Holiday Park FamCamp

This FAMCAMP is conveniently located to Tacoma and the surrounding areas. You could visit sites at Seattle from this location, but competing with the traffic would be a challenge. It is a reasonable location to perform a day trip to Mount Rainier National Park, which I'd highly recommend. On base, the FAMCAMP is convenient to the Base XChange and Commissary. Most sites are shaded amongst large and very tall trees. Great in the summer, but may be a challenge during the wet season of the year. Tree cover will likely impede satellite TV reception, but since you are near a large city, over the air TV reception is fairly reasonable. These are the positives. The negatives: "No one is minding the store!". Checkin was a challenge; no one is there on Sunday and Monday and the Camp Host doesn't start work until 5pm. About 5 of us didn't have any idea what site we had, only later to find out that is secretly listed on our email confirmation receipt, but not very "clear". My recommendation is to call in advance during one of their work days. Also, follow the directions on this website, the email conformation receipt they send to you in advance, suggests using Exit 122. Exit 122 is a terrible choice and is completly under construction. In addition, the dumpsters were overflowing with trash, so whatever frequency cycle they use to empty them, it isn't often enough. The laundry room hadn't been cleaned at all, in fact, one of our friends was so disgusted, they used their own broom to clean things up. Hopefully someone soon will start to mind the store, but this FAMCAMP has more positives than negatives in our opinion, so we will likely return. 

In all of our 35+ FamCamps, This place is the worse. Other than location I can't think of a single nice thing to say. First, the place is filthy. The bathrooms and laundry room have not been cleaned in years. Second, the reservation system is inconsistent and arbitrary. Checking with neighbors, we found different rules for every person we talked to. The camp hosts are clueless and the paid staff knows even less. The Base Commander should be embarrassed, better yet he should fire the head of MWR and start over. 

What a beautiful setting for a famcamp campground. The sites are in the tall pine trees with fhu's and paved sites. The office manager was very helpful with Amazon delivery instructions. Location was good for seeing Seattle and surrounding area attractions.

We were looking for a spot in the Seattle area and they were tough to find. We looked at the reviews of all three famcamps at Jpint Base Lewis McChord. This seemed the best. The reviews are pretty limited and old, so thought it was time to update them. First, the directions worked perfectly and got us to the main gate at McChord Field. We made it through the gate with no problem in our 35’ Class A Motorhome with a toad. Talking with others here, they did as well. So do not worry about getting in. There are two lanes and no barriers. They do curve, but not an issue. Plenty of room to get through the gate. Just follow the directions on this page and no problem Next, the setting is tall ones and forested. Very pretty and a break from the urbaness of the surrounding city. That said, the roads are somewhat narrow but very navigable. They seem to put all the bigger rigs in the FHU upper loop, sites 20-37. These are all back in sites. Not very level. We had to use blocks under the tires and jacks. Many of the sites have rear sewer that is up hill! Kind of a pain but very workable with some patience. There are lots of trees, but we and others we spoke with had no issues with needing to trim. The sites looked like they had been tended for foliage. Each site has a picnic table and grill. There is very limited connectivity in the upper loop. No way you will get any satellite with all the trees. There is no cable. We did get some local OTA channels, but not all the major ones. Some sites might be better than others. We had good usable Verizon coverage for both voice and data. Their wi-if is pretty much useless. You can also get it at the office, where the router is, and sometimes at the clubhouse, hitch is nearby. We have a WiFi booster and could not even pick it up. There are no repeaters in the Park, and the bandwidth up and down is in the single digits. Not an issue if you are here just camping. We had to go o Starbucks in the BX for a good network. The staff seemed very friendly and helpful. Limited office hours, closed on Monday. They are not always able to answer your call, but do get back with you if you leave a message. They got back with us when we were making reservations and when we called in for directions. Just be patient. The facilities were clean, functional, but limited. Not sure about the previous reviews restroom experience but we used it everyday and they were always clean and supplied. There are only two showers each for men and women. There is a small laundry it’s with 3 washers and 3 dryers. All worked fine. No place to hang things while you are folding though. Also noticed that all the garbage is in the main loop and there are no dog bag stations anywhere, which really surprised me. We did notice a few sites that looked like they had been here a while, but really did. It seem to be lots of squatters. They have a 14 day in a site limit, and a 28 day park limit. So if your intent is to stay longer than 14 days you will need to move sites, and if you want to stay over 28 you will need to move to a different campground. They participate in the Air Firce Frequent Camper program so be sure and get a stamp towards your tier levels. I thought the rate was a little high, given the status of some of the amenities, but hard to complain for a $28 FHU that is big rig accessible. Too bad the local base leadership will not make a little more investment in the facility. There is tons of room for more sites. As I mentioned they could and it would be nice to make an investment in their WiFi and bandwidth. In today’s world people will pay a dollar or two more for good connectivity. That said, the staff seems to do a nice job of taking care of what they have. Overall we had a very nice and good experience and would stay here again. 

It's a shame that Holiday Park is not maintained because it is a naturally beautiful park. There was no maintenance man on site from the beginning of December to mid-February, and nobody picked up his duties. The bathooms were constantly filthy, and so were the common areas - there's mold, mud, fecal matter, you name it. There is also no heat in the clubhouse, so the only things you are really paying for are your spot to camp and hot water in a disgusting shower. The park manager, Amanda Anderson, ignored any complaints, and she and the camp hosts habitually called paying customers homeless liars, also telling the MPs to step up patrols. I understand that, being part of a huge metroplex with a proportionally huge homeless population, they have had issues here with homeless vets, but it is extremely degrading and unprofessional for the management to go around assuming that everybody else here is in the same boat. Your money is better spent somewhere else, but don't bother with the Fort Lewis campground because it is run by the same people and is just as trashy. I know these camps are pretty low on a base's priority list, but there are active and retired service members staying here - I thought we were a country that respected their military? Shame on JBLM MWR. Oh yeah, not to mention there are hazardous materials that have never been secured the entire time we've been here. There are children staying at this park too! 

The directions are accurate, but ONLY if you are a smaller rig. The drive through the main gate is too curvy for big rigs (we are 45') and there is a sign when you get close that says nothing over 37' in that entrance. By the time we got to the sign, it was too late to get out. They had to hold up traffic, we had to unhitch the tow vehicle and then it took two gate guards to help us maneuver through. We were told there is a commercial entrance that takes you into Fort Lewis and then there is a bridge over to McChord. We found that the larger sites were in general overgrown, indicating poor maintenance. I had to chop weeds away from the service pedestal in order to hook up the water, sewer and electric. TV channels depend on where you are located. The area for smaller rigs had was open enough that TV service, but the area where larger rigs park was so surrounded by trees that we were not able to acquire any TV channels. Next year we plan to stay at a commercial park. Do not plan to come back to McChord 

Only one person works in the very small office. He was very helpful, but no one else answers the phone when he's not at his desk. Roads are a bit tight, but can be managed with some care. No satellite TV possible as there are tall trees everywhere, but we got over 20 over-the-air channels with our roof antenna. There's also only limited internet at the office and 'clubhouse'. Those negatives aside, the park is very clean, well located and quiet even though near the end of McChord's runway. 

The front office staff was not welcoming, very unfriendly and could not answer my questions. We were dry camping and needed to fill our water tanks. He insisted that everyone used the non-potable water at the dump. I asked him if he could call and ask someone if there was a place to find potable water. He could not. But, he did point me in the direction of the maintenance person, who thought it was in another location, which we did find. He just had a very unwelcoming attitude. Otherwise, we found the campground clean and it is good value in a lovely area.