Swinomish Casino & Lodge RV Park

We had a misunderstanding with the staff when we initially registered, believing we could dry camp in the overflow lot for a reduced price. Turns out what they meant to tell me was that we could dry camp in the overflow lot until a site opened up in their (granted, very nice) RV park with full hookups, at which point our rate would increase and we would have to move.

Since were were aiming to boondock and not pay a whole lot to be near Anacortes, we simply headed out once we were asked to move to the park.

That being said, the casino has some good restaurants, is pretty inside, and provides some neat views of the water and dog walking opportunities.

Anacortes is a beautiful little town and not inexpensive. Most parks are $50/night so this park is a great price without being a step-down. In fact we found it to be better than the others we looked at while here.

Easy access off Hwy 20, behind the casino/hotel building. Their signage is lousy but say they're working on it. When coming off westbound 20, once on Casino Drive take the first driveway past the dirt lot. Take it to the back where you'll finally find signs directing you to registration for the park. Once inside the casino, turn left (no signs here either).

The sites are not wide, and the biggest ding is that in several of the sites, including ours, the neighbor's sewer is next to our picnic table. Gross. But these back-in sites are the best with huge grass area behind with open views of Mt Baker and the Anacortes Channel.

A plus for us, but maybe not for everyone, is the train that runs right behind the park. A very quiet train - seriously it goes by at night and we never hear it. During the day it's a delight :-) The bridge over the channel turns for the train to cross then turns back for the boats - it's cool to watch it. Where else are you going to sit in your backyard and see that???

Far enough from the highway that there is little noise.

The back-ins are 30 amp and on a few warmer afternoons we would have preferred 50 amp, but it was fine. Good water pressure. Park WiFi works great. Well maintained, very clean, quiet.

We're not gamblers but having a nice restaurant and coffee bar next door is sweet.

Gas station with diesel and propane on site. 10 minutes to town, 20 to the ferry to Lopez and San Juan, 30 to the ferry to Port Townsend.

Lots of room for doggie to play, nice views of the water, we will definitely stay here when in the area.

We loved our stay from the moment we went to make the reservations! The service was so nice! You can definitely win some money at this casino, beautiful roof restaurant, free meal voucher, very nice inside casino, incredible view from the rv spots, better than the hotel view, trails for dogs, one down to the water, the train is nice that passes by, conveniently located near the Juan Islands and ferries, Disception Pass, Mt. Erie, and a nice downtown, also near other great small towns, came with all hook ups and was a great stay! Really loved this place! Great wifi connection from the hotel to the rv!

This was a great overnight spot after arriving by ferry from Port Townsend. We made reservations for overflow as the RV Park section was full. You park in designated spots between yellow lines. We arrived at 7:00 PM, checked in only to find no available spots in overflow. The front desk quickly resolved it by allowing us to park in an unmarked spot. Security went around and addressed the people who parked but didn’t register and pay. Some traffic noise but not bad. Gravel spot which was pretty level. Front desk personnel were very friendly.

We needed to stay a night somewhere between the Canadian border and our reservations at Fort Casey. While this area is where my roots are, there aren't any immediate relatives left in the area with moochdocking options, so we decided to check out the casino since it was right on our route. Hit the jackpot since their RV park was full but they still had space in their overflow which is what this cheapskate wanted.

As others have noted, the staff in the reservations area was very friendly and helpful. We opted to check out one of their food venues which was also a good choice. We did have a bit of noise in the middle of the night as one of the occasional freight trains had to wait for the swing bridge to close.

After driving 471 miles this was a very welcomed and convenient place to stay on my way to the San Juan Islands next day. Gravel road and site pads, but all level. The casino gives choices to eat and entertainment with gaming, (although I personally was unlucky). Cell service was weak, but the casino has excellent WIFI. I was able to do some work and run our Roku without issue.

Easy access. Convenient location. Quiet. Great views. Good WiFi and cell. Wish there was a dog run, but there were easy, grassy areas to take our dogs on leash to go. It wasn’t bad being next to a casino!

You have to call the hotel that runs the park to check availability and make your reservation, but it’s worth the effort. We were assigned our site number at the time of reservation, and on the day we were scheduled to arrive they emailed us to let us know the site was ready (check-in time is normally 2pm), and that we didn’t need to check in at the hotel desk: we could pull right into our site.

The official campground consists of 33 sites: two rows of pull-throughs surrounded by back-in sites along three sides (there is also a gravel lot adjacent to the campground where RVs can park and/or boondock). The interior roads are paved, while the site pads are gravel. The grass between sites is kept green by sprinklers that run during the middle of the night, and staff come through with lawnmowers on Tuesdays. Our site (site 2) was a little unlevel side-to-side, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed by parking the camper wheels on top of a wooden board on the driver’s side. The sewer connections for the sites are at the very back of the site, so make sure you’re positioned such that your sewer hose can reach before unhitching.

Besides the sites themselves (which are all full-hookup sites), the only other amenities were the trash cans and small dumpster for disposing of trash, and the dog waste stations: there is no dedicated campground office or any campground hosts. But the hotel and casino is home to several restaurants, and in the parking lot in front of the casino is a gas station with a convenience store and a propane refill station.

The big draw of this campground is the view. Looking out of the north and west ends of the campground, you can view parts of Padilla Bay and the Swinomish Channel, and beyond the water to the north you can see the Cascade Mountains. Snow-capped Mount Baker is visible on most clear days. Walking up the 6-foot high hill on the north side of the campground will bring you to a railroad track. Once or twice a day a short cargo train will travel along the track, and if it’s traveling east it will pause for several minutes to wait for the bridge that spans the Swinomish Channel to rotate and connect the tracks on either side of the channel before moving on. There is a wide gravel walking trail next to the tracks, or you can cross the tracks at certain places to pick up a narrow trails that takes you along the shoreline: how far you can go on that trail depends on whether it’s low tide or not.

The train does make some noise as it goes by but it’s brief, and it only went by during daylight hours. There is also some road noise from the elevated highway nearby and the occasional motorboat through the channel, but none of it was noticeable within the camper. There is plenty of open space to walk dogs, particularly east of the campground.

In terms of cell service, the best speed I got on my Verizon Jetpack with MIMO antenna during our stay was about 18Mbps down and 15Mbps up, and other than the occasional buffering we had no trouble steaming video while we were there. The one speed test I did with my AT&T phone showed 38Mbps down and 5 up. I did however experience some serious lag when connecting to my virtual desktop for work on Verizon (possibly due to network congestion, as it tended to happen during the middle of the day). When that happened, I would switch over to my AT&T hotspot and that worked fine.

Needed to record a podcast and the wifi worked great right from our camper. Connected to the event center wifi and didn't have any issues. I mentioned it to the woman while booking and she chose a spot for me closer to the building. The two campers next to us said they had issues with the wifi but we didnt. The sites were super small though. Had a hard time fitting our 28' travel trailer without being back on the grass, and had to parallel park our truck in the front of the spot. Pull through spots looked great though. Would stay again!

Booked into the campground overflow because the fhu sites were all taken and they said we couldn’t just park our under-20’ RV in the regular lot. However, at 10pm some inconsiderate person turned on their generator and left it running until at least 11:30. In that time, there was no sign of casino security coming by to check. We moved to a regular lot for the night and were not disturbed. So what did our $10+ pay for?