broken but you didn’t know until after you put tur money in. The website describes the bathrooms as modern bathrooms but that is false. One bathroom even has large construction equipment next to it. This Is not an issue but it didn’t look nice and looked junky. In my opinion bathrooms need to be totally gutted and redone. Someone also needs to be in charge of cleaning regularly (not just once a day) and checking to ensure everything is functioning properly. One night my daughter went to the bathroom closest to us to shower. Not one shower was working so we headed to the other bathroom. There were two out of four working. Midway through my daughter’s shower it stopped working. She had to wait until the person next to us was done to finish her shower.

Amenities were non existent. There were no activities despite advertising. My welcome email said to see the website for daily activities. No where to be found. There were zero activities for kids. This would be totally fine but the lack of communication and false advertising is what was bothersome. I would not recommend this place for families unless you plan to go out exploring or just hang out at your own site.

The playground across the street was in disrepair and old. The playground listed near us had a small bouncy house and a small gym. Only meant for really small children. Not a big deal but there really wasn’t a lot for older kids to do. I also would not advertise this as a playground.

The swimming hole- no way should this be advertised as a place to swim. It is small and no one in our large party would consider swimming in this. In fact we didn’t see anyone swim here the whole 5 days we stayed. You could rent paddle boats but you’d be done in two minutes as it’s very small.

Camp Store area: there was a lot of trash near the dumpsters when we arrived. The store had everything we needed but was kind of gross, run down and dingy. The one time I went to buy some things the credit card machine was down. Flower boxes were filled with dead plants and the grounds are surrounded by lots of dirt and dust. The game area is also old, dirty and cramped.

There was a security ATV that drove around the campground with a Rottweiler. There were no warm exchanges and seemed generally unwelcoming. This seemed to be excessive for the quiet atmosphere. When we first arrived it actually gave us the impression that it was a rowdy place and had a need for intense security.

Overall, I am most disappointed that the website does not reflect the actual campground. The website is false advertising and does not reflect the actual poor condition of this campground. I think with some attention to detail and hard work this place has potential but is not a place we...