Review of American Heritage campground in Williamsburg, Va.

As we planned our PCS (move, in Military terms) from Ft Campbell, KY to Jamestown, RI with a stop in Stoneville, NC we chose areas that were both on the route as well locations that were within our 250 mile a day drive maximum. Hoping there were things to do at said stops.

Our first stop after a visit with our families in NC was Williamsburg, the American Heritage RV park (add link). We knew it was going to be a hot stay but didn’t anticipate just how hot. I must admit I don’t have any warm and fuzzy feelings about this park despite the great reviews given on line. John ranked it an 8/10 but I wouldn’t have been so kind. I have waited to post this blog to cool down, ironically before posting my thoughts. Also, I saw nothing of the park other than the bath house and driving by the pool/slide. I didn’t even go in the office nor did we wander the grounds like we typically do due to the heat. Keeping that in mind, here is my review.

Directions to the grounds were easy to follow, following the “good sam” suggested route. Upon arrival to the office the pool looked nice and clean as well they have a huge water slide for the children to play on. Too bad it was closed due to heat?!?! Annabelle was very disappointed.

We got our site, #19 and proceeded to set up camp. It was a decent site on the end with some shade but over all I was not impressed with the sardine style campground. The campground was full so the sardine effect was apparent.

After 45 minutes of setting up in the heat (both girls and both cats in the van with AC) we cranked the air to cool down our home. After 15 minutes or so one ac kicked off and tripped a circuit breaker. I reset it but over and over it tripped until neither AC unit would work and it was apparent we had no power. Thinking it was just because everyone was running full power John decided to go to the office and see what was going on. They were very nice and send two men down to check the power box. After a few minutes, it was determined one of the power prongs was bad and we would have no power at this site. John heads back to the office to inform them of what we were told and was told “we have 30 units coming in, I don’t know if we have a place to move you to” John replied “I made reservations over a month ago so I don’t know who you are going to disappoint but it isn’t going to be me, find us something” She found another site, #35 just up the row from us, one that we hoped for actually. Back to the RV we go, loaded the cats and girls up in the van and we proceed to break down camp, all the while it is 106 degrees.

We move down to our new site and proceed to set up camp, twice now in an hour in 106 degree temps. It actually was a better site as far as location, Right next to the bath house. I personally like being close so showering and such is an easy task. I suppose typically we camped in tents and being near the bath house wasn’t a good thing with all the foot traffic and potential smells. (haha) in an RV, it doesn’t matter really.

We did have a bit of a challenge getting our slides out due to a tree on one side and the power source on the other but we managed with little fuss. Once we were set up and plugged in we tried the AC’s again and once again, tripped the fuse. We decided that it must be an AC specific thing this time and upped the thermostat to 80 (opposed to 70) and it ran fine. Once the sun went down we were able to lower it to a more comfortable setting. We put the girls to bed and John and I (and the cats) were able to sit outside and relax without too much sweating!!

Day two was nicer, both in temperatures and attitude. We all got a good nights rest and were all excited to check out Water Country, a Busch gardens water park. We slathered the girls in sun screen and off we went!! Expecting huge crowds and cold water we were thrilled when there we far fewer people there than expected and the waters were heated! I know it seems odd to want heated water after the day we had before but the girls would not have enjoyed cold water regardless. Unhappy children make for VERY unhappy parents. The park was awesome!! The girls (and us) played for hours and really had a great time, so much so we decided to head home for a few hours rest and head back after dinner to enjoy some more water fun. Besides, it wore the girls out and they slept like rocks! This is always a good thing when camping.

We woke the next day ready to break down camp and head to Pennsylvania.

Bath house was very clean and the showers were great though there were only 3 showers for the whole park… seems a few short considering there were a hundred sites easy. Nice water pressure and spacious. We were never able to get our directv to work properly but that was an issue of tree location, another site might have been fine. Wifi was spotty. Depending on who else was logged on determined how/if we were able to log on. The evenings worked well for the most part. RV park Wifi is never like being at home. We would return but only if visiting one of the Busch Garden parks… not for any other reason. I would give this park at 6 on a scale of 1-10