Carlsbad RV Park & Campground

It was fine. Needed grass for our tent, they had it. $28 for a camping spot. Closest "tent" camping to caverns. Bathrooms were gross and service was ok. Felt safe and it was rather quiet.

We were here two nights. We had a friendly welcome to the park and found the park staff to be friendly and helpful. It had an indoor swimming pool and a game room. The grounds were mostly crushed limestone but areas were well kept. There was not much shade (our entire section had none) so I imagine it is very hot during the summer months.
The bathrooms/showers are part of the main building so it is a little bit of a walk from some areas of the RV park. The bathrooms and showers are in need of an overhaul. They were usable and tolerable but not clean by anyone's standards.
I would stay here again but I would first look at the reviews of other nearby campgrounds. I don't believe this park warrants a 2 rating but I think it should be under a 3.

"How can I help you?" she asked, with a smile I'll note.

"My name's Nathan, I had a reservation for tonight."

"Hmm, Nathan, Nathan..." she shuffles through some papers and then looks on her computer screen. "Yeah, here you are. What can I do for you?"

"Just wanted to check on in."

She looks at me with a puzzled smirk. "Well, they don't have to be out of there site until noon."

It was only 10am. Kind of early to show up, I admit, but I was just coming from nearby Guadalupe Mountains National Park and we were only staying in town after our van was acting funky the day before and wanted to have everything checked out.

On the other hand, there were tons of open spots, and I wasn't sure why we needed to wait for any one in particular.

"Let me finish up here," she continued, "then I'll go back there and see if your site is ready."

I nodded and said thank you, and walked back outside. From the vista that was the driver side seat of my van I could see, indeed, that many spots were ready for us to pull in and set up for one night. Daylight was burning, and I had a long list of things to do in Carlsbad before we got out of that town as quickly as possible on our way West to much better, not particularly bigger, places.

I waited about 25 minutes. I don't like to bother people, especially when they have the ability to tell me to leave and I need a campsite for the night.

She comes out of the office. She gets in a golf cart and drives to the back where all of the sites are. She returns a few minutes later, so I hop out of my van and follow her in.

She's chatting with a full-time resident about payments or something. When she's done, I approach.

"Any luck?"

"What are you looking to get lucky about?" she asks.

"Just hoping we could get into our spot so I could get some stuff taken care of, I've got some van--" she's not interested, I stop talking.

"Yeah I still have some more to do up here then I'll go and check."

I return to the van. At this point my kids and dog are all being pretty loud playing at the playground, the dog is barking because she neither wants to sit in the van with me nor be leashed up at the playground. I mention this because, well, it would be hard to miss us, all of that noise, the 31' Airstream blocking up the entrance. I'm getting frustrated. I know that if I go in and ask again, and she can't take the two minutes to look around the corner and tell us to go park somewhere, that I'll probably lose it and we'll end up needing to find somewhere else, somewhere even worse, than this place.

So my lady goes in and talks to her.

Upon returning, she informs me, "Apparently she," referring to the woman at the front desk, "didn't know we were waiting..."

Baffled, I could suddenly care less, I just want to get into our spot. I go inside, pay, nothing extra for the population of 6 we've got (which is very nice), and she tells me she'll be out to lead me to our site, KOA-style.

Ten minutes later, no golf cart for her to lead me in, she comes out and I assure her I can follow the map and park in the pull through.

This is the experience which sets the entire tone for my day. I end up hating Carlsbad, the garbage everywhere, the teenagers driving around in SUVs yelling homophobic slurs out the window at an old man as he crosses the street slightly too slowly for their liking. The Ford dealership that ripped me off and left me with few other options but to sign a credit card receipt in exchange for my keys.

When I finally make it back to the park that night, it's quiet. The main road is right there, but the noise isn't too much. Our site is decent, for an "RV parking lot", gravel but groomed, and there's no trash in the park itself. It seems like many of the RVs are permanent residents, but no one is loud or weird or creepy. I wouldn't have cared if they were, but perhaps others will find that information useful.

There's a game room with video games that actually work, a nice pool table. The wifi works just okay if you're near the office, and not at all from our spot in B1. My lady's phone, an iPhone 4 that doesn't have access I guess to LTE, works really well, but our MyFi and my iPhone 6 on LTE was registering 3 bars but more or less not working at all. A vortex of ethereal and abstract nature, you ask? Yes, yes I do think so.

In the long run, this is a pretty standard, if not better than average RV park, and the staff was nice enough if a bit thick with that whole checkin process. I won't blame them for the rest of Carlsbad, and I have only myself to blame for not figuring out a better plan than a private RV park, but alas, I cannot for the life of me imagine a reason I'll ever come back to this corner of New Mexico, other than to pass through with little more than a wave goodbye.

RV Parks in this area are not the best. This appears to be the nicest one. While the park is all gravel, it is landscape some with various colored stone and paver patios with a picnic table. There are both 30 and 50 amp sites. Water pressure is strong so you need a regulator. Electric was good. The sites are all level and have your average spacing. Roads are wide. We were greeted nicely by the girl in the office, checked in, and escorted to our site immediately. We were put in a very long pull through set up for two units. No one was placed behind any of us parked in these three sites. As with all the parks in the oil field areas, there are workers, but they are grouped together as we have found in each park. The park is very quiet. We didn't check out any of the amenities but they do have a small camp store, gift shop, and heated inside pool. Park does have WiFi but was too slow to use. Our Verizon hotspot worked well. We would stay here again if in the area.

Very nicely configured roomy spots with picnic table and extra parking space. Try to get location behind the office because these have trees and less highway traffic noise. Bathrooms/showers are clean. This park has security gate which closes 8pm, they give you an electronic card for access.

Not a very nice park, it may have been decent 20+ years ago. The one upside was a nice laundry facility. Other wise tiny gravel sites wedged in next to your neighbors, maybe you’d get a picnic table. No fire pits or chairs. Certainly not worth the high price of $42.66 a night that’s with my AAA discount for a run down town like Carlsbad in a run down RV park. I ended up leaving to go to nearby Horseshow Creek RV Park. With their weekly rate it came to $29 a night. This is definitely the kind of place you pass through, no need to stay long. Also for that price I was only in a partial hookup site that maybe hadn’t been used in awhile, it took awhile to run the brown orange rust out of the water! Full hookup sites were like $55 totally not worth it.

The road noise is a problem. Loud vehicles all hours of the night. Other than that a clean and friendly park.

Traveled to a small town near Carlsbad for work. Chose this place for the gated area and key card gate. Overall a nice place to stay for work or just to get off the road for a bit. RV was here during the big Texas freeze while I was at home but the camp ground never lost electricity. Has a heated indoor pool. The park owner was beyond friendly and helpful. Communication was one of the highest of all the places I’ve stayed. Would highly recommend staying here as I will again.

Check-in was great without reservations. I asked for a site with good wifi reception since I had to work. This put me in a new section of the park which was a gravel lot with a picnic table and full hookups, including cable. There is an older section behind the office with mature trees but I am not sure of the hook up access. I was near the highway during the day which was loud with road noise but did not disturb my sleep. Facilities were clean. Laundry was expensive at $3.50 per wash and dry. Outside of main part of town by about a mile or two. site was not exactly level but was close.

This park is relatively convenient to what this small town in NM has to offer, and on the side of town towards the Caverns. Our site had some trees to east and west, which helped with the oppressive heat we were working against. Dump station was available to the front right of the office (facing the building). Reservations were made the morning of our arrival, as is our norm for road trips... we never like to box ourselves into travel plans in the face of daily fluidity. Wi-fi was good, with a repeater right behind our trailer. Park was quiet for our night's sleep (discounting our A/C running in nearly continuous mode). Bath/shower facilities were OK, but we did not use them to be able assess their function. As noted in another review, site/park was gravel.