This appears to be the most ideal possible campground for a group with dogs.
From the beginning to end, it was not a good experience. We had zero communication from the host. 24 to 48 hours before our reservation begin the hurricane started moving in, so we messaged the host indicating our concerns. We never heard back and so we continue to follow up. Still no reply. We have spent hundreds of nights camping and many of those in inclement weather, such as rain, high winds, snow, etc. We have been a lot more careful since hurricane Helene. With 3.5+ inches of rain and high winds being the average weather plus flood watch for the entire weekend plus the fact that we were driving all over the person‘s yard and being close to a river, we opted for safety and protection of their land by asking for a reschedule. We know that the host takes time to prepare and plan for upcoming stays… But in this instance, there was zero bookings on the calendar other than ours and the host finally replied right before our reservation began and indicated that they would get back to us later in the weekend about if he was willing to reschedule… he didn’t even know that we were coming this weekend and indicated that he was preparing for a huge storm and preparing the land for it.
The communication was a huge concern because we never had any check-in details sent directly to us as all the other hosts do, and there was no reply to any of the messages we had about the weather and/or our upcoming stay. We ended up not going because of all of the weather warnings by NWS. The host finally replied a day later, and indicated that because they are a business. They need better communication from us and are not willing to change our stay date because we were probably going to take one of the busier weekends in which they could make more money. How ironic because they don’t have any bookings on the calendar based off of Hipcamp calendar. I indicated that they could’ve just simply recommended to us a few weekends that we could change to and ask if we were available then. The host indicated that our weekend could’ve been used by somebody else using the river… Even though he indicated that he was preparing for the hurricane, and I’m not sure who would want to use it then. The host was completely unresponsive afterwards. I completely understand it’s a business and they want our money so they are not going to refund it and ultimately the decision is up to them and we did take the risk by booking. But you would expect a Hipcamp host to be more reasonable with an incoming hurricane to allow for reschedule even if it’s at their convenience of a date this host wasn’t just enable to partner mutually to find a better date, they actually asked us to rebook and pay the full price - a $30 discount. This person does not understand the camping world and isn’t it just for profit.
I’m sure they’ll apply and blame it on us, and I understand because again they are a business and have the right to say no to our request, but you would hope that a host would be more responsive, and reasonable with a relocation of dates when a hurricane is touching down. They might be from the north, not understand what just happened with hurricane Helene but still a simple message would come a long way for us to communicate. Instead, they ignored all my messages and voicemails to them. I guess they would’ve rather us suffer through the 4 inches of rain, high winds and caused damage to their land than to pick up the next week and do camp in which nobody else was reserving it.