Salida / Mt. Shavano KOA Journey

Very nice campground with astounding, friendly staff. I have been on site for 6 months. I had to laugh at reading some of the reviews. There are campground rules to follow and to many people come in the park thinking these rules don't apply to them. Such as taking items from other sites that aren't occupied at the moment, speeding, chopping down the campground trees because they don't want to buy wood, starting huge bonfires that aren't safe for anyone around. So yes, if you come in the park thinking the rules don't apply to you, you will most likely get a talking to and deservedly so. The rules are here to keep everyone safe and to keep the grounds nice.

Reservation for several sites at a time was easy and the female staff on the phone was accommodating and pleasant. Location was good and they have gone through a remodel of the campsites, so that was nice. Sites were pretty level and hookups were newer and in full working order. Cabins were newer as well and in good repair. All was fine until the evening male live in campsite babysitter, who was reeking of pot, just had to throw his weight around and was extremely rude, bossy on immaterial things, and had to insert himself in every aspect of your stay. (what are you doing, why are you here, where did you get that wood, pull forward more, make sure your dog is on a leash [which it was] whose tools are those, when are you expecting to be on site and off site, don't put chairs there [by the fire], ect) This really put a damper on the attractiveness of this campground and could have been over looked if it was just a onetime event because he was high, however during our several day stay this was an every day occurance which also had the added bonus of him moving our campsite items around when we were off site. As the Tripadvisor reviews, and the prior Google reviews show, the owners are aware of this male child in an adults body and have yet to remove him from their staff, it is clear that they don't care how this effects their reviews and the loss of customers that will steer clear from making a reservation and will certainly not return. too sad because we are in the latter group, and otherwise this is a great campground ruined by one person. Public bathrooms need brought up to the same remodel standards as the overall park, they are a little tired.

The onsite maintenance guy is definitely not there to help you and was very rude and unprofessional. My daughter had to pull in during a recent snowstorm and became stuck at the entrance of the park, this tool of a grounds keeper came marching down to her and began screaming that she couldn’t park her vehicle there and he was going to call the sheriff and a tow truck. Her vehicle was well out of the way of blocking traffic from entering or leaving the park. He had not plowed and the snow was very deep so unless you had a 4x4 you couldn’t get in or out anyway. When I got there to pick her up he was still melting down and being very aggressive as we drove off he gave us the middle finger. We got home and called the sheriff who came out and told him that her vehicle was fine where it was. HOW IS THIS GUY EMPLOYED??

Beatiful location with staffing issues. The current attendant/maintenance man found it appropriate to confromt my wife and daugter in the campground driveway today when they became stuck in the unplowed snow at the campground entrace. Rather than offer to assist he demanded they not leave the stuck vehicle (not blocking any entance or exit) with threats of having it towed and calling the police. Absurd! My wife saved him the trouble and called the sherrifs office herself when he began to use profanity and gave them the middle finger. Its a tough labor market in mountain towns but having unstable, and vulgar staff living on site is enough to make me choose other locations. Please vet your employees KOA.

It would have been a great stay, the cabins were really nice and seemed updated, but the male staff member, who was extremely rude to us and other customers dampered the whole experience. It was like my family and I were all a huge inconvenience. We won’t be coming back for this reason.