This past weekend we joined our friends Charlie & Christina for a last minute camping trip. They were testing out their new RV and wanted to go somewhere close by to test everything out before heading out for upcoming planned trips. They chose to try out 2 Rivers Campground in Carrollton, Kentucky as it was nearby ( only 28 minutes from both of our houses ) and had good reviews. We decided to go with them – after all, camping is more fun with friends! And we wanted to test out the new XPens for the dogs ( which worked out perfectly ). It was an interesting trip, to say the least.
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| Christina & Charlie’s Setup
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Christina and Charlie arrived Friday a couple of hours before we did, so they were able to call us ahead of time and warn us that the campsites we had reserved ( we reserve side by side sites ) were taped off due to a busted water line and we had to move to a different site. Once we got to the campground we found that there was no one in the check-in booth in order to give us our tags or confirm our reservations. So we just pulled on it to our spot, got backed in and leveled and setup for the weekend.
The first thing we found was that the WIFI was not working. We always try to get campsites with WIFI due to our line of work and the website stated “free WIFI” for all campsites. Luckily we had a good cell signal so it was that big of an issue, though it did put a dampener on our plans to watch the NCAA games that were on all weekend and it makes it difficult if a work issue comes up. Jason ended up calling the campground phone number to find out if they could reset the WIFI for us. That was when he found out that the person that usually ran the check-in booth had been told not to bother to work the booth until at least April because they weren’t paying her to do so. So that explained the empty check in booth. She also informed us that the WIFI was not working and that they “hoped to have it fixed sometime this year”. So, umm, maybe they should take the part off of the website that states free WIFI?!
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| River View from Campsite |
After this conversation we realized we were pretty much on our own as far as no host or employees. There were only a handful of other campers there and they appeared to be either full-timers or just stopping in to sleep while passing through because we barely saw anyone while we were there. Also, due to there being no host, we didn’t get pin numbers for the locks on the bath house ( which we didn’t realize were required until after we had talked to the campground lady ). Christina and I went up to check out the condition of the bath house and take care of some business when we realized we couldn’t get in because we weren’t given a pin. All I can say is thank goodness both of our campers had usable holding tanks. We did walk around the park a little bit at that point as they had nice paved paths and a large overlook directly over the Kentucky River. But aside from that site, there wasn’t much else to look at besides the traffic bridge on one side of the campground and the junk yard on the other side.
Saturday morning we woke up fairly early, as you tend to do when camping. That was when the junk yard next to us started operating heavy machinery and dumping large loads of metals. Our campsite was only about 20 feet away from said junk yard, thus very loud and very unpleasant. There was a small hill separating our sites from the junk yard but you could still see most of it and it blocked none of the noise. This lasted most of the morning before they finally decided to take a lunch break. It was about this time that we decided this was a pretty crappy campground, not worth sitting out in the cold that was coming in and just decided to pack up and go home. Upon packing up to go home I walked the trash over to the dumpster to find that the gate to the dumpster was locked, thus I could not dispose of our trash and we had to take it back home with us.
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| Junkyard View from Campsite |
While we were there we also had issues with one set of campers letting their two dogs run loose all over the campground, which made our dogs go nuts ( they were in their XPens and contained as per the rules ) and we had to keep putting our dogs in the camper until the loose dogs went back to their area. These dogs also used the bathroom all over the other campsites and their owners never once picked up after them.
To top off the eventful weekend, Saturday morning we managed to lock ourselves out of our camper when the bedroom door malfunctioned and stayed locked when we closed it. We hadn’t been out the main door that morning yet so it was still locked up as well. Luckily we were very close to home as Jason had to drive home to get the spare RV keys. Next time a spare set will remain in the truck!
I will say that there was a situation going on that apparently isn’t the norm so this review may not apply to this park for future trips, but we still will not return. We should have been informed about the situation before arriving and have contacted the campground to ask for our money back for at least the night we did not stay. We still have not heard back from them…and I have to say at this point I don’t really expect we will.
( Update: We still never heard back from the campground, however there was a $40 credit issued to our card used to make the reservations, so at least that’s something. Still would have appreciated an apology of some sort – but I supposed that’s too much to expect these days. )
But as always, we still had a good time with friends, even though our trip was cut short. We had a wonderful steak dinner, a good fire and some great conversation and laughs. The dogs did great with their XPen ( you can see the black wire of it in the first photo ). We just hope our next trip will be more “camp like” and have the amenities as promised!
Campsite Pros:
- Large, level and paved camping pads
- Staggered sites allowed more “breathing room” so you aren’t on top of neighboring campers
- Picnic tables, playground, trash cans, etc look brand new
- Scenic river access overlook
- Full hookups
- Close to town if any supplies are needed
Campsite Cons:
- Located right next door to a junkyard that operates on the weekends (very loudly)
- Also located by a busy traffic bridge that goes over the river
- Very few trees – what trees there were are very small
- No cable TV
- No campground host
- Very poor radio signal
- Non-working WIFI
- Bath house was locked with required pin to access bathrooms and showers and we were not given an access code
- Garbage dumpster access was locked and inaccessible and we had to take our trash home with us
- Campground was not nearly worth $40 per night
