Desiree S.
Yelp
Oh wow. Where do I even begin with this place? I'll preface by saying that I've only done actual camping a couple of times in my life when I was fairly young and I had never done "glamping". In fact, I didn't even know that this was a thing until just recently. I don't know what I expected, but definitely not this.
Let's get the pros out of the way: the location is unbelievably beautiful at sunset and at night. The stars they are a plenty. The beds in the tents are also decently comfortable(way better than a sleeping bag), but the sheets were scratchy, low thread count. The staff was also friendly upon checking in and offered my family and I water and cold towels. That's it. That is the positive.
The website for this place portrays it as way, way better than it is. I'm telling you that right off the bat. I guess it would have been better if I had a tent with a bathroom and I hadn't visited in July(I am not a Summer baby by any means). The place during the day in the Summer time is a hellscape of sweat and sand. Anyway, the place is just not that great. Maybe I expected too much, but for the prices they charge, one is reasonable to expect more. Read on for details.
Maybe this IS the place for you. I guess it depends on who you are and what you want out of your stay. We originally booked two nights and only stayed one. That's pretty telling. We sort of knew we were not going to stay two nights after checking in and experiencing the intense heat of the tent, but we wanted to give it a try and then....a couple of things sent us over the edge.
1. If you do not have a bathroom in your tent, you are not going to have a good time if a clean facility is something you value. You will have to walk to the communal bathrooms and if you are a person that pees in the middle of the night like me, you will probably hold it. The bathrooms were not terribly far, but as the day went on(and by the time I actually wanted to use them), they were dirty, smelly, and overall not pleasant. The staff did not keep up with cleaning or restocking towels. It was not an ideal situation by any means. During the pandemic, you want clean facilities and this was not up to par, not for glamping and not even for camping. I would rather crap in a hole outside. That is probably ten times cleaner than the bathrooms here. Also, the bathrooms are limited, so if there are lots of people, you will have to wait.
2. The lights on our walk way to our tent were out and it was very dark outside. Seriously, would it be too much to check the path lights to make sure they work for the guests? I think not. We did have rechargeable lanterns in our tent that we used to walk to and from the bathrooms and the community area, but the pathway lights would have been nice. Again, for the price you pay, the dang lights should work.
3. Our tent had a hole in it near the ground(tear? hole? I don`t know) and there were cockroaches in our tent. We tried to shoo them away, but we are pretty sure they stayed the night with us. No oversight of checking the tents for damage and repairing them was done.
4. Quiet time is NOT enforced at all. We hung out at the community center for a little while the night we stayed because they had misters and a nice breeze up there. In general the crowd around us(they had tables set up on a patio) were behaved but there were a few groups that were incredibly loud, drunk, and obnoxious. I know, I know, not everyone is going to have self control and be able to realize when they are being a jackass, but the staff did not provide any type of rules or suggestion that they should quiet down, or stop drinking when clearly no more was needed. This particular table next to us was talking very loudly, crudely, and overall distasteful. I have a lot of patience and I can take a lot, but I felt my nerves being grated and I felt bad for the parents with kids around. It's one of those situations where you don`t know how much confrontation should or should not happen in order to avoid things turning ugly. I really wish the staff would have been better at keeping the peace and quiet. We heard that group from our tent when we went to settle in the for night. They were at it well into the late hours. Very annoying.
5. We ordered some wine and a charcuterie plate from the little "cafe"(where the chef wore his face mask below his chin, Like, seriously, what is the point of the mask then?) and the plate was fine, but the meat was sort of grey. Not the most appetizing looking food. Wine was also very expensive for domestic. Meh. I guess when you're out there and want something to eat, they know they can make more money.
6. It is pandemic time, y'all, and a lot of people were not wearing masks or social distancing and the facility did not enforce it. I found this to be true at a lot of places in the surrounding areas outside of Springdale.
Great plan, poor execution.