I'm extremely dishearten by the lack of customer service from this privately owned campground and wish we would have just invested our money & spent our annual family camping trip at one of the many fabulous state ran facilities nearby. It's not really about the money, but at least I would feel better about additional fraudulently charged fees if they were going back into our natural resources, but instead it's going into these owners pockets... Basically, make sure to read and re-read not just their website & welcome letter, but ALL fine print on booking receipts, etc. Here is what happened- we initially misunderstood the dog fee policy ($50 per dog, per day is what it actually is- seems steep right?) and after finding this out as we were leaving home (3.5 hours away) we decided to turn around to leave the dogs at home to have our friend take care of them. Heartbroken to be missing our fur family members but not wanting to spend that much more, we decided we were going to have a fun "kid-free" weekend camping... Only to be charged $150 for "having 3 dogs" in the pet friendly cabin, when we actually had 0 and have video evidence our dogs were at our home all weekend (one of the many time-stamped pictures attached for reference). Evidently there was an "excessive" amount of fur found in the cabin (fur does tend to stick to animal owners belongings, even when the dogs are not physically there, so I'm confused as to why any fur was an issue when we even booked a pet friendly cabin). When explaining the situation, the office manager was nice enough but "no, we can't come to an understanding because the owners have said this is what it is, and at least you weren't charged the $250 extra cleaning fee....". After reading similar reviews after the fact (really wish I would have focused less on the 4.5 stars and more on what the reviews actually said) I decided to eat the $150 charge since a place like this would just turn around and charge me the $250 probably if I were to dispute through my bank... Even though I would win if I did decide to take them to small claims court with the proof my dogs were at my home 3.5 hours away.
Ultimately, it's not about the money here... it's the principle of customer service. I was willing to admit that there likely was fur on my belongings, not excessive though, and even asked during check out if there was a cleaning checklist because I couldn't find one and wanted to make sure I was leaving the cabin in expected shape- I was told no, they hire a cleaning crew for that so we were good to go. Then when charged a dog fee when I did not have my dogs, I asked to come to a reasonable middle ground... a $50 cleaning fee seems reasonable to me since all they had to do was run the bedding through a washing machine since there were never actually any dogs in the cabin. But of course, no such luck from owners who would rather ruin a family camping memory and provide terrible customer service all just to see a few extra dimes in their pocket.
All in all- if you want to stay in a cabin for camping, with or without your pets, find somewhere else and invest your money back into our natural resources and not some crooked owners pockets.
Noteworthy details
-cabins are fairly small, especially the lofts- even my 5'0 sister hit her head multiple times and the stairs are extremely narrow getting up/down so be careful! -train goes through middle of campground each night/day, so again be careful & bring ear plugs if you're a light sleeper! -hiking "trails" are subpar, and we enjoyed the ones at Pikes Peak much more when we decided to leave the campground to have something to do/enjoy. -the "lake" with beach/fishing is more of small pond, decent amount of fish but clearly they are fed well, so you may want to look elsewhere if fishing is an activity you're looking for. -the cave tour was interesting to see, but you don't have to stay there in order to see that tourist site and it takes probably 30 minutes. read more