Crystal Springs Wilderness Lodges & RV Resort

Stayed here for 3 nights with my partner, the cabin was more than spacious enough for the two of us. Fully furnished, kitchen had everything we needed just had to bring your own linens and toiletries, which they tell you ahead of time. The cabin was absolutely adorable and the heat/ac worked great. Yes the hot water had a sulfur smell at first but after contacting the office they sent someone out an hour later to address it, drained the tank I believe and the water was fine the rest of the weekend. I appreciate their attentiveness on this. Shower worked great along with everything else in the cabin, and the whole unit was clean. Overall very cozy spot and nice area to just get away for a few days. I had no issues with the staff they were quite pleasant to interact with. Overall had a great time and plan on returning!

I started out on a low note because the NJ weather turned BRUTAL early on in December and had to deal with some frozen pipes (incl the toilet 🚽😩). Little things here and there, mainly due to these same climate conditions. Things eventually straightened out. The resort offered to move me to a different cabin but I was already enamored with my current location so I declined and stuck with the cabin I was in. Two things which stand out, 1 positive and the other negative. The positive is the safety & serenity of the place. Often I'd wake well before sunrise and would go sit outside under the gazebo with my morning coffee. I loved these moments. ☕❤️ I will be very sorry to have to eventually leave this place where I found such peace. The negative is the water quality. This town and the area in general has high contents of iron or sulphur in the aquifers. When I purchased my first home back in the 90's about 5 miles away, I had to dig a new well for the home. Hundreds of dollars in State water quality tests and finally a pricey salt purifying system had to be installed. This resort is no different. My dog's water bowl now has a permanent yellow ring. Again, it is the nature of this area's beast. Finally, there's every kind of fast food available within a 2-3 mile range, some Italian restaurants, a Family Dollar nearby, and best of all...horse farms everywhere! And Great Adventure also just a stone's throw away if anyone is interested in amusement parks (I'm not). And that's this single woman's review.

Part 1: The reason I give this campground a 1 star is because I can’t give it anything lower. My husband and I have traveled through 15 states and have lived in 10 of those 15. We have been to many campgrounds and this campground has been by far the WORST. I wish we would have known about it before coming here but when you live on the road for work it’s hard to know the area and what is good and not good. It’s one of the cons I would say to RV living. Before even booking your stay they require so much documentation about yourselves and your unit. These documents included- copy of credit card, copy of both driver’s license, copy of insurance and registration on both cars and camper. They also needed the declarations page for the camper to be sent to them proving that we have vacation liability. In all of the places we have been at we’ve never had we had to provide that type of documentation. Once we got there we were greeted by the most polite people in the office… NOT. We were blown away at how unfriendly the staff is. Once we got settled in our site we were told to make sure we notate everything on our site that looks broken or wrong on a form. So we notated that our water spigot leaks and that the bricks on our fire pit were broken. We turned it in the same day we arrived thinking that the spigot would be fixed after bringing it to their attention. We were there since May and it’s still wasn’t fixed when we left in October. With winter approaching we went to the office to ask them for that paper to make sure they reviewed it and we could stand on something saying it was leaking and they told us “that the form is going to be hard to find”. Another issue that we dealt with while there is the grass on our site being too long. We simply sent an email asking if we were responsible for our lawn care and they told us that we can put in a request for our lawn to be trimmed but that we should be walking our pets on the gravel road to go to the bathroom!! In which our case our animals were taught to go to the bathroom in the grass. Plus they don’t even have a doggy run for the animals to be off leash which is crazy considering how strict the leash policy is. This leads to me another issue about getting an email about our dog being on a leash. This instance I was sitting outside my camper with my golden retriever & the maintenance woman drove by doing their patrol rounds and saw me petting my dog on our mat. He had his leash on but I was not holding it he was tied off to the cooler I was sitting on. She went and told on me for not actually holding the leash. Another issue was my dad sends us our personal mail once a month so we can stay up to date with bills etc.. I made sure to tell my dad when he sent it out that to make sure he sends it as a package or they will refuse it. But he forgot and just mailed it. So I went to the office immediately and told them about it and they said they’d accept it this one time but then sent me a email after it was received saying they will not accept something like this ever again. Obviously, like I told them it was a complete misunderstanding on my dad’s end and that I understand their policy about getting mail there.

Never made it to see the place. We reserved within the 20 day cancellation window assured that late check in would be no problem, just some paperwork. Apparently some paper work is a copy of your drivers license front and back, insurance card, and copy of your credit card front and back. It is against PCI compliance for payment cards to keep a copy of the back of the card and number but they refused to work with us and insisted. They wanted it emailed to them to make things worse, copletel insecure and who knows who has access to their files. Had to cancel and dispute with credit card. Also they were rude about it and would not budge on this backwards policy and insisted nobody else has an issue with it. Ignorance is no excuse and these people were not out anything with us cancelling days before. To insist their policy is no refunds after 20 days is extortion especially when the reservation was made within those 20 days and they lost nothing with plenty of time to rebook. They act as if they built the cabin for our stay. They did not specify their requirements for paperwork until it was too late. Terrible customer service and I will be filing a BBB report and telling everyone of the experience until the money is refunded for absolutely no services provided. Beware and read the other reviews! I am sure everything is fine until you cross them as reported by others.

The other negative reviews are true about the villas. When our family arrived we were in shock at the condition that this villa was left in for us. Mind you the owner assured us this villa had been deep cleaned. That was a total lie but we had spider webs in every corner and crevice that you can imagine. The underneath of each bed and couch had a build up of dust and webs. Dead bug and spider bodies all over the carpet. And one huge spider on our bedroom wall to greet us. Later that day i discovered that the door seals had probably 50 spider nests in them (pics included) we slept there the first night because hey we have 4 kids and 2 adults. It’s rather hard to pack up when exhausted. The next morning we pack up and confront the manager who gave no cares to our situation and refused us refund. He did offer another villa but it was in the same condition. Lesson learned from this slum. Please take heed of you plan on renting a villa! (Oh yes the shower was filthy and the water smelled bad) (I also run a business and I would NEVER allow my customers to leave feeling this way simply to keep their little bit of money. I always make things right with people because people being happy is the life blood of a company.)