Verde Valley RV Campground - Thousand Trails

Overview
If you like tight spaces, full hookup and knowledge of food a few steps away - this could be the place for you.

If you prefer a little elbow room, seeking out Yelp inspired cuisine and getting to know your neighbors (if they exist), then this is not the place for you.

There is something to be said for time limits at parks. Thousand Trails does not have time limits for its members and there are some trashy rigs and sites there. We felt like a few nice rigs were sandwiched between Uncle Eddies RV. When our neighbor sat down on a chair to work on his sewer hose repair with no gloves on (chair required as he was too large to stand or squat) and then proceeded to eat Doritos out of the bag….well it was over for me! With no reliable cell service and crappy free internet (as in no available bandwidth) we were not happy.

Review of the Park
The park is large and down in a river valley - but doesn’t sit on the river. There are 3 different areas to park in. Up top appear to be the serious full timers with nice spaces, built in decks and such. They probably have cell and internet being ‘up top’. The other two areas - one near the restaurant and the other near the pool.

The laundry room is clean and cheap ($2.75 per load wash and dry). Laundry opens at 6:30am and is busy in the mornings. The laundry room crowd is not your usual chatty group. I was taken aback by how sour everyone was. I have always gotten the best advice and information in the laundry rooms - where to go, where not to go. “oh sweetie, don’t take that road it will knock your fillings out.” I cherish these words of wisdom from those that have gone before me. The TT laundry room was just a bunch of non-talking biddies.

The pool/spa is nice and lightly used. Husband says he actually sighted someone our age there — but he had a few beers, so could have been mistaken! There is a put put golf course and propane filling onsite. Bathroom facilities are clean, but old and not the best.

Cell service is terrible and the internet provided is unusable except in the middle of the night when traffic is down. Only the two clubhouse areas have internet and even with a booster getting full signal at our RV we could get no bandwidth. Just too overloaded! We also have a cell phone booster and it did not help much.

Sites are very close together and every site is full service water/sewer/electric. The park is full of many big rigs and lots of full timers. I think they may be a little ‘clicky’ as only 3 people said hello to me in our 4 days we spent there.

After all is said and done I must admit that the onsite staff does an excellent job maintaining the site and all of them from the clubhouse to the restaurant were very nice. We did eat a breakfast there and it was good. We received packages there and despite the $2 per package fee, it was nice to pick up some of our Amazon things. Long showers in our RV almost made up for the down sides. And of course I did learn that we just will not go to another place without internet. We don’t keep guide books and telephone books in our RV - we just research and look it all up on line. At one point I needed to do some work and had to drive up just outside the exit and sit in the car for an hour to get my work done.

We were able to take advantage of a discount program that is $20 (plus resort fees) for up to 4 nights for trying out ‘Encore/Thousand Trails’.

Shopping Access
Cottonwood is close and has easy access for shopping. Walmart, Frys and Safeway are all there. The choice of stores is limited, but we did find some great restaurants and microbreweries in Oldtown Cottonwood.

Nearby Activities
Historic Cottonwood - great restaurants and beer
Sedona - not too far
Jerome - so funky and worth the drive but NOT in the RV
Flagstaff - worth the day trip for the microbrews
Tuzigoot National Monument - a good leg stretcher
Mountain Biking - Lime Kiln Trail (and yes you can see the old lime kilns)

I had a great time here. The pool is great and there are some nice short hiking trails on the site. The bathrooms and pool are really clean. Nearby town Cottonwood (10 minute drive) has a good grocery store "Frys" with great produce and prices. We were 25 minutes from Sedona and 2 hours 30 minutes from the Grand Canyon. My family had a great time.

The only negative would be the internet is not good. The campground internet is almost unusable. I also use a Verizon data plan and had to work from the Cottonwood, Az(~5-8mbps) or next to the ranger station(~2-3mbps). There is a starbucks in Cottonwood that opens at 5am.

I will stay here again.

This was our first "RV Resort" and Thousand Trails experience and I have to say, I was disappointed. It's basically a huge RV park with a gate. The roads were narrow, the spots were tight, and the full timers there were very particular about their "yards." I was told by one to keep my dogs off their lawn. Picture Clint Eastwood snarling "GET OFF MY LAWN," but replace him with a 76-year old snow bird.

The wifi was terribly slow and the Verizon connection was some of the slowest we've seen. The reception was great, but the speeds were ssssllooooowwwww. 0.52mbps down and 0.14mbps up.

We were there for about 12 hours and had to move sites to use the fresh water hookup. We were woken up at 7:30 AM by a bulldozer next door digging up a water line. Maybe the retired folk were up, but I certainly was not. That work shut down the water lines for the entire section (probably 120 sites), which the management neglected to mention when we checked in the night before. We moved down the road to section A to finish our dishes and take a shower. We couldn't get out of there soon enough.

We paid $24 with Passport America, and even at that rate, I don't think I'll stay here again.

Very nice park, especially for a Thousand Trails. I was just passing through for the night so maybe I didn't get the full experience but I was impressed with what I saw during that brief stay. I read a lot of complaints about internet (or lack thereof) but up in H section I was able to get 2-3 bars of usable internet (Verizon).

Yes the sites are pretty close together but my rig isn't that big anyway so it doesn't bother me.

They added several new sites close to the entrance at the top of the hill since we visited last year. They are premium sites so you pay an extra $7.50 or $10 per night for these locations. I was able to get 10Mbps download speed with T-Mobile. Cell service is very week down in the lower sections so it was worth the extra cost for us. The new sites are very spacious and have great views. We love the area. It is close to Cottonwood and we can make short trips to Sedona or Flagstaff.

Very clean and quiet. It’s down in a valley so we only had one bar, at most for cell coverage. AT&T and Verizon. Security came to our site 2 hours before “lights out” to warn us. And we only have one rope light built into our awning!
General population was very young family’s with kids or seniors. Not middle aged couple friendly.
We won’t be staying here again.

We stayed in site M37 which is one of the new sites on the hill. These new sites are very large with a beautiful view. Verizon cell/data in our site was good 3/4bars LTE. However the older sections A-H are down in the valley and the cell quality drops dramatically. Note they do not provide any free Wi-Fi at the sites. But they do at the office/lodges. Staff was very helpful and friendly. We will stay here again.

miniature golf, creek, swimming pool, dog walk, clean and level site, responsive employees, new owners all led to a nice experience

Neighbor so close you can’t pass between the trailers. Parked literally a few inches away from our neighbor. Putting any more distance between us, wouldn’t have been able to get the stairs down on the other side of the trailer.

Some long-term residence, with sheds near their sites. Takes about 15 minutes to drive from the lower campground to the exits, and cell reception isn’t great. They do have Wi-Fi, but you have to pay for it and we had a ton of trouble keeping our devices connected, if it would let us connect at all.

I never expect a lot from ThousandTrails, but this one is not great even buy TT’s standard

Good as long as you know what you're getting.

Lots of permanent residents, like a retirement community with trailers.

The most important thing for management is the speed limit. 5 usually, 10 on occasion. They will yell at you, and there are plenty of people who will report you. I went 12 in the 10 area, and it was reported by the time I got to the front gate. On the way back in, I didn't quite make it down to 5 as I approached the security booth. Got dressed down about it both times.

The rest of the rules don't seem to mean much.

If that's what you're looking for, you'll love it!