For the last several years, my group of friends (all mid-30's) has been doing an annual camping trip and Pine Hollow has been our go-to spot because of it's proximity to Meadowbrook, Weir's Beach, FunSpot, etc. Aside from the occasional dousing of our campfire shortly after 11pm, we've never had any issues and always looked forward to coming back next year. Before going any further, let me first say that the ladies in the office have always been great! Very welcoming and personable. The groundskeeper is a good guy too - does a great job with what he has to work with. The experience that has turned us off from Pine Hollow was with their occasional night security guard, Bob. Like many older New Englanders, Bob is a snow-bird and on the rare occasion that he makes an appearance in Laconia, he occupies his time in the power seat of a golf cart mistreating campground guests while playing gestapo security guard enforcing arbitrary undocumented rules.
We checked into our sites early Thursday afternoon, got camp set up and relaxed while the rest of our group arrived. One of the guys got a late start, and when he arrived, good ol' Bob denied him entry into the campground. To be fair, it was 11:30pm - that's late. Bob's justification was that it was too late to be making noise setting up a tent. We explained that there was room for him on one of the tents that was already up. Bob then shifted his justification to not knowing us followed by repeated affirmations that check-in hours were over. I calmly explained that we had checked into our sites earlier in the day and this guy was accounted for in the fees we had paid for the sites we rented. Bob wasn't interested in a rational discussion so he "graciously" offered us the option of setting up a tent in the front field next to the road and if that wasn't acceptable, we could all get the hell out. His language took a steep nose dive after that. Logic and reason didn't enter into Big Bad Bob's argument, nor did he respond to the same. The whole conversation devolved quickly into a string of expletives and threats of calling the police by, what I can only surmise, is a very unhappy person. Pity.
In any event, we set the tent up in the field and our buddy managed for the night despite the traffic on the adjacent road. He got situated in our sites the following day, but the experience set a pretty sour tone for the rest of the weekend. Upon checkout, I spoke with the lady in the office and described the late-night conversation with Bobby Boy. I let her know that we were less irritated by the new arbitrary policy than how we were treated by her power-hungry security guard. She apologized and informed me that our new friend Bobbo wasn't just campground security, he's also the owner.
As I said, we've been guests at Pine Hollow Campground for years and have never had any issues. The facilities are adequate, but the location is great. I expect following this review we won't be welcome back, but to be honest, I'd rather find a new campground than fund Buckaroo Bob's retirement by renting sites in his campground. read more