Mary C.

Winchester , VA

Joined August 2019

Clean. Friendly.

Our first time at Dogwood Acres Campground. Was pleasantly surprised as this was just a weekend trip at the end of June to start the season. When booking the dates earlier in the year, I spoke to a woman in the office who was even willing to drive to a few sites and text me photos since we hadn’t been there before making our final selection. Went the extra mile to ensure we would be happy.

Was impressed upon driving into the place. Looked clean and tidy. Good signage. Flat all gravel sites. Clean pool. Pavilion was a nice meeting place. Big pond was pretty. Friendly staff.

Campground was a mix of seasonal and weekenders. Lots of trees. Some made pulling in/backing in a bit challenging.

I’m recommending this campground to our friends to come back together as a group.

Poorly Maintained

I was expecting a much nicer camping experience based on the reviews and price. We camped out on Poplar. Our site had a gravel pad. But the surrounding area was not level and you had to climb up a 2-3’ incline to get to the fire pit area. Gets very slick because it doesn’t dry out. Sites across the way were on the water. They had cement pads only as wide as your rv/tt but then the surrounding grass dropped off sharply. Very dangerous as you barely had enough room to walk around your unit.

We explored the “red carpet” row up on the hill. What a joke. Gravel pads skinnier in some instances then a TT is wide. One wrong step and you’d fall into the woods. Grass and weeds galore in the gravel areas. Sites barely large (long) enough and all back in’s up there. Trees had low branches which isn’t good for rigs. Not many people up in this area and I can see why.

The beach area really needed combing or raking once in a while. There was a water leak coming out of the road and a tree branch barely hanging on about to fall that staff just drove by like its normal.

When we checked in, there wasn’t much explained to us. This is a huge property and would have thought they’d want to give campers more direction about where things are etc. We went to the store to sign up for pump out service. ($10). I asked the girl a question because I hadn’t done that type of service prior and she doesn’t answer with information, just tells me to read the ticket. …..which didn’t have the answer. Felt like staff wasn’t overly friendly and didn’t want to take the time. So many good camp staff experiences to compare to from other campgrounds so this really stood out.

Water was nice. Rented a kayak. Spent some time on the beach. Boats zoomed back and forth but the noise wasn’t too bad. Jet skis could be a bit loud at times.

Also, almost forgot….we lost power twice. Once a meter overheated and melted. Took a few hours to get that replaced. The other time two workers walked along the tree line behind the campsites and hit the main to our area so they could fix an electrical issue up the row. No warning. No communication. Campers were to ones telling each other what was going on. Another example of staff just feeling very punching a clock.