Fontana Village Resort and Campground

We have stayed at the Campground for 15 years!  Love Beth who helps with Reservations. I really like the fact it is a very small campground, sitting back a long way off the main road.  Sites are spread out. Shower house easy access from all sites. Very few, if any kids when we go.  Having all the amenities of Fontana Village Resort is icing on the cake. I've already made Reservations for 2025.

Loudest noise is the dam above grounds. The hum is soothing and constant. Water flows downriver at different depths before you eyes. The lights on dam at night, mesmerizing. Simple and low key campground. Mostly made of tent camping. Bathhouse is small but clean.

This area really makes one feel as if the land is not modernized by man. This is an absolute nature lover's dream, kayaking, fishing, and the legendary Applician Trail crosses the dam. Wildlife is abundant, the aura is comforting and the folks are slow-paced and friendly as can be. Pleasantly surprised to see the number of tents in comparison to RV's. There were many more tents than glamping RVs. 

Grounds have both electric and non-electric sites available. There is one camp house that is dated but meets the needs for privacy, showering, and well "restroom duties."  In the women, there are 3 stalls and 1 shower available. 

Reservations must be made through Fontana Village which is less than 3 ascending into the mountains. The village offers a general store, two swimming pools, a rec room with free games, 2 eateries, disc golf, a gas station, sports fields, and playground equipment.  The dam which is located a few miles past the resort is a splendid sight to see at night. Fires crackling, the river is running, cool night breezes, and a totally majestic trip for campers and glampers both. 

I have camped here twice but come to the village for the past ten years for the annual 4th of July celebration. 

This area holds a lot of history with the bombs made for WWII made close by. Fontana Dam was actually built to supply power to enable the building of the bombs that were later launched in the war.

This area of NC was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. The campground was rustic, but absolutely gorgeous, right beside Fontana Dam. Trout fishing here is top notch. We camped in the overlander tent here. Bath house was rustic but clean and fit our needs. There are a ton of wild turkeys here and they roost in the trees around the campground at night, FYI.

Fontana Village Resort Campground is a small campground right next to Fontana Dam. You can’t enter the water here, but there is water access nearby. The drive to the area is cool, if you drive on Hwy 129, you’ll drive through the 11 mile section known as “The Dragon”. The iconic drive is a popular route for bikes and sport cars, due to the number of curves and switchbacks, and you can pick up souvenirs at local shops around. The campground was basically deserted when we were there on a Sunday evening. There are water and electric hookups at most sites. There’s not much privacy between sites, it’s pretty much wide open, with only a few trees scattered throughout the campground. I expected to have more trees in the North Carolina Mountains. I went in the restrooms, they were awful. I can’t imagine showering in that place. I chose to just use nature’s facilities. I was overall disappointed in this campground, as the area is so pretty, I expected better.

