Resort at Canopy Oaks

Overall this is a great place to stay with some friends or just the family and make new friends while you are on your trip. If you are terrified of bugs this may not be the place for you (FYI), it is in the middle of Florida and in summer the bugs love to come out. We did a short 3 night 4 day trip from Thursday to Sunday after the July 4th weekend. On Thursday when we arrived the park was empty and only a few more rigs showed up after we arrived. It was nice having the park so empty, made it more relaxing. The staff are friendly and very helpful overall very enjoyable and we would go back again.

Demographics were all over the place. Seemed like a good bit of people were staying for multiple weeks. You had some older folks 55 and up with no kids but their was also a good bit of families with kids ranging from 3ish up to 14ish (I suck at telling how old kids are) and so that is a complete guess. We had a 4 year old with us not to many kids his age but a good bit of kids older than him.

Normal checkin hours are from 1am - 5pm, we got in a little later around 6:50pm. Check In was easy, when we pulled up they had all our paper work sitting in the mailbox ready for us. A staff member did pull up in a golf cart and great us.

The bathroom facilities are not bad. They look nice and function well but could use some better cleaning. The showers could use a little more water pressure and they don’t get super hot. The facilities we used had a good bit of insects in it, a palmetto water bug here or there, ant’s crawling up the wall, moths, spiders, mosquitos. This was probably partially due to the door into the building did not shutting all the way on it’s own. You had to forcefully shut it. But then again you are in the middle of the woods in Florida. I would half expect to see those types of bugs everywhere. The facilities do need some more upkeep, I don’t want to see what the place looks like in five years.

The bathroom facilities are not bad. They look nice and function well but could use some better cleaning. The showers could use a little more water pressure and they don’t get super hot. The facilities we used had a good bit of insects in it, a palmetto water bug here or there, ant’s crawling up the wall, moths, spiders, mosquitos. This was probably partially due to the door into the building did not shutting all the way on it’s own. You had to forcefully shut it. But then again you are in the middle of the woods in Florida. I would half expect to see those types of bugs everywhere. The facilities do need some more upkeep, I don’t want to see what the place looks like in five years.

The club house had a large great room with 10 round tables, pool table, and ping pong table, and a few lounging chairs/couches. Just a heads up the pool queue‘s do not have any tips on them and the ping pong paddles are in the same condition. Bring your own paddles and ping pong balls if you want to play. The Gym is in the club house, and has some cardio equipment and free weights. Overall it was a nice gym and gets the job done. I believe the Gym was only 18 and up but it is open 24/7.

The pool was great, but we also went on a fairly empty weekend. If the park was pack the pool would have been over crowded. Not sure how busy it gets other weekends but i would say they should look at putting in a second pool at some point. Ample seating around the pool with lounge chairs. They only have a few tables with umbrellas so get to the pool early if you want to grab one or you can rent a cabana for $150 a day. The cabana’s have a few couches and table under them.

The Tiki bar is great, nice large tiki hut with tv’s a few fans and cheap drinks but they are strong! The mixed drinks are great, I liked the Polk County Punch and the wife liked the Florida Sunshine but I recall the drink looking more like swamp water than sun shine. They have live music in the evening and the bar stays open till 11pm. They also have pirate trivia on Saturday FYI it’s not about pirates.

It was nice that they laid out activities for the kids. Different arts and craft activities, water slide, foam party, slime tube, etc. It seemed like it was something new everyday.

It was nice that they laid out activities for the kids. Different arts and craft activities, water slide, foam party, slime tube, etc. It seemed like it was something new everyday.

Pros

• AT&T wifi speeds were great. 55 - 180 Mbps
• Clean sites
• Large sites

Cons

• pool deck gets super hot and can burn your feet
• Needs more upkeep
• Need water pressure regulator
• Camp wifi is finicky, kept going out
• No shade on sites

So much potential. Pool, food, games, billiards, pizza, a store, golf cart rentals, big spaces, dog-friendly, premium spaces with beautiful pads and fire pits, brick fire pits or even grills. Lots of space and 3 free wireless devices for your stay.

Cabanas at the pool are stupid expensive, ($350 a day as of this writing). They sat empty for our entire 11 day stay. In our talks with other campers, no one has ever seen one in use except as a consolation to an upset camper. So technically never rented.

Lots of rules; some good and some bad. However, seemingly none are actually enforced. This leads to dogs off-leash running around (their camp site and yours). No clear paths to get across the back sides of the park, which leads to campers routinely cutting through your site to get from point A to point B.

The first 5 days of our stay were quiet. After that, the park started filling up and you could see the place slip into free-form mode.

The Wi-Fi was great when it worked, and you were almost always connected. BUT, dozens of times a day the internet just froze. Devices would bounce on and off the WiFi dozens of times in minutes, prompting you to confirm terms of service every-single-time. It got old and we bailed on the WiFi by day 4. Although there was a 24/7 support number for the WiFi, it was worthless. The hosting company (AccessParks) really couldn’t have cared less if the WiFi ever worked and it showed, but only after two waits on hold for 1.5+ hours each time.

The views were beautiful, and the golf carts are in great shape and well maintained. Water pressure was wonderful, and the sewer hookups on all available sewer sites were very well maintained and at the correct height for any camper, they are flush with the concrete pad on every site.

The pizza at the shop was very good, and the little store has some great gems. But the Tiki bar has ridiculously weird limited hours, and neither the food nor the bar are anywhere near the pool and game areas. No restaurant choices in the park for sit down dining.

The soda machines on the premises are supposed to be connected, allowing for credit card or Android Pay, Samsung Pay and Apple Pay options. Similarly, the laundry facilities are setup for digital payments. BUT, and it’s a big but, even the machines seem to suffer from the internet oddities of this location. Most work once in a while, but really just spin the little orb and time-out before saying something went wrong, try again later. So even the on-prem machines can’t connect to the internet….hmmm.

The dog parks are nice, but not policed at all. Lots of un-cleaned dog poop that we ended up picking up. People parking in them for hours using them as their own fenced yard.

This facility has so much that could go right, but just needs some more interaction from management to make it great.

We would come back, but hope that these things could be addressed.

The sites are very big & clean but ZERO shade. It’s a newer resort so the palms and small trees were just planted & offer no sun relief. The property is sprawling, definitely bring a bike unless you enjoy long walks. The roads are nice & they offer morning trash pickup. The pool is huge & gorgeous! Very nice. Same for the tiki bar, we had some great nights there. There are free cornhole boards, places to fish (catch and release), a playground that was nice, game areas, a little store and a nice deli/pizza spot. The bathrooms and showers were very clean. The staff we met were all very nice & helpful. This would’ve been better for us during the cooler months as the sun did beat us down as the days passed. They offer a morning hike and other activities as well. I think this place will be better as it develops over the years (& the tiny trees grow lol) They’re right next to River Ranch which has smaller but better landscaped sites and horseback riding which you can just hop over & do for the day.

This place was lots of fun. Definitely more Glamping but it was very cool to experience. We went for the 4th of July weekend and there were so many different activities to do and see. There’s even a clubhouse for people of all ages with many games and activities to do. There’s also a small gym. We absolutely loved going to visit the few farm animals they had as well.

Only thing that takes off a star for me is that they don’t allow tents. We have a roof top tent and called ahead to confirm if we were allowed to use it and the lady on the phone said no. (We go to the resort anyways because we had plans with our family). So we decided to rent a camper then when we get to the resort another lady tells us that it’s ok for us to use the tent and that others have used them before. At the time it was a headache to go through but we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless. Since it’s a new resort and the trees are new there is absolutely to shade! It can get extremely hot that you will definitely need to take advantage of the pool. Aside from all that it is definitely a nice place to visit. My family had so much fun.