Review Detail

I submitted an ICE review but it never got posted so here is that same review: We have never visited a recreational park that more closely resembles a trailer park than Camp Pendleton's Lake O'Neill Recreation Park. This park in no way passes for a recreational vehicle park. It is mainly a permanent personnel residence with little to offer visitors. There are few full hookups, so reservations for a site with sewer must be made long in advance. We had reservations for a full hookup site the third week of our stay; however, a double booking error left us in our less than desirable site. Our assigned back-in site was made even less desirable because it was 10 ft too small to contain our 40 ft motorhome. A curb at the back of the motorhome forced us to park at an angle in the diagonal parking space. A knowledgeable scheduler would have assigned us a site without such an elevated curb. During our stay we noticed several “better” sites, including full hook-up sites vacant for 2, 3 or 4 days, then someone would be in the site for a couple days and it would be vacant again for a short while. It was disclosed that when reservations are made the individuals making the reservation are allowed to choose their own RV space. This is definitely not good for many vacationers wanting to spend a week or two at the facility. An example is, caller #1 requests site number 1 for 3 nights beginning on a Friday night. Caller #2 requests site #2 for four nights beginning on Monday night. Caller #3 wishes to stay for a week but there are no sites available. Had the scheduler made the site assignment, caller #1 would be followed by caller #2 in site #1, and then caller #3 would have had a site for 1 week. The win in this situation is more revenue for MCCS. The scheduling of site spaces should be by the staff at the campground and not the person requesting the reservation. Our stay was cut short by 15 days because we were frustrated by overbooking and the possibility of having to move from site to site, even though our reservation for full service was confirmed the first week of May 2015. This is another loss of revenue for MCCS. We have traveled to 46 of the 48 contiguous States and stayed at military facilities whenever we could and we have never had problems of scheduling reservations as we experienced at Lake O'Neill Recreation Park. Secondary to this failing is treatment of the veterans who choose to live among the active duty personnel at the park on a full time basis. These folks play musical trailer every 15 days, often moving to the site adjacent to the one they were occupying. This practice is illogical and demeaning to our veterans. Some of these are participants of the Wounded Warrior Project adjacent to the park. A better solution would be to have permanent 3- to 6-month sites for the full-timers and to set aside spaces for casual visitors. For convenience to all occupants, install more sewer sites. There is ample space at the park to have sewer lines for at least 15 new and or existing sites. Additional info not in ICE report: While we were there the sites were approximately 90% full. This is an enormous amount of revenue from RV's. However not much of that money is being returned for any upgrades to the RV park area. We do not like posting negative reviews but feel this information need to be identified.