Furthest thing from a resort! This place is plagued with problems that get worse every year. For about 8 years now we have been coming here only due to the location. The location is the absolute only reason our group continues to deal with the massive amount of problems year after year. To start, reservations are always a nightmare. We book sometimes a year out and still have issues with members of our group showing up to check in and finding out they don't have a cabin or room. Have been told multiple times they have no cabins, or they are out of certain ones and a week later had other group members book those cabins. Nobody doing reservations seems to ever have a clue what they are doing and there is always issues. Even times when we make the reservation and actually lock in a cabin number"usually to stay with our group" we have been moved around sometimes to the other side of the park completely cut off from the rest of our group. The cabins themselves are completely outdated, minimally maintained and basically falling apart. I wouldn't really call them cabins, more like an old 1970's single wide. They are all extremely dim lit, which is probably done to ensure you don't notice all of the issues. I don't think any of them have more than a 40 watt bulb installed and you're lucky if any one room has more than a single light source. Don't use the ceiling fans as they will probably fall off if you turn them on high. The rooms are dirty and moldy. Cleaning crews do the minimum, sweep/vacuum and wipe counters. That's about all. Bathrooms are usually moldy from lack of upkeep and usually the exhaust fans don't work. The AC on these units can barely get the rooms down to about 77 degrees in the summer days, if they work at all. Kitchenettes in them usually consist of a somewhat functionally falling apart oven, A dishwasher that sounds like dump truck,$5 coffee machine and toaster, dirty microwave"if functional" and a refrigerator with all of the racks in the door being broken and a freezer with a broken ice maker. They also include the absolute bare minimum Dollar Store bought plates, cups, pots/pans, etc. Wooden porches and decks are usually rotting away and falling apart so don't stand out on them for too long. At least the bathroom towels were clean.... As for this"Resorts" amenities... Let's go down some of the list. Free Internet- Free is the only accurate word. You're free to find it. You lucky if it works. Whomever set this thing up should be shot for incompetence. 90% of the grounds are not covered and the 10% that is is so slow and connection is so flakey.. best to not even bother trying to use it. Pool- The lounge pool is somewhat small and falling apart. Floor is cracked all up, lounge chairs poolside are all junk. The main pool/lazy river- main pool is more for kids and the lazy river is somewhat nice. They have not had pool floats for the river in many years so bring your own. Again the lounge chairs and all junk and falling apart. This year for our trip the pool and lazy river was completely closed. Citing a pipe had broken and only posting a sign on the pool gate that it would be open in two days, then stating is would be closed for a couple weeks. No notice was sent out to guests until a couple days later. Their idea of a solution was to have staff pass out flyers on a golf cart to guests with directions to the beachfront 43 miles away.... Managements excuse was that things like this happen. This again was negligence in regards to maintenance for the pool. Even though they denied any maintenance issues on their part, pipes encased in concrete do not randomly break unless you fail to properly maintain the overall system. As they already have a history of not maintaining anything and just waiting for things to break, this just adds to it. The restaurant food is not worth what you'll pay for it. Especially the breakfast bar which mostly tastes like instant eggs and cardboard. Wait staff at breakfast is usually pretty rude. The general store falls in line with the rest. Outdated, falling apart and dim lit. I worry how many items they have that are years past their expiration dates. I'm sure the ice and beer are the only things that rotate enough to not have to question. An idea on how well this place is run, a guest in lodge had their room fire alarm randomly go off. Front desk was called and supposedly maintenance was sent to fix it as it would not shut off. 6 hours later is was still going off and nobody had shown up. Fontana Village is sub-motel quality, run by bad management with questionable experience running a resort, that is completely un-maintained/un-funded, surviving strictly off of its location.

This campground is on the edge of Fontana Lake and is not far off the Appalachian Trail. I met some friends that were thru-hiking to bring them a resupply. They ended up taking a day off to go fishing while I was there.

No cell phone service. Grass knee high. No handicap facilities, pool, tennis, basketball and other activities over 1 1/2 mile away. No security checks although advertised. Dump station in road and no water to clean with available!

The best way to experience Fontana Lake is to kayak to the north side which is the border for the great Smoky Mountain National Park. You can park and put in at the marina and pack in food and water. Once you get past the lovely house boats to the back side where the creek comes in you can take out and find well maintained and unpopulated trails that are part of the park. They are flat and mostly hug the lake. If you don't wan to stash your kayak in the woods you can make it a day hike but if you want to hide your boats, it's a lovely in and out overnight adventure.

had a great time with kids. car show was there at time we visited though

The campground is small and isolated from the local traffic noise. But across the river is another stretch of road people often drag race at night and it can be annoying to non auto enthusiasts. The ground is well groomed. But driving a stake more than 4 inches is almost impossible. There are very few trees actually on sites for hammock campers. But there are enough close by that you can just talk to the desk people for permission. There is a good bathroom with a nice hot shower. The main lodge/resort is not within walking distance. About 2 miles or less. The main lodge has two very nice pools a splash pad for kids. N ice cream parlor and a general store. Also a gas station and three restaurants with bars. And one with a full game room/arcade. Cabins are expensive but lodge rooms are less so. And camp sites are cheap!