St. Petersburg/Madeira Beach KOA

Discussion in 'Trip Planning and Travel Concerns' started by HelenH, Oct 29, 2017.

  1. HelenH

    HelenH
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    We reserved a site at this campground for this coming March, but I am getting cold feet about the place. The first several reviews are excellent , but those preceding these posts are quite awful. This leads me to think that the latest ones are contrived and not by real campers. Can anyone offer some opinions about this concern? We have never seen this campground, and we all know that website photos of any campground are usually misleading. We have only a week to spend in Florida and we don’t want it runined.
     
  2. docj

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    With all due respect, the preceding reviews were not particularly "awful" if you read the text of each rather than just looking at the rating "score." The park has an overall rating of 6.3 which corresponds to a rating of Average. I see nothing to indicate that the more recent reviews have been faked; maybe the management of the park has improved recently.

    FWIW, on TripAdvisor this park has an average rating of 4.0 out of five, which is higher than its 6.3 rating on this website. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_R..._Beach_KOA-St_Petersburg_Florida.html#REVIEWS
     
  3. HelenH

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    Have you seen this camper ground?
     
  4. NYDutch

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    When KOA started requiring their franchise parks to elect a designation that indicated their primary market a few years ago, those that chose "Holiday" typically made some significant changes to their parks and operations to reflect that status. Looking at the Google satellite view of the park, it appears to be nice enough, albeit a bit crowded together for my tastes. There are lots of seasonals/permanents there, but that's pretty common in Florida. The majority of the transient sites appear to be along the Long Bayou side of the park, making them further away from any highway noise.
     
  5. docj

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    No, I haven't personally been there.
     
  6. RickB

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    I would like to second what DocJ wrote about reading the text as well as the rating score.
    I've read several instances where a guest's rating does not match his review. In one review recently a guest gave a park an overall "1" rating. He wrote a long review complaining about the camp host, but when you dig deeper he'd rated the value and cleanliness as "8".
    It's good to do your research.
    Use all the available tools, as NYDutch did (and probably always does) and include using RVPR,Trip Advisor, and park photos as Google satellite and street view. Some of the information you gather may be still be outdated - such as due to a weather event - so I make my reservations by phone if possible.
     
  7. BankShot

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    We've been in your position before and it can be difficult to judge what a given RV park or campground is going to be like once you get there. What docj and RickB both said is good advice. Reading the various reviews can give you a fair idea of what the park is all about and if 10 out of 10 reviews give it high marks then you can pretty much know the park will be a good one and suit your needs and requirements, etc. Same holds true if those 10 reviews all give it a 2 or 3 rating. You can pretty much tell this probably isn't a park you'd want to be spending any time at. I took a moment and read about 10 reviews on the park in question and from what I could tell, it seems to be a decent park with mostly good amenities and a decent staff. A couple of reviewers were pretty down on it, most of the others however gave it a decent to very good rating. If you average them out it appears you should have no major problems spending your time there. KOA parks as a rule are fairly decent. The odd one is pretty run down however a few are really top end parks. This one appears to be somewhere between middle and top end IMHO. Hopefully a few others on the forum who have actually stayed there will see your post, jump in and give you some more info. We ended up at a park one time that after reading the reviews and seeing the pictures on the their website, prompted us to drive 7 hours to spend a few days there. We left after a half hour as it was nothing like what the reviews and pics showed it to be. So yes, there will be times when this can and does happen. Have a safe and fun trip and give this KOA a try, you will probably be very happy with it based on what info has been gathered to date. Now then, let's hear from a few that have been there and can give some "real" info............

    Regards, BankShot................(aka Terry)
     
  8. mdcamping

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    I did not see anything unusual with the preceding reviews, other than the first reviewer who may be a little green when it comes to writing reviews. If you also read the profiles (which I view as equally important as the reviews them self's) they have many years online as members of RVPR and almost 90 reviews on line, not to bad!

    I liked the fact that one of the positive reviews in particular made mention that KOA's are generally recognized for having smaller that average sites, made mention of some things were dated but clean. But what I liked most about the review was the reviewer had a positive attitude!

    Mike
     

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