Best Glamping near Rancho Murieta, CA

I wanted somewhere not too far to go and stay when my 5-6 year-old had 5 days off from school. This was perfect in so many ways.

Positives

- Amenities! I love how everything was themed, from the street names to the signs. Two nice playgrounds, ball courts, pool and hot tub. Watching your kids play red light/green light on the jumping pillow put a smile on every parent's face.

- Seasonal programming (weekends only). For October, we did an outdoor movie, magic pumpkins, costume contest, trick or treating, hay ride, and haunted house. My daughter loved everything except the haunted house, which she said was "too scary!"

- Clean, comfortable facilities. Lots of ways to stay. We car camped and found the hook ups really easy to use. Water, drain, 3 types of electricity, picnic table and firepit at every site. We used their bathrooms and showers and was impressed by how clean they were. Most of the time we had them completely to ourselves and they were even climate controlled.

- Restaurant. I cooked breakfast and lunch most days at the campsite, but for dinner we splashed out at the kid-friendly Waterfront Grille. Friendly staff, good food (lobster and prime rib, yum!), amazing views of the sunset.

Negatives

- Water park was closed. Call ahead to see if it is open when you want to go. I heard that it is never open because of some issue with permits or drought. If so, the promotional video is misleading and I almost deducted a star for this.

- Expensive. For camping, it is expensive, but think of it more as a theme park/resort, than true camping. We saved on the cabin and RV, and spent on the optional activities and the fancy meals.

Bottom line, I would totally go back and stay as long as I could. I hear it is super crowded in the summer, but it would be worth it if the water park is open.

Overall a great place to camp. Good access to the river from many of the sites and in general the river is kid-friendly (during summer). Spots vary in size wildly so larger RV's might not be a good idea. On average I'd say 30' is a max. Pit toilets are serviceable but not the best. The OHV crowd can kind of make a mess of this campground in summer (Loud music after quiet hours, riding ATV's into and out of campground despite rules against it... etc) If I had to pick a best time of year I'd say fall or spring (Open-June 1st)

Best place for groceries near by is Pioneer, CA and if you're looking for someone to cook you breakfast try Cook's Station. Cell reception is ok on AT&T

Perfect for what it is which is a basic parking lot RV park. The amenities are pretty great, lovely pool, petting zoo and my favorite the fenced dog park. Oh and they have a dog wash with leash clip!!! So many parks miss the opportunity for dog friendly features. They have the cleanest bathrooms i have ever experienced at an RV park.

My only disappointment was the wifi connection specifically in communal spaces close to the office where it makes sense to have strong connection. Their rec room would be a perfect place to hey some work done if only the wifi was powerful enough. Since i was working on the road I was specifically in need of this amenity. I heard certain RV spots had great reception but unfortunately not ours.

This review is for tent camping, not RVs.

1. Nearly all of the tent sites are tiny and crowded very closely together with no privacy breaks at all between them. To make it even more claustrophobic, many of the near-river sites are terraced into the hillside so you stand at the bottom and look up into a wall of tents stacked 3 high on top of each other. We arrived on a Saturday afternoon and most of the sites were full so the effect was like looking up into a packed stadium from the bottom row of bleacher seats. That first night was like a giant tailgate frat party. Multiple groups were blasting music & even though that’s against the rules nobody seemed to make them stop. Thank goodness we were able to move a few sites away, and then everybody cleared out the next day. The best site is #31. If you’re going on a weekend or any time during the summer, don’t make any reservation at all if you can’t get #31. I’m not putting that in my google review btw, that’s only for folks on Dyrt.

2. The facilities have a lot of maintenance issues that just aren’t being taken care of. For example: there are two bathroom buildings, an old one built out of rail cars (?) near the river and a newer-construction one uphill by the RV sites. Both bathrooms have multiple sinks and toilets that are out of order. In the downhill ladies room there was a toilet that ran water constantly and another that wouldn’t flush at all. I actually took that 2nd one apart and fixed it myself. That same ladies’ room had a sink removed completely from the wall leaving hanging pipes sticking out, a 2nd sink that wouldn’t turn on, a 3rd sink with wobbly handles, and a 4th sink that was fully functional. Next to that restroom on one side was what was supposed to be a shower facility but it was completely out of order and locked. On the other side of the restroom there was what was supposed to be a dishwashing station but it was disconnected with pipes dangling and dirt & leaves filling the sink. Why install nice things and then let them fall apart? I don’t understand.

3. They do seem to keep the toilets stocked with soap and TP and paper towels, and there are lots of garbage cans that do get emptied when needed. However, sometimes campers are naughty and leave behind trash outside the bins. This ranges from micro-trash (bottle caps, wrapper ends) to big pieces (foil pans, beer bottles). We stayed there for 2 days after the giant party moved on, but we never saw camp staff coming around to deal with the loose litter. We were pulling wads of fishing line out of the rocks and throwing away other people’s bottles. Blech.

4. There is an on-site rafting company. We took a full-day rafting trip that launched right from the campground & we had a great time.

5. There is a little general store that sells ice, firewood, souvenirs, Tshirts, etc.

6. It is a gated facility so hopefully secure?

I was worried about our pop up camper not being able to fit in the “tent only sites”, but it ended up being perfect.

The sun shade provided in the tent sites came in handy when we had a short moment of rain. It was also much appreciated during the sunny weather.

Beautiful view of the river but it was certainly crowded. Group sites we were near played loud music. Quiet hours weren’t enforced as people played music or loudly chatted until 1am the first night we were there. However, there’s after hours staff you can contact if you have any concerns.

For the amount of people in the area, there isn’t many bathroom stalls. Yet, we somehow never ran into any long lines.

There’s a lot of people, kids, bikes, and dogs. It’s highly stimulating environment but everyone was very friendly.

Definitely recommend visiting if you are able to make a reservation!