Best RV Parks & Resorts near Bridgeton, NJ

Not Much of a ‘Resort’

We stayed at Shady Pines MH& RV Resort for a one-night getaway just for the camping experience. 

The park was easy to find and located just under 3-miles from the Garden State Parkway. 

The front office staff person was polite and prepared for our arrival. 

I reserved this site using Campspot. The rate was$65 plus$23 in fees for a total of$88 for one night. 

Even though I provided accurate dimensions for our motorhome, the site was inadequately sized to accommodate the full length. The much bigger problem was that it sloped so much it was impossible to level. I didn’t have enough blocks to prop up the leveling jacks enough to level the RV. I called the front office and was given another site to try. That didn’t work any better. I called back and was given a third site which was the worst so far. Then, at the fourth attempt we could get level. The site was still on a decline, but not as bad as the other three. 

Our site (#71) was too short for our 37’ motorhome. I made it fit, but measured just 3-inches of air between the back of my RV and the back of our neighbor’s RV. Three inches! The site had not been checked since its last guests left because there was refuse(used bandages, a used propane canister, etc.) that should have been cleaned prior to check-in by new guests. The water, 50-amp electric, and sewer hookups worked fine.

Other than a small swimming pool and a small fenced area for dogs, there were no amenities.

In speaking with our neighbor, it became apparent that there are several people working on assignment for a nearby decommissioned nuclear power plant who live at this campground. Shady Pines caters to long-term and year-round guests as well as manufactured homes/trailers that are permanent. We were the only motorhome in the entire park. This is ok, but a sign that while this place suits their needs, it doesn’t do much to attract couples and families on overnight trips and vacations.

Due to the sloped and not-so-clean sites, lack of amenities, and full-price rate charged, we won’t be back.

This is our first stay at this Thousand Trails resort.

We had a reservation that we made using the App. The app did not allow us to book a stay starting on a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday so we checked in on Sunday. The reason i mention this is that when set up in our site our neighbor told us that there were plenty of empty sites all the previous week - he stays here frequently and recommended calling rather than using the Thousand Trails app.

Next note - the resort did not reserve a particular site and suggested that we drive around and select the one we liked. That was ok and we got a nice level site with a concrete pad under the picnic table. Partially shaded. Consideration - As we have a class B unit we will be in and out of the site - we needed some way to designate that the site was taken if we went out. The resort did not plan for this ( see later note ) but they did come out and give us a length of caution tape to us to block the site.

This is a fairly large place. The sites are clean but small. Far and away this resort is used by seasonal and cabin campers. They only have a few ( maybe 25 or so) transient sites which they seem to allocate on on a first come first serve basis. If you have a class b and plan to go in an out i recommend you bring some sort of indicator to mark your site as occupied.

We came in late September so the pool was closed but the lake side beach was still open. The beach was clean and had beach chairs.

The camp store has limited offerings, was not open on Mon and Tue, and closed at 4. This may have been because we were late in the season.

We weren't sure about this campground. We booked through Thousand Trails and you can't reserve sites. Our trailer is 37 feet long, so there is always the concern we won't find any sites will fit in (we actually cancelled the membership for this reason). While we didn't have a problem finding sites, the first night we stayed our neighbors were partying late into the night- not good when we have two young children with us. We moved the next morning and our next site was wonderful- much larger and quieter. The girls loved swimming in the lake and the pool. We were only a short drive from the beach, as well. It was a very nice campground.