Lake Ridge RV Resort

Spacious sites and plenty to do. Pool, game room. We rented a golf cart and if you rent the pull-thru sites, it’s quite an uphill walk to store, pool, etc. So definitely worth it!

My family and I stayed at Lake Ridge RV Resort for a week based on what they offered on their website. The sites that they do offer are limited due to having so many full time RVers nearest to the pool area and office/store. The sites for others are far down but nice and quite a walk to the pool unless a golf cart is rented. They do offer free WiFi and free cable TV. Those two may as well not be offered because both hardly work at all. I use Verizon and barely could receive a signal. The cable TV offered has many channels but again can hardly be picked up and if so all channels are hardly useable to even view. It's nice after a day at the pool or out and about to relax at night with TV or a movie but their service does not allow it. Using their WiFi for streaming TV is entirely impossible.

Stayed through a weekend with FHU/50 amp, but cable box not the best connection and most fire rings at other sites are set away from center of site closer to driveway which is strange. Sites could use some general maintenance. Could hear Friday night karaoke on loudspeaker far away at the main office facilities for a short time if sitting outside. Seems to be a large resort with full timers up on the main area and lots of kid activities outdoors as well. Nice big hill to run pets. Great Halloween decorations outside at night lit up. Overall a nice stopover for our main visit to the area which was Chateau Morrisette Winery. A must do for wine and good restaurant food there. Hillsville town only a short drive for groceries and stores.

I really think that staying at this RV park is the tale of 2 RV parks, so it's kind of hard to write a review. I'll do it as a pros and cons.

PROS: The "resort" aspect of the park is really nice, particularly the pool/waterslide area, are really nice and rare for an RV park. They do allow day use for the amenities (other than Saturdays), so there may be non-campers using the amenities. We didn't use the paddleboats or lake, but they looked very nice. The mini golf was okay...needs a bit of repair/updating, but of something included in the stay, it was fine (especially if you have small kids in your group). The employees at the park were incredibly nice. The snack bar pizza and ice cream are pretty good (especially on a pool day).

CONS: Here's where the actual RV park comes in. This park is overwhelmingly long-term campers. While that's not our favorite, it was okay....except that it was evident that the park caters to their long term campers far more than short stayers. The sites for short stays are primarily on one loop ("supersites" for larger rigs are down below the campground in their own loop with no shade). The sites are in the woods and very well shaded, but are pretty unlevel. Our sites did have lots of room between. We had seen a review prior to our stay actually specifying our sites as being problematic for getting level, so I called ahead to make sure we would be okay. I was assured that if we were within the 32 ft length limit, we would be fine. We have a 29 ft travel trailer, so we risked it. We had 3 sites booked, 33, 35 & 37, for our 29 ft TT, a 25 ft motorhome and a 22 ft motorhome. We asked the guide to let us know which site was best for each rig, and he was nice enough to go ahead of us and scope things out. With our rig being the longest, we went with site 33. We had to get to within about 3 inches of a tree to the back of the site, and had level side to side by about 2 inches. Our issue was with front to back leveling. We use a jack block for our front jack, and with it, we couldn't get our nose down quite enough without removing it (we lived with just being about 2" high in the front). Other sites were not nearly as good to work with, and I HIGHLY recommend not pushing the 32 ft recommendation at all (we had a camper near us in site A30 who had a horrible time getting into his site and an even worse time getting out). The sites were definitely not cleaned between stays with a bit of garbage in them (not a huge deal).
The campground rents golf carts and doesn't allow personal golf carts (though we saw PLENTY of golf carts that were definitely not rentals). We've rented golf carts many times, and this was, by far, the most expensive place we've ever experienced for golf cart rentals. They were out the weekend we were there (which was fine). The walk to and from the office/pool area, even from the back of the campground isn't bad at all (though it is a bit hilly and just dirt/gravel road).
To this point, I was very much on the fence on whether or not I would return to this campground again. While the camp sites were not ideal, the resort amenities were pretty fun, especially with a group or if you have small kids. The thing that pushed me over the tipping point was the dump station. Our sites were water/electric only (fine), so we asked about the location of the dump station. The girl in the office told us the location and then told us that it's $15 to dump. My husband explained that we were camping there (thinking maybe they charge for dumping if you're just passing through), and she said "it's still $15 to dump". Wait...WHAT? Mind you, our water and electric sites were just over $130 for 2 nights ($65 per night). They charge you extra for any people over 2 (we are a family of 3) and for pets (we have a dog). Keep in mind, there are NO facilities for pets (dog park, pet stations, etc.). So, we're paying a premium amount for a mediocre (at best) site and you're going to charge us to dump our tanks? We had another stop planned after this park, so we decided to not dump there, but we ended up having some issues and thinking we were going to have to change our plans, so we had to break down and pay to dump after all. The dump station is atrocious! If there's one paramount rule for dump stations, it's this...poo doesn't run uphill. After being a bit on the fence about this park, this one thing will be what tips the scales for us to not return.
WiFi - I think they say they have it. We never had it come up on our devices (again, we were in the very back of the park). Cell signal is pretty low (we had AT&T and others in our group had Verizon).
At the end of the day...this campground is okay. If you're in a shorter rig, not too worried about site quality and looking for a fun waterpark feel, you may like it. If you don't foresee using the amenities, though...look elsewhere. There are so many great National Forest, State Park and other options in the area.