Amy D.
Yelp
I have been bringing my daughter and her best friend here for 1 week each summer for 4 years.
We primarily go here for the location. I grew up camping in Pemaquid (area of Bristol, not the lake) every summer and love the area. But the big benefits of staying here compared to other campgrounds in the area (for us) are 1) the size (amount of families with other kids also staying), and 2) all the fun "extras" this campground has to offer.
Fun extras include: pool & hot tub; playground with zip line (and other playgrounds & play areas spread out around the campground); extremely well-stocked camp store; very convenient "snack shack" that offers lots of inexpensive food for breakfast, lunch, & dinner (great for when you're just feeling too lazy to cook at the campsite after spending a day in the sun); live bands; mini-golf; canoe, kayak, and paddleboat rentals, well-maintained beach on the lake with ample swimming area and clean docks; on-site laundry and bottle redemption; clean showers; arcade; magic shows, train & tractor rides for the kids, and karaoke.
This campground is close to so many fun things to do in the area:
Pemaquid (part of the town of Bristol) - Lighthouse & museum on the gorgeous rocky coast, Fort William Henry, the tide pool, Shaw's Warf (fresh seafood restaurant & boat tours), Pemaquid Beach, Round Top ice cream, Pemaquid Craft Co-Op.
Bristol - the swimming hole, town library annual book sale, the Bristol Diner, the Granite Hall Store (This is a store that sells all kids of cool stuff, but we especially go for the penny candy. It's actually in Round Pond, a town next to Bristol.)
Damariscotta - tons of fun, local shops.
Boothbay - fun, local shops on a bigger scale, Dolfin Mini Golf, Boothbay Railway Village, Wednesday night community band concert on the library lawn, whale watches & other boat tours, trolly rides, Maine State Aquarium, Maine Botanical Gardens.
Wiscasset - fun, local shops and Red's hot dogs(!) if you can stand the wait line and the traffic.
I'm sure there's much more that I'm neglecting to list at the moment.
At any rate, there are a few small things that prevent me from giving this campground 5 stars. One is pricing - I do think the sites and cabins could be more reasonably priced. Cleanliness of the bathrooms is not bad, and I know they have maintenance staff that attend to the bathrooms regularly (because I see them working often), but even still the bathrooms get so much usage that they get pretty gross. I think they need to look into adding more bathrooms by the camp store & pavillion to more evenly distribute the usage or something. Also, there does tend to be the occassional rowdy/inconsiderate neighbor - although I will say that this isn't really the campground management's fault...they do instill quiet hours to help with this.
Overall we really like this campground and will continue to return.