Best Glamping near Santa Ana, CA

There is no denying that this is a spectacular place to stay, our site was right next to the beautiful lake and what a beautiful vision to wake up to every morning. The downfall is the park is extremely spread out, and it gets very very crowded on the weekends. If you are coming here for peace and quiet, especially on the weekends, you might want to look elsewhere because the boom boxes go past quiet time and people love to party here. Staff did not enforce quiet time in our section "F" at all and am sure it wasn't from a lack of being able to hear them. We stayed here for close to a week, never used the facilities because they were just too far away. You have to drive to go to the laundry room, use the pool or access the office if you get a site by the lake, didn't know that. Come the weekend it is wall to wall people, even tent camping on the lawn is wall to wall tents. It is very expensive to stay here and we prefer a resort where we could find the atmosphere more relaxing. We did not, for safety reason, confront the offenders to ask them to turn down their music. I am all for freedom of everything, but neighbor flying Trump flag was a bit much. I am not here to have political rhetoric in my face. The irony of this resort is they require you to sign a page long terms and conditions yet they don't abide by them themselves! Saturday night music and people partying till past 1 AM yet they say quiet time is 10 pm. At 9am the boom box competition started up again. So inconsiderate of your fellow campers! We love the grounds but cant wait to leave to get a good nights sleep.

Cool drive to get to the campground. You drive up and down these hilly roads up the mountain to get there. Once there, there's a parking lot that fits about 20 cars. There's about 100 yd hike to the campsites. There's a road that leads to the campsite but it's been blocked off. Only the campsite managers use that road so it's not accessible by RV, just tents. A campsite manager stays in a little trailer overnight so if there's any problems there's somebody there you can go to and ask for help. There's about six campsites and their first come first serve, no reservations. I went during the week and was the only one camping. This place is heavily used for day camping and hiking. There's not a lot of privacy because there's always lots of people passing by who are hiking and biking. You can stay overnight which I did and everything was fine but there's not a lot of privacy. The next day as I was leaving there was another guy sitting up his tent. I bet on the weekends they can fill up pretty fast. It's in Bear country so they provide food storage for each campsite also trash containers too. Each side has a picnic bench and a fire pit. The fire ban has been lifted so you can have a fire. Each fire pit had wood left at it so you didn't have to go searching for campfirewood. Bathrooms included male and female toilets but no showers or water. There's a creek that runs through the campground which makes it very pretty. I saw two to three cabins along the outskirts of the campground that I assume were for rentals. There was one family at one of the cabins the night I stayed. About a 20 minute hike and you can end up at a waterfall which is very pretty. But there are several trails to take for hiking and biking and I saw lots of people doing that. Overall a good campsite four stars. Would have been five stars if they had showers and running water. I didn't see any bears although there was an animal outside my tent at one point in the night I could hear him nosing around. So it's important to keep all of your food and anything with any kind of smell in the bear boxes

I stayed here three weeks in February. I stayed up top and site 91 was great! I would stay here again and request that site.

Cons:

• Noise from I-5 and helicopter sorties. Occasional bombing exercises also.
• Top bathrooms under construction since January but I wasn’t notified until I got there (provided ports-potties and hand washing station were stocked and cleaned regularly).
• No dogs allowed on beach. 30 min drive to Dog Beach in Solana.
• Lower bathrooms. These were the only showers available. The bathrooms are well stocked but the showers were not cleaned regularly. The same clump of hair was in the same shower for three weeks. Four out of six showers have no hooks to hang clothes. Shower caddies are all rusted. Surfers bring their boards in a rinse them off in the showers. The showers/bathrooms are gross. This was by far my biggest complaint. Regular cleaning, a few extra hooks, and new shower caddies would go along way.

Pros:

• Beautiful views and lots of beach at low tide.
• Very quiet during the week (weekends are very busy).
• Close to a small exchange, commissary, and gas station.
• Nice fire pits
• Cheap laundry facilities
• Close to San Clemente and San Diego is only an hour away.

Just out of the town of San Juan Capistrano, one might think that it is too city like. Once you get into the park however, you feel like you are in a remote woods with the city far behind you. The electric hook up camp area to me unfortunately it’s too close to State Route 74 however I have never stayed there so I do not know what the noise is like. It is a nice area though and much better than camping in a trailer park that is filled with concrete. Live Oak is where my husband and I stay and I am not going to tell you the space because it is the most perfect of all. There is plenty of space between most of the campsites. It is quiet And very scenic. Upon arrival they were fliers and signs that warned us to be careful because they were mountain lions in the area. We have stayed there at least a dozen times and have never seen a mountain lion. There are also rattlesnakes and although we have never seen one, a friend who was visiting us so saw one on the road on their way to our site. We have truly enjoyed this campsite and campground. I have an area where they display the history of the area and the animals in the area. Very beautiful view as well up on the hill. Although we have never gone hiking, I hear there are many many trails that are very beautiful. I am disabled but the sides and the showers and bathrooms are very friendly to those who are disabled. This is one of my favorite campground and you don’t need to get on a year in advance to get a reservation! We did have a coyote one night in our campsite in our kitchen area, while we were sitting around the fire. Once we shooed him away, he ran off. Probably why no pets!

Beautiful sunsets! We stayed February 5th and 6th at site #23 but it looked like most of the sites had great views of the Pacific. The campsites are roped off and have a decent amount of distance between them. There is some vegetation between them but not enough to be totally private. We were just a short walk to the bathrooms which were spotless. They were being cleaned frequently. The showers are coin operated but it didn't take many coins to get a decent warm shower.

There is a nice day area and trails within walking distance. The tide was high both times we tried to walk under the highway to get to the beach but there were parking lots just a short drive up the road.  

We will definitely go again.