Barstow / Calico KOA Holiday — Hotel in Yermo

What a disaster! We only stayed one night thank goodness! What a hassle just trying to check in with those folks, it was like nobody knew what they were doing. Finally after waiting about 10 minutes, the lady at the counter gave us our brochures with our site numbers and told us to just go ahead and get settled. She said when we got settled to come back and finish the check-in process. So after we got settled we went back to the office, waited for somebody that knew what they were doing to help us, they had given one of us in our party the wrong site number, we asked why we weren't put side-by-side like we had requested, they looked at us like we had two heads, and finally realized that they had made an error in assigning the sites and writing down the numbers on the brochures that they gave us. Well that was just the beginning. We checked in about 12noon and about 4 o'clock that afternoon our power begin to trip off. So we shut one of our air conditioners off, but it continue to trip off. We have a 42-foot fifth wheel and it has three air conditioners. With the temperature at well over 105 degrees we really needed to run all three air conditioners to cool the camper off. So after having to shut off two of our air conditioners, I called the office to complain. The lady that answered the phone said they would send somebody over. We waited 30 minutes and nobody showed up. So I called again and said nobody had come, she said again she would send somebody over. About 10 minutes later a gentleman showed up and admitted that they had been having trouble with their power cycling down about 4 p.m. everyday. They had known this for at least 2 weeks he said. Looks to me like they would have done something about it by now. A lot of people in the park we're having the same issue, one guy said they had already moved him twice. We didn't really want to move but the guy said he would go see if they had another site that had better power. Unfortunately he came back and said the only other site they had available had the same power issue as the site we were on. No point in moving! He also said that after 9 p.m. the power should improve. It didn't! Running one air conditioner all night long and the power kept tripping off and coming back on for the entire night! It was truly miserable! I dare say that even if we came back this way in the future at some point, we would NOT stay at...

I am leaving this review as a last resort to share our experience and to warn other travelers.

This RV park is conveniently located between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, which was the reason for our one-night stay. During this trip we visited multiple states and stayed at several RV parks (including other KOAs), and unfortunately this was by far the worst experience.

We arrived in the evening and picked up our envelope with check-in instructions. When we got to our assigned spot, we discovered that garden maintenance had left a sprinkler permanently attached to the water supply. It was bolted on and required a wrench to remove, so we couldn’t connect our RV. We checked other sites (all occupied) and noticed they had split adapters to allow both the sprinkler and the RV hookup, but ours did not. As a result, we had to spend the night with no water - unable to use our kitchen or bathroom.

The next morning we reported the issue at checkout. The staff member said the manager was not in, but she would make a note for maintenance and told us to call after 1 PM to speak with the manager directly. For several days we tried calling. Most of the time no one answered, and when they did, we were told the manager wasn’t available. After about four days, someone finally told us the manager was in but “on a break” and asked us to call back in five minutes. We did, only to have a woman answer, claim she wasn’t the manager, insist the manager wasn’t in at all that day, and dismiss our issue by saying there were no reports of water problems. When I pressed further, she became hostile and hung up on me. When I called back, she was even ruder.

We eventually contacted KOA corporate. Unfortunately, they told us each location is independently managed and there was nothing they could do beyond forwarding our complaint to the owner. We never received any follow-up.

If we wanted a night without water, we could have stayed at a Walmart parking lot and saved $80. Instead, we paid for frustration and...

friendly staff, we showed up on xmas without reservations and they had no issue checking us in. There is a laundry room, machines take quarters which can be purchased inside the store/office, laundry detergent powder is about 1.65 per load with tax, current prices are $2 reg. wash or $3 large wash and takes 22 minutes (large wash out of order) dryers are 25 cents for between 5 and 8 minutes (the timers seem to be set different, time isn't posted anywhere for them, it cost about 75 cents to dry a mixed load of 1 coat, 1 large pairs of men's jeans, 3 pairs socks, 3 pairs underwear 2 pairs of leggings and 3 shirts) The laundry has a sink, table and benches. There is a 24 hour restroom and showers, I haven't been in there but heard the showers don't cost anything. There is an off leash Doggie area with an octagon shade bench area for humans, they provide a waste station equipped with bags. The camp store is pretty well equipped, I wouldn't suggest the flashlights or batteries, we were in a hurry and did, the flashlight doesn't work very well and the batteries expired in 2013... They have a good selection of Route 66 shirts for under $15, souvenir wise that's a pretty good deal. They sell firewood and will provide a burn barrel with purchase. They rent fun bikes and archery, not my thing but pretty cool and worth a mention. They sell propane and have an rv dump. They offer tent camping, yurts, cabins, dry camping, elec and water hookup and full hookup sites. we got an electric and water site and it was under $50 a night including tax. The grounds are clean. There is a shuttle to the Calico ghost town (again not my thing but worth a mention). As far as we can tell this is the safest place to stay in barstow, in town near the motels seems to be filled with people high on drugs or off their medication, we have not seen anything like...