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.

Our first stop at a Thousand Trials park and it was a bit of a surprise. We were told to go find a spot which was tough since many were closed for maintenance and when we did find one, we found out the majority were only 30amp power. There were some 50amp power but you have to reserve ahead of time or something. We were there during a lot of heat, so this was a bit unfortunate.

There were a lot of amenities (pool, multiple playgrounds, mini golf, off leash dog area, a few lodges) and they were dated but "okay" The pool was the best and kids liked ping pong and other stuff, but the playgrounds were tiny and not so useful.

Wifi was sketchy. I was able to get on 75% of the time at the pool lodge and about 10% at the main lodge. Once connected it was okay. ATT worked okay from the park, but not great. My wife was never able to connect to the wifi.

We would stay again (because it is part of the Thousand Trails club) but would not go when it is 110 degrees outside and would just be ready for some of the extra steps.

Fairly close to Cottonwood which had a nice rec center and adequate shopping.

This was a nice park and well taken care of but it took us about 10 minutes each way to get in and out. It's really off the beaten path and a lot of the sites are really far back. All the speed limit signs conflict with each other between 5 and 10 mph. And in my opinion 5mph on the main road is just so slow, I understand there are kids but that should be applicable in the rv spots. The wifi in the common areas didn't work and cell service was poor. Otherwise the staff were friendly.

We enjoyed this campground and we would stay here again.

What we would love to see improved: The cell service was average and hopefully there will be more towers added in the future. We also wished we could have a nice strong wifi connection in the other club houses as well as the RVR office.

What we loved: friendly and helpful staff, the clean bathrooms, the quick wifi at the RVR office, the hiking trails, the proximity to Sedona, the proximity to a Walmart Supercenter, the big club houses, pools, barbecue grills, and mini-putt.

Overall we had a nice stay!

Great proximity to downtown Cottonwood(THAT brewery and Pillsbury Wine Company recommended). Literally right next door to park entrance there is a road that will take you to Alcantara Vineyard. A must see in my opinion! The property is beautiful. You feel like you are in Napa. We had no idea the property was down there until we stumbled across the sign.
Thunderbird is close to restaurants/shopping, however far enough down in Valley to enjoy nature with many trails and the river. Perfect launching point for day trips to Prescott and Sedona specifically, however we went to Payson and Flagstaff on 2 different day trips as well. If you are wanting to be around other “campers,” I suggest section A-C, versus section H which tends to be where those that “live there” stay. The ONLY negative for us would be the internet connection. There are 3 clubhouses, which 2 of them have weak WiFi signals. The campground is down in a Valley, so understandable, just a heads up. If you need the Internet, there is solid WiFi up at the clubhouse that has the office/store. I would walk the trail(or you can drive) up to that clubhouse and sit outside overlooking the valley. It was a beautiful office!! We will definitely stay again the next time we are in the area!!

Update 2/26/2020:
I booked 8 days and upon arrival was told I didn't have a spot, luckily they had space. Snafu on the Thousand Trails software, didn't lose my reservation and now I had 2, but it unnerved me.

After being away for a year I can see that most of the new site construction has been completed. Lots of little areas on the windy road from the gate to the original A-C areas of the park. In addition, the C area has new water pipes and electric boxes but it took me 4 tries to get my surge protector to like the 30 amp site I'm in now (C17). The new sites are are parallel to each other, like they should be, nothing between the sites, new gravel, very flat and black-topped roads; brand spanking new. I wish I could have gotten one of those sites (areas I & K that I could see.) I got stuck in area C where the spots are wonky and close (see pic of 2 other RVs out my window).

The pool is still outstanding, heated but not too hot; hot tub is working. Laundry is still out (over 2 years I've heard). Cell service is still 1 bar, 2 if you have a booster. No fire rings, mostly new picnic tables, trash dumpsters in good locations.The thing I really love about this park is that there are no street lamps to keep you up, it's so dark here that you can stargaze on clear nights.

Not much else has changed since my review below.

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This resort has potential but it's in heavy construction building new spots (February 2019) and what looks like additional repair work. The road inside the park is narrow and looks to be getting a wider path with the construction. The park is well off the highway and in almost a total cell dead zone; there is wifi inside the common room in the lodge at least in the B-C area but doesn't go outside the building beyond about 20 yards. If you want streaming or decent internet you'll need a very good cell booster.

Laundry services are in one building and I was informed that it hasn't been running in almost a year because of piping/water issues. Hopefully it'll be fixed when all the construction is done but because the sections are so large they really need more than 1 location.

The office has been moved to a location closer to the main entrance and because of that the store offers little besides ice cream bars, frozen dinners and basic supplies. Cottonwood town is about 20 minutes away and does have a Safeway, gas, propane, Home Depot and most other items you'd need.

There are shower/toilet facilities close but are dated and could use upgrading.

Staff are helpful and nice, propane is available M-F for 1/2 hour but can also be found in town. Packages are accepted at the front desk at a price of $2 per package.

The landscape is all rocks and the only walking trails are through the hills or down to the river. There is a very small, unfenced dog area but everyone just walks dogs around the campsites. Sunrise and sets are outstanding here and if you drive along the road out of the park you can get outstanding photos of the mountainous area.

The sites are very tight, the gravel pull-through is narrow so you'll be very close to your neighbor that you're sharing the power post with; my neighbor's slide is about 3' from mine. I haven't seen any fire pits at all in the park outside of ones owned by campers. Each site has a picnic table and very little grounds before the next site.

This location is probably best suited for summer visits as it is about 3,500' in elevation and cold in the winter months. Maybe by summer 2019 the construction will be completed and the campground will have more to offer. It is close to Jerome and Sedona, nice places to visit.

One of the nicer TT parks so far. You do have to pay for 50amp electrical here so be prepared. Also have to pay to receive any packages. Quiet park. Can be tough to level as the area is hilly. Lots of new sites coming in but they are also additional cost. They should have so good views into Sedona though. I had some good cell service with external mounted antennas on the roof. Without antennas and you'll be lucky to get 2g service (ie unusable for anything) on all 3 major providers. Speed would def slow down at night. The rest rooms were clean and a little dated. Was there in late Spring and could see this would be a really buggy area as when the warmer days came the bugs came out in force. Cooler days eliminated them. Very nice pool. I didn't make it to the river but it looked nice. There are also a number of hiking trails on site. They will remind you often the speed limit is 5 mph. Even though the park was near capacity it didn't feel like it. It is a fairly large CG.

I'm giving this 3 stars because the park itself was okay, we just didn't like it. The sites are down, down, down in the valley so you have no view; the sites are close together and packed in. Site itself was pull-through and level so no complaints there. The bathrooms were clean and the community room was nice, but laundry room was in-op while we were there. This is NOT an ideal park if you work remotely - there is NO cell coverage but I was able to get just barely enough juice from the wifi using an extender, or good wifi if I sat in the community room. Boring location in the middle of nowhere. We left earlier than planned because working was such a challenge and we were really bored